There are already lots of people suffering. Really suffering. I posted a list a few months ago of countries with energy problems (mainly electricity, but some with gas), and there were 15 or 20 of them. Being priced right out of the market.
A lot of the unrest in Pak started when there were electricity shortages this past summer.
Message 23717867
It's gotten worse.
Hopefully, some Oil Drum geek will make a new one.
There are spikes because of the risk premium. Iraq, mutterings over Iran, muttering by Turkey about the Kurds in the whey; also, Mexico just got walloped by a storm, rigs are being evacuated in the North Sea cuz of storms, and maybe a few more such events. I think a few refinery fires, too.
World production is down about 1.5 MBPD since 5/05. Demand is growing, and is actually above supply. Inventories have been falling for months.
Traders may be pushing it up some, too, but, the bottom line is that the world can't pump everything the world wants to use anymore. (And, besides Peak Oil, there is a little known thing called Peak Exports. Just starting to show up on CNBC, in the last few weeks. Countries selling oil are all 0f sudden prosperous. More people want to buy cars. Internal demand goes up...Saudi Arabia, Russia, etc,... leaving less oil available for export. Jwff Rubin has been talking about it on the tube; first recognized by Westtexas and Khabab over at TOD last year, I think en.wikipedia.org ).
From now on, for the rest of our lives, expect to see decreasing supplies and increasing prices. Plain old Econ 1A supply/demand, until we get demand destruction, eg recession/depression. That could put world demand down so low that supply will again exceed the demand, but that will be temporary.
This is Peak Oil. We are there, and we need to outbid the Chinese for oil now.
Oh, and the dollar is falling, too. That raises the prie a bit. |
