Futuríveis
sábado, setembro 10, 2005
On Oil Supply, Opinions Aren't Scarce
...
He subscribes to what is being called the peak oil hypothesis, which holds that there simply isn't very much new oil left to be found in the world. As a result, we are currently in the gradual process of draining the more than a trillion barrels of proven reserves that are still in the ground. And when it's gone, it's gone.
The best-known "peakist" these days is Matthew R. Simmons, who runs Simmons & Company, an investment bank and consulting firm in Houston specializing in energy companies. Mr. Simmons's essential belief, he told me recently, is that energy demand is about to exceed supply significantly. And that was pre-Hurricane Katrina - before the storm damaged refineries, pipelines and offshore rigs all along the Gulf Coast. "I would argue that we are in a serious energy crisis," Mr. Simmons added. He forecasts increasing oil prices.
There is a second group of forecasters, though, who argue with equal vehemence that the world is not in an energy crisis and it probably won't face one for a very long time. The best-known proponent of this view is Daniel Yergin, author of "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power," a history of oil that won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize, and the founder of a rather sizable consulting firm, Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
"This is the fifth time that we're supposedly running out of oil," Mr. Yergin said. But, he added, each time new technologies made it possible for oil companies to find new sources of oil and extract new oil from old sources. His firm released a survey a few months ago that says from 2004 to 2010, world oil supplies will have increased by as much as 16 million barrels a day, "outstripping the likely demand increase." Most of those who hold this view say that oil prices will eventually drift down.
DOES it surprise you to learn that when it comes to one of most vital resources known to man, there could be such an incredible divergence of opinion? It sure surprised me. Even some of the oil majors are on opposites sides, with Chevron taking the peakist view, and Exxon Mobil more aligned with the Yergin camp.
There are three reasons for this lack of consensus. First, because oil is buried underground, it is hard to measure. So basic "facts" - like how much oil remains, and how much can be ultimately extracted - are as much the product of guesswork as science. Second, the world of oil can be shrouded in secrecy. As an article in The New York Times Magazine recently pointed out, Saudi Arabia, the biggest producer of them all, won't even allow its reserve and production data to be audited.
Finally, though, the fact that this enormous divergence has developed speaks volumes about the very different way each camp views the world. "It's the geologists on one side and the economists on the other side," was the way the energy analyst Seth Kleinman of PFC Energy in Washington put it recently. That's an overgeneralization, of course, but one that contains plenty of truth.
The two sides do agree on one thing: the recent run-up in oil prices, which began well before Hurricane Katrina, has come about because demand for oil has caught up with supply. The enormous burst of economic activity in China, the generally good economic conditions in the United States and the rest of the West - these and other factors have led to a surge in oil demand.
...
I wish I had the confidence to make my own forecast, but in this case, I don't. What I do know - what we all know - is that oil is a finite resource. Surely, the peakists are right about that. What I also know is historically, the economists have generally been right about how the price of oil has wound up fixing the problem.
As Gary N. Ross, the chief executive of the PIRA Energy Group, puts it: "Price is the only thing that matters. The new threshold of price will do its magic on the supply-and-demand side."
After all, it always has before. And it will again. Until it doesn't.
...
On Oil Supply, Opinions Aren't Scarce - New York Times
He subscribes to what is being called the peak oil hypothesis, which holds that there simply isn't very much new oil left to be found in the world. As a result, we are currently in the gradual process of draining the more than a trillion barrels of proven reserves that are still in the ground. And when it's gone, it's gone.
The best-known "peakist" these days is Matthew R. Simmons, who runs Simmons & Company, an investment bank and consulting firm in Houston specializing in energy companies. Mr. Simmons's essential belief, he told me recently, is that energy demand is about to exceed supply significantly. And that was pre-Hurricane Katrina - before the storm damaged refineries, pipelines and offshore rigs all along the Gulf Coast. "I would argue that we are in a serious energy crisis," Mr. Simmons added. He forecasts increasing oil prices.
There is a second group of forecasters, though, who argue with equal vehemence that the world is not in an energy crisis and it probably won't face one for a very long time. The best-known proponent of this view is Daniel Yergin, author of "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power," a history of oil that won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize, and the founder of a rather sizable consulting firm, Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
"This is the fifth time that we're supposedly running out of oil," Mr. Yergin said. But, he added, each time new technologies made it possible for oil companies to find new sources of oil and extract new oil from old sources. His firm released a survey a few months ago that says from 2004 to 2010, world oil supplies will have increased by as much as 16 million barrels a day, "outstripping the likely demand increase." Most of those who hold this view say that oil prices will eventually drift down.
DOES it surprise you to learn that when it comes to one of most vital resources known to man, there could be such an incredible divergence of opinion? It sure surprised me. Even some of the oil majors are on opposites sides, with Chevron taking the peakist view, and Exxon Mobil more aligned with the Yergin camp.
There are three reasons for this lack of consensus. First, because oil is buried underground, it is hard to measure. So basic "facts" - like how much oil remains, and how much can be ultimately extracted - are as much the product of guesswork as science. Second, the world of oil can be shrouded in secrecy. As an article in The New York Times Magazine recently pointed out, Saudi Arabia, the biggest producer of them all, won't even allow its reserve and production data to be audited.
Finally, though, the fact that this enormous divergence has developed speaks volumes about the very different way each camp views the world. "It's the geologists on one side and the economists on the other side," was the way the energy analyst Seth Kleinman of PFC Energy in Washington put it recently. That's an overgeneralization, of course, but one that contains plenty of truth.
The two sides do agree on one thing: the recent run-up in oil prices, which began well before Hurricane Katrina, has come about because demand for oil has caught up with supply. The enormous burst of economic activity in China, the generally good economic conditions in the United States and the rest of the West - these and other factors have led to a surge in oil demand.
...
I wish I had the confidence to make my own forecast, but in this case, I don't. What I do know - what we all know - is that oil is a finite resource. Surely, the peakists are right about that. What I also know is historically, the economists have generally been right about how the price of oil has wound up fixing the problem.
As Gary N. Ross, the chief executive of the PIRA Energy Group, puts it: "Price is the only thing that matters. The new threshold of price will do its magic on the supply-and-demand side."
After all, it always has before. And it will again. Until it doesn't.
...
On Oil Supply, Opinions Aren't Scarce - New York Times
posted by CMT, 5:19 da tarde
