Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Now we hear nothing from the Kingdom.

TheDude wrote:Seems like the Saudis have run out of megaprojects to take out of mothball status - after Haradh, Manifa, Kurais, what's left in the way of aces in holes for them? There's always more EOR etc I suppose. Or addressing their own demand issues, the way things are going they won't have any oil left to export in 15 years or so, which doesn't seem like quite the eternity it used to. With such secular (long-term) issues they have a long long time to try and come up with solutions though, while still living like Kings with a Capital K and placating their populace with $.015/gal gasoline etc.

Regarding the US, yes, we are back to our old demand shenanigans:



Which isn't good for those forecasts that projected decades of never-ending air being taken out of the ODEC's demand needs while the BRICs etc gobble more and more, with some kind of bumpy stasis as a result.

I've always looked to the past for clues to the future - what else is there to do? After prices hit the local ceiling in 1981 demand slowly trended down before prices went through the floor in 1986. Substitute 2008 for 1981 and 2013 for 1986 and you don't get the same result at all, notice. Or anything like the same profiles demand/supply wise, either.

Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News this month see growth slowing to a 24-year low of 7.4 percent next year from 7.6 percent in 2013, based on median estimates, as leaders seek to de-emphasize expansion at any cost.

Pops wrote:--Q, The whole wedge bit is all about increasing utility vs demand destruction. How much can we increase utility while still producing the same (or increasing) amounts of stuff in the general economy. As I understand your situation, you are paying more and using less - That was exactly my conclusion in the "Price of Collapse" thread.

Paying more just to get to work even though you are using less fuel and as a result not supporting the other sectors of the economy. So even though you are conserving and being more efficient, it isn't enough to allow you to continue to support the other folks where you spent your Euros before. You are surviving higher oil prices at the expense of the overall economy. That is exactly how the Wedge squeezes GDP, declining GDP then lowers the total amount that can be spent on energy and so lowers demand. Lower demand in turn lessens the need for one more expensive marginal barrel and Voilá! the price ceiling stays in place and eventually, as GDP falls, the ceiling begins to fall as well.

So your situation is a great example of demand destruction in the general economy even with conservation in the energy economy.

When Haitham Al-Ghais, the director of market research for the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, was asked about peak oil demand Monday, he smiled broadly and responded quizzically, "what demand?" Even as some oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell and BP predict oil demand will peak before 2040 - as electric vehicles hit the road and governments worldwide work to cut greenhouse gas emissions - there are plenty within the oil industry who view such predictions with a healthy skepticism. Helen Currie, the chief economist at Conoco Phillips, said her company had modeled electric car demand and other factors and "struggled with finding a peak," "anytime within the next 20 to 30 years," during a panel at the IHS Markit CERAWeek energy conference in Houston Monday. "We readily acknowledge it's plausible, but we really tend to see oil demand being fairly strong and robust," she said. The concept of