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Strategies & Market Trends : Heinz Blasnik- Views You Can Use -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mark Adams who wrote (2731)	6/26/2003 1:49:03 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4905

reminds me of the WorldWatch report I read many years ago- ie technology improvements offset resource availabilty declines. if this were true the US Lower 48 would have seen increasing production as opposed to outright declines over the last 30 years. there have been more holes drilled in the US than the rest of the world combined. all the best technology is here and we have a stable political situation. if technology could offset reality, the US Lower 48 would have been the best place to prove it. but it has failed miserably. the same can be said for the North Sea. most of the technology improvements have already happened--they are already baked into the equation as incremental one-time gains, but new improvements aren't being made at the rate they were in 80s. just about every petroleum geologist i've read on the subject does not see new drilling and discovery technologies as having a big impact on future production growth. (in fact, these technologies naturally address harder-to-produce reserves and thus provide less net energy--viz. tar sands which require enormous energy for exploitation; i would also not be surprised if that were the case in the Tibetan "discovery" you posted yesterday--note that the official commented in the article that the reserves were "rich in bitumen".) the thing you want to watch is production. reserves can be of varying quality or outright lies and are kind of like pro forma assets. production is like cash dividends--you can't lie about it, and it is production which you use to air condition your dwelling and fill your gas tank. keep an eye on the yearly production trends. the argument for peak oil is that you can say whatever you like about reserves, but production is peaking right now or within the next few years and that is an all-time peak. check out some of the sites i listed; they are quite informative. Message 19050773