Iraqi oil minister Abdul-Kareem Luaibi
“Global oil prices are moving towards $120 a barrel. We consider this an acceptable price that will not harm global growth.”
“Global oil prices are moving towards $120 a barrel. We consider this an acceptable price that will not harm global growth.”
Restrictions on world oil production can be divided into four categories:
1. Geology
2. Legitimate National Interests
3. Mismanagement
4. Political Upheaval
Consider each in reverse order:
Political upheaval is currently rampant across the Middle East, resulting in a major spike in world oil prices. No one knows how far the impacts will go or how long it will take to reach some kind of stability and what that stability will mean to oil production in the Middle Eastern countries that produce oil. We are thus relegated to best guesses, which span weeks, months, or years before there are clear resolutions. One pre-Middle East chaos country limited by political upheaval is Iraq, which is believed to have the oil reserves to produce at a much higher level, but Iraqi government chaos has severely limited oil production expansion. In another long-standing case, Nigeria has been plagued by internal political strife, which has negatively impacted its oil production.
Download Full PDF 1. Oil and the Global Economy There was little change in oil prices last week as the markets waited for further developments in the various Middle Eastern Continue Reading
ASPO-USA is pleased to announce the addition of two distinguished members to the Board of Directors, as part of efforts to expand and strengthen the Board. Arthur Berman, a notable Continue Reading
ASPO-USA is providing input and comments to two major studies being conducted by the National Petroleum Council (NPC)-an assessment of North American oil and gas resources and a comparative study Continue Reading
ASPO-USA is strengthening its presence in Washington DC, as part of our strategic plan to influence policymakers, build partnerships with other national organizations, and elevate our media capabilities. ASPO-USA executive Continue Reading
ASPO-USA is seeking to expand and diversify its roster of contributing writers. Through our annual conference and other activities, ASPO-USA has developed an extensive national and international network of experts Continue Reading
President Obama is expected to deliver a speech on oil and energy issues on April 20, the anniversary of the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill. ASPO-USA is co-sponsoring a petition urging Continue Reading
Libya’s “exports could be off the market for many months due to both war-inflicted damage on oil infrastructure and international sanctions.”
Download Full PDF 1. Oil and the Global Economy Oil prices saw a volatile week as traders’ attention shifted from the uncontrolled nuclear reactors in Japan to the fighting in Continue Reading
“Two states is not necessarily bad for us. What would be the worst potential outcome is to have a kind of Somalia situation in Libya, that is no government for Continue Reading
You and I use a lot of energy. Every second of each day and night we devour 100 times more energy than we need to live. If I were to eat that much energy as food, I would be a 50-foot long bull sperm whale, weighing 40 tons. There are 300,000 sperm whales worldwide, half of them bulls (females are much smaller), and 300,000,000 Americans (females are about the same in size). Our Earth cannot feed and protect 300,000,000 male sperm whales. She is simply too small.
Our voracious appetite for energy must be either extinguished or quenched with local sources of energy (and, no, wind turbines and PV cells are too small to provide even a single ample energy meal per day).
Download Full PDF 1. Oil and the Global Economy Last week started with oil prices at their highest since the summer of 2008. NY crude traded close to $107 a Continue Reading
“I think if this energy shortage continues, the public will get fed-up, and there are chances of an uprising like in Tunisia or Egypt, although the cause might be different.”
Download Full PDF 1. Oil and the Global Economy Oil prices climbed steadily last week with NY oil futures closing over $104 a barrel and London’s Brent crude closing just Continue Reading
In his recent column in the New York Times, Michael C. Lynch shows that he does not grasp the crucial difference between crude oil reserves and supply (“Drilling for an Oil Crisis”, February 24, 2011). Demand and the rising cost of getting oil out of the ground are apparently not important in his “don’t worry be happy” message that the plentiful oil of the past will continue into the indefinite future.
For him, reserves are all that matter. The fact that reserves usually take years of drilling and complex negotiations before they become supply escapes him. Of all the oil discovered in the last decade, less than 3 percent has been produced so far (M.K. Horn and Associates, Giant Fields Database, 2010). I suppose Mr. Lynch thinks that this is good news for the future, but it does nothing to address today’s soaring demand.