IEA boss denies and confirms peak oil in same breath
by Jérôme Guillet
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Beyond the now familiar criticism of biofuels (boy has the wind turned on that topic!), the most interesting thing to note here is the inclusion of Russia in the list of countries in decline. While his statement is slightly ambiguous as he only mentions the 2050 date, I believe that it is a significant acknowledgement. When you look at where production increases have come in the past 5 years, Russia tops the list - in fact, the catch up in Russian production after the precipitous decline of the 90s (caused by Soviet collapse in a context of an already declining industry - Russia's production peak is and remains in 1986) was the main reason the massive demand increase of the past few years has been absorbed relatively painlessly. Noting that this solution is gone puts the focus, more than ever, on OPEC production.
energybulletin.net
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TOD comment
Darwinian on July 12, 2007 - 9:03am | Permalink | Subthread
I think the most important news of the day is the IEA chief admitting that Russia has peaked.
Demand for oil will increase in the coming years and, taking into account the decline from non-OPEC country production (Russia, Norway, UK, ...), OPEC's share of the world market will increase in absolute value by 2050. As to biofuels, OPEC knows that substitution is impossible. They will never make up more than 10% of world production. This should not cause them nightmares.
Of course his admitting that biofuels will basically make little difference should be news as well. However admitting that Russia is in decline puts the IEA at odds with CERA who puts Russia at the very top of its list of 15 countries that CERA expects the lions share of new production to come from over the next ten years. CERA’s O15:
Just 15 countries are expected to account for up to 84 percent of the net growth in global oil production capacity over the next ten years. This is a group of countries that CERA, borrowing from the G8, calls the "O15"—the Oil 15. CERA’s O15 includes, in order of absolute growth in capacity, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iraq, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Iran, Kuwait, Algeria, Qatar, Libya, Nigeria, United Arab Emirates, Angola, and Azerbaijan.
So we have the IEA chief saying that Russia is in decline and CERA saying that Russia will lead the world in new oil production in the next ten years.
Of course the fact that Saudi Arabia is number two on the list makes me snicker a little as well.
Things are getting very interesting. |
