What is peak (of) oil? According to Wikipedia, Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum production is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. Currently the global daily output is at 87 million barrels. According to Christophe de Margerie, the managing director of Total, we will reach peak oil at 100 million barrels per day at 2020. Of course there are even more pessimistic, but also more optimistic, estimations on the market. The big news is that this is the very first time an official representative of a petrol company admitts, that we could reach that point in a near future.
Olivier Appert from the French institute IFP, predicts already for this year huge problems fulfilling the demands. According to the German magazine “DER SPIEGEL“, Mr. Appert sees even the danger, that we reach an oil price level of 200 to 300 Dollar until 2015. Of course, all stake holders should be interested in avoiding this high level, as this would affect the global economy very hard.
The Statistical Review of World Energy 2008 which was published by BP is only mediocore optimistic. The oil production decreased by 0,2%, the global demand was increased by 1,1%. The picture could be even worse, when the Europeans would not reduce their need for energy. Germany’s proportion of the Global oil consumption is 2,8%, whereas Northern America needs 28,7%. The US and Canada have together 4 times higher population, which would justify an oil consumption of 10%. It was no big surprise, that Mr. Bush was not too eager to sign the Kyoto protocol.
According to the BP study, the given oil resources will last another 41 years. The question is now, why BP changed the name from British Petroleum to Beyond Petroleum?
As Per Svanberg stated already earlier in this BLOG: oil fields, which were not profitable in the past, become more interesting to exploit in the future. At the moment there is a race going on for new oil resources. Denmark, Russia, Canada and the US are competing about the rights to exploit oil in the North pole region. A Russian submarine has even placed a Russian flag under the solid ice. It is pure irony that the global warming and the melting ice, makes it more interesting to exploit iron, manganese, uranium and … oil there.
Competition is not only rising in the Northern hemisphere: in the Pacific, the Japanese take intensive care for the corals surrounding the small Island Okinotori. The reason: without the corals they are running the danger, that the 7.8 square kilometer big island would be just swallowed by the ocean for good. As long as the island exists, Japan has the right according to international sea law to exploit all resources within a radius of 200 sea miles. Of course, the competing Chinese define Okinotori not as an island, but as a pile of rocks. Let us wait and see, if there will be oil findings around Okinotori and hope for the Japanese, that the corals prosper.
Tomorrow I will write about the alternative energy sources and about the influences on logistics and power supply.
