IMF warns investment in oil production and refining is too low to reduce prices
In a draft of the main chapter of its World Economic Outlook, the IMF writes: "Based on current investment plans, production capacity is unlikely to grow enough to outpace future growth in consumption and create adequate spare capacity." (...)
The IMF's report, which will be published on Wednesday, says Opec's ability to lower prices is limited because its cushion of spare oil capacity has shrunk due to high demand, mainly from the US and China. The report predicts that the situation is unlikely to improve in the next five years.
Okay. so we now have the following companies and institutions on record about Peak oil: Chevron, ExxonMobil, the International Energy Agency, and the IMF (links below the fold). Isn't it time this became an actual political issue? You know, Senate hearings, White House speeches??
International Energy Agency:
Le Monde article, discussed here (yesterday). World Energy Outlook 2004 due to be published tomorrow.
IMF:
FT article quoted above. World Economic Outlook 2004 due to be published tomorrow.
ExxonMobil
Official presentation, discussed here
Chairman Raymond on Peak GAS (i.e. natural gas) in North America
Chevron
Chevron advertisment, discussed here
Total
Total, the French oil major, was the first big oil company to acknowledge the concept of peak oil and to provide a date (between 2020 and 2030), in their 2003 Environmental and Social Report. I wrote about it last year in a comment on Kevin Drum's blog.
I have voluntarily stuck to the "serious" industrial and institutional players; a number of people have argued about this for a long time, but now this is clearly not limited anymore to isolated groups that can safely be ignored.
A MAJOR energy crisis is coming soon, and the markets now seem to believe that it will come from the natural gas side as soon as this winter:
When is this going to be THE political issue of the day. It WILL become a political issue, but if the Democrats do not do the groundwork to address this issue in a politically smart way, the terms of the debate will be set by the White House:
- authorise drilling in currently restricted areas (federal lands, the coasts)
- eliminate environmental restrictions on refineries, exploration and production activities, (and possibly on potentially highly polluting oil shales)
- more subsidies to big oil and big coal
Update [2005-9-20 8:23:56 by Jerome a Paris]: For a very frank presentation of the Republican programme, I simply refer you to today's article in the WSJ Op-Ed pages: Après le déluge, a new energy policy
The Democrats must prepare the ground with another point of view:
- there is an energy crisis and it is a national security issue
- Bush has failed to tackle it, preferring to shower his friends in the industry with gifts to do nothing
- renewables create jobs and promote national self-sufficiency and must be heavily encouraged
- conservation is a smart way to save money for individuals, and we'll help you (and not BigEnergy) do it