Le Monde
reveals today that the IEA (International Energy Agency), the
official energy watchdog for the Western countries, will announce in its yearly report, due to be published on 7 November, that
non-OPEC oil will peak around 2010 and that we should all get ready to make serious efforts to lower our consumption.
Conventional oil will start declining, but the West may still see a stable production profile for some additional time if enough investment is made into non-conventional oil (shale oil, oil sands). Otherwise it will see a steep decline.
The upcoming report is said to adapt as a mantra a much tougher message: "Save energy. Save oil. Diversify. Get out of oil!"
This fits with ExxonMobil's own prognosis (published last year already), which I diaried here:
But the IEA has decided to publicise - and dramatise - that information a lot more, as suggested by this quote, used in the title, which comes the chief economist of the IEA, Fathi Birol:
Oil is like a girlfriend. You know that she will leave you at some point in the future. To avoid a heartbreak, you should leave her behind!
That sounds about right (discounting what may be a slightly sexist example). We know this (the end of cheap oil) will happen. We can either prepare for it, or be hurt by it when it happens.
And this is the official watchdog for energy of the West, which has historically taken a fairly upbeat vision of the oil markets.
When will we listen?