A little oil research found this frightening gem. That's as scary a thought as I think anyone else here might have had. It means even if BushCO was siezing the oil, they're already to late.
at http://www.energybulletin.net/4428.html
Originally published by Aljazeera.
more below the jump.
Money Quotes from the article:
Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, of Simmons & Co International, has been outspoken in his warnings about peak oil before. His new statement is his strongest yet, "we may have already passed peak oil".
...
Speaking exclusively to Aljazeera, Simmons came out with a statement that, if proven true over time, could herald by far the biggest energy crisis mankind has known.
...
Currently, at near maximum production, Saudi Arabia is producing about 9mbpd, though recently they claimed they could potentially produce 12mbpd or even as much as 20mbpd. A claim Simmons called "pie in the sky".
"The faster you pull a reservoir, the faster you pull out all of the easy-to-produce oil," explains Simmons. "What happens is that you lose massive amounts of what the oil industry calls oil-left-behind still inside the field."
There are hints that Saudi Arabia cannot increase their production from this 9 million barrels per day value. Which means they are at or just past peak.
Kenneth Deffeyes, in an interview on Australian Broadcasting, February 14th, gives numbers and a historical relevance, comparing it to the US 'Hubbard peak' in 1970:
Well, I think it's already happened. In Hubbert's case...one expression--you only know it when you see it in the rear view mirror--you know, after it's gone past...But the 1970 peak was obvious when, in 1972, the Texas Railroad Commission (which was the OPEC of its day) announced that there would be no production rationing in Texas the next month, all the wells could produce as much as they wanted, 100% allowable. And that said the United States has no more production capacity. And in March 2003, Saudi Aramco and the Saudi government told western oil countries and western governments that they were maxed out, that they could go to 9.2 million barrels a day and that was it, and they haven't gone past 9.2 or 9.5 million barrels in any month even. And last year they averaged about 8.9 million barrels a day. So, to me, that Saudi announcement was an echo of what the Texas Railroad Commission had said.
(emphasis mine)
more:
In 2004 Shell first announced it had lost about 20% of its oil reserves. At the same time as the Shell write-off, El Paso realised they had been producing their fields too hard. As a result they had to write off 41% of their reserves.
What percentage of Saudi reserves are going to have to be written off? They're pumpin 9 million barrels a day, but their unpumped oil reserves value never changes...why?
Interestingly, one quote makes me wonder if the Iranian claim of Nuclear Reactors For Electricity might be, at least partially true:
If you look at what Iran is doing, they are actually going to inject natural gas to the tune of 2bcf (billion cubic feet), through a 72in pipe into their Aghajari oilfield. It is a $2bn project. This is in order just to boost production from 200,000bpd to 300,000bpd. In the 1970s Aghajari was producing 1mbpd.
If Iran is that far past peak (Producing just 1/3 of its previous value, then Iran is running out of oil! They may very well really need the reactor for electrical generation.
If the Saudis are past-peak, then we are on the downhill slide. At most we have two more years. In 2005 and 2006 each, eight new fields holding 500 million barrels will be tapped. In 2007, that drops to three. NO New fields of that size have been discovered in decades. I think the ball game is over