Phil's blog

All those folks who think I should get a real job can go jump.
I'm famous now.. two articles in 'The Age' in the space of five days.

Read all about it:

Oil Companies Running Hard to Stand Still:
The Age, Business Section back page, Friday 16th March 2007.

Esso/BHP could put carbon under sea:
The Age, Business Section, Tuesday 20th March 2007.

Following a summary of EIA data for 2006, I thought I would make a more detailed country-by-country estimate of the potential for 2007. Starting with the headline EIA figures for last year:

Crude Oil and Condensate: 73.5 Mb/d (down 0.2)
Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs): 7.9 Mb/d (up 0.14)
Other Liquids: 3.3 Mb/d (up 0.08)
Total Liquids: 84.6 Mb/d (up an insignificant 0.02)

Mb/d = million barrels per day
kb/d = thousand barrels per day

Oil prices set new records and the industry maintained a historically high level of activity in 2006. Energy agencies issued consensus forecasts that production would rise. Yet crude oil production was down and total liquids production was flat. The economists should be shaking in their boots.

On Wednesday 7th February 2007, the Australian Senate received the Final Report on Australia's future oil supply and alternative transport fuels from the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee. The Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) in Australia welcomes this report and hopes that it will raise the prominence of the issue in all levels of Government policy development.

The inquiry considered the question of 'whether Australia should be concerned about peak oil'. They correctly noted our fear 'that declining production after the peak will cause serious hardship if mitigating action is not started soon enough'.

Through written submissions and committee hearings, industry experts including members of ASPO Australia 'criticised what they regard as over optimistic official estimates of future oil supply with detailed and plausible arguments'. There has been plenty of economic bravado condemning these plausible arguments but the Senate Committee was not able to find 'any official agency publications which attempt to rebut peak oil arguments in similar detail'.