Peak Oil News

The World Energy Outlook (WEO) is a yearly energy forecast published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the International Energy Agency (IEA). The 2006 report urges the international community to invest heavily in energy efficiency in order to avoid a global economic crisis. Governments will need to invest at least $20 billion into the energy infrastructure over the next 25 years to meet the growing worldwide demand for electronic technologies and gadgets. Demand for oil and energy resources from industrialized nations like China are expected ...

Whenever the price of gas rises, North Americans begin to talk about driving less. Recent oil price trends have seen a noticeable reduction in SUV sales and have hit the large automobile manufacturers hard. Middle class America has been hit hardest by the rising cost of living; higher taxes and mortgages, car payments and the rising price of home and vehicle energy. Large suburban homes require large amounts of heat, electricity (for lighting) and air conditioning. Most households have two or more full-sized cars which are used to travel far distances for education and employment. All of these factors ...

Global oil resources are at times difficult to measure. World oil statistics are available from a variety of sources, but no one can make an accurate prediction of when and where new oil deposits will be found, or how much oil exists in these unknown locations. In order to be able to predict the date when oil supplies will run out, we need to have a grasp of how many supplies currently remain. Future geo-technologies may allow us to better analyze oil deposits, but until then we have to rely on the data we have. Here is a comprehensive listing of research sources for current oil supply statistics. » Source: Peak Oil Statistics ...

The United States Military is the the world's largest fuel-burning entity. More than half of the defense department's fuel budget is spent on fueling the U.S. Air Force. The Navy consumes about one third of defense oil resources and the Army uses around 12%. 25% of military energy is used to power and heat buildings and facilities - the remaining 75% is consumed for mobility purposes. This article gives a detailed breakdown of how much oil the military machine consumes. » Source: Whiskey and Gunpowder What will the world look like on the backside of Hubbert's Peak? What you see depends upon where you stand. If you happen to ...

In May 2006 I wrote, "I know about the "Peak Oil" theory that says we either have or are about to reach the point of diminishing returns regarding the world's oil supply, but these recent discoveries suggest there is still plenty of oil to be found." In that commentary I documented nearly a dozen new fields of oil and natural gas discovered since 1995. So I wasn't surprised when, on September 5, Chevron Corporation announced it had discovered new, huge reserves of oil some five miles below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. The initial estimates were that these reserves "could boost U.S. oil reserves by 50 percent." Good news for Americans and good news as well for other oil companies such as BP, Anadarko Petroleum, and Exxon Mobil that have their own projects in progress. Indeed, two days later, Exxon Mobil announced that its Sakhalin-1 project offshore Russia had begun ...

SUB-Saharan Africa’s economy would probably expand 6,3% next year, the fastest pace in more than three decades, boosted by higher output from oil-exporting countries such as Angola, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says in its World Economic Outlook released yesterday. Growth in the region was forecast to reach 5,2% this year, the third consecutive year it would exceed 5%, the Washington-based lender said in its semi-annual report released in Singapore. Next year’s growth rate would be the highest since 1971. Growth in SA would moderate as higher oil prices and rising interest rates curbed spending. » Source: Business Day Economic growth would probably slow to 4% from 4,2% this year, the IMF report said. SA’s $239bn economy expanded at a 21-year high of 4,9% last year. Rising oil prices have boosted investment in countries such as Angola, sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest oil producer. Other African ...

World oil demand was weaker than expected in the first half of 2006 because increasingly efficient use of oil is limiting consumption despite economic growth, OPEC has said in a monthly report. "World oil demand growth in 2006 has been revised down by 0.1 million barrels per day (bpd) since the last MOMR (OPEC monthly report) to stand at 1.2 million barrels pr day," The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said in its September report on world oil markets. "Recent data shows weaker-than-expected demand in the first half of the year," OPEC said Friday. » Source: Yahoo News Gasoline demand in the United States "grew by only 0.7 percent, well below the annual average of 1.6 percent despite the stabilization of gasoline prices. "This has led to downward revisions of 0.2 million bpd and 0.1 million bpd to second- and third-quarter oil demand figures for North America," the report said. "Developing Countries, which account ...

The world has tapped only 18 percent of the total global supply of crude, a leading Saudi oil executive said Wednesday, challenging the notion that supplies are petering out. Abdallah S. Jum'ah, president and CEO of the state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known better as Aramco, said the world has the potential of 4.5 trillion barrels in reserves - enough to power the globe at current levels of consumption for another 140 years. Jum'ah challenged oil ministers and petroleum executives at an OPEC conference in Vienna to step up exploration "and leave the minimum amount of oil in the ground." » Source: The Jerusalem Post "The world has only consumed about 18 percent of its conventional potential," Jum'ah said, contending that should lay to rest fears that the world is in danger of being tapped out within a few decades. Many experts ...

Urbanization is one of the dominant demographic trends of our time. In 1900, 150 million people lived in cities. By 2000, it was 2.9 billion people, a 19-fold increase. By 2007 more than half of us will live in cities—making us, for the first time, an urban species. In 1900 there were only a handful of cities with a million people. Today 408 cities have at least that many inhabitants. And there are 20 megacities with 10 million or more residents. Tokyo’s population of 35 million exceeds that of Canada. Mexico City’s population of 19 million is nearly equal to that of Australia. New York, São Paulo, Mumbai (formerly Bombay), Delhi, Calcutta, Buenos Aires, and Shanghai follow close behind. » Source: Earth Policy Institute Cities require a concentration of food, water, energy, and materials that nature cannot provide. Concentrating these masses of materials and ...

The discovery of potential deep-water oil and gas reserves off Cuba's northern coast has caught the eye of the world's energy-hungry nations. The US could see rigs drilling for Cuban oil only 50 miles off Florida. India's state-run oil firm ONGC, already signed up to exploration in the area, has just upped its stake - the latest to place its bets on a Cuban oil rush. The 44-year-old US trade embargo, meanwhile, continues to bar American companies from doing business with the Caribbean island. » Source: BBC News But, some observers are asking, can the US really afford to risk losing out on valuable energy resources only 50 miles (80km) off Key West? The prospect of nations such as China, Venezuela or India lining up to exploit Cuban oil has already led some politicians to call for the embargo to be relaxed. They want US ...