Author: ASPO-USA

The Cornucopians are exuberant, they believe that collapsing of oil prices dealt the death knell for peak oil. An oil glut, they say, is what we have, not peak oil. But an oil glut is exactly what we would expect at the very peak. After all, that is what peak oil is, that is the the point in time when the world produces more oil than ever in history… and the most it ever will produce. I am of the firm conviction that the world is at the peak of world oil production right now, or was at that point three or four months ago. I think history will show that the 12 months of September 2014 through August 2015 will be the one year peak. Whether the calendar year peak is 2014 or 2015 is the only thing still in question, or that is my opinion anyway. The […]

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The most attention-grabbing attempts to predict oil futures have come from geologists and environmental activists, who tend to look solely at production. An overlooked doctoral thesis by Christophe McGlade, Uncertainties in the outlook for oil and gas , in contrast, focuses on how both supply and demand might be constrained in the coming decades. Peak oil researchers should take note of McGlade’s thesis because he predicted, in November 2013, that oil prices would sink, and that they will stay low throughout the second half of this decade. I found this paper on Google Scholar and have no connection with the author, but I appreciate his careful consideration of peak oil arguments, and his ability to distance himself from the more narrow-minded aspects of both economic and geological thinking. Here’s a representative quote from the middle of the thesis, p. 216: The focus of much of the discussion of peak […]

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Longtime readers of the site and listeners to the show will know that the founder of Financial Sense, Jim Puplava, has been a regular proponent of peak oil since 2002, when oil prices were trading around $20/barrel. Now that oil has fallen in half from its $100+ range in place over the past few years, many have written us wondering if Jim has changed his views. That is, is peak oil now dead? In last Saturday’s Big Picture, Jim goes “on the record” by saying no, he doesn’t think peak oil is dead, though it has clearly been pushed out further with the massive increase in US shale production and deceleration of global economic growth. This, and the unwinding of massive long positions in the crude oil market, have likely exacerbated the downtrend and led to momentum selling. Though oil could move lower and possibly reach the low end […]

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OPEC will not cut output even at $20 a barrel … OPEC will not cut oil production even if the price drops to $20 a barrel and it is unfair to expect the cartel to reduce output if non-members do not, Saudi Arabia said. “Whether it goes down to $20 a barrel, $40, $50, $60, it is irrelevant,” the kingdom’s Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said in an interview with the Middle East Economic Survey (MEES), an industry weekly. In unusually detailed comments, Naimi defended a decision by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, whose lead producer is Saudi Arabia, last month to maintain a production ceiling of 30 million barrels per day. – Daily Mail Dominant Social Theme: Nothing that is happening to oil is surprising. Free-Market Analysis: For years we had arguments with “peak oilers” who maintained that the world was running out of oil. Of course, they always […]

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Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi: We’ll never cut production despite plunging prices thumbnail The Saudi Arabian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral ResourcesAli al-Naimi has declared that the country will “never” cut oil production despite prices hitting five and a half year lows on over-supply and weak demand. Al-Naimi added in a CNN interview that Saudi Arabia was also “not conspiring” to target US and Russian oil producers by not cutting supply and that it was too late for non-Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) members to offer any cuts. Saudi Arabia will not cut prices, neither now nor ever in the future, he said. “These rumours or whoever generated them, is completely mistaken. I was the first minister to welcome the production and addition of shale oil in 2008 and 2009, in Washington, why? Because it would give better stability and assurance to the world that peak oil, is a theory now […]

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Global Systemic Financial Crisis 2015: Geopolitics, Oil and Currency Markets thumbnail For almost two years, by combining various points of view (speculative, geopolitical, technological, economic, strategic and monetary…), we have continued to anticipate a major crisis in the entire oil sector. Today, no one doubts the fact that we are actually at that point, and the GEAB must therefore anticipate the consequences of this veritable atomic bomb, which has begun to blow up all the old system’s pillars: everything which we have known, international currencies, financial markets, the US, the Western alliance, world governance, democracy, etc. Global systemic crisis: the end of the West we have known since 1945 Here, we would like to look back on a historic GEAB anticipation, that of Franck Biancheri in February 2006, which announced the beginning of the global systemic crisis under the title “the end of the West we have known since […]

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Even some Opec members are fixing their spot crude contract prices on the assumption that contango is already under way According to the International Energy Agency, growth in world demand for oil will next year again fall below the critical figure of 1m barrels per day, reaching 93.3m bpd in total Photo: Alamy Contango, or not contango? This is perhaps the most important question facing oil markets right now. In the space of a week, the global three top energy organisations have downgraded their forecasts for the amount of oil they think the world will need next year to fuel the economy. These revisions are significant in the context of understanding why the price of oil has fallen so dramatically in such a short period of time — down 45pc since June — and helping to predict accurately where it is likely to be heading in the future. One […]

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A couple of years back, I attended a presentation by Tom Eizember, Exxon’s head of strategic planning.   During the presentation, Eizember asked how many in the audience believed in peak oil, and I raised my hand.  I believe I was the only one.  Exxon does not subscribe to peak oil And yet.  Exxon has issued its new Outlook (which is well worth a look).  One of the interesting features of this report is its view of conventional oil production, comprising traditional onshore and offshore / deepwater production.  In Exxon’s view, conventional production peaked around 2005 and is not projected to revisit this level until, at best, around 2040.  This is not particularly controversial, but it is interesting to see Exxon acknowledge it.  And it’s important for our understanding of the long term outlook for the oil supply and oil prices, which I consider in greater detail below. Exxon Global Oil Supply Outlook 2015 Source: Exxon […]

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