Disagreement on "Peak Oil" Claims

[fekason]

Interesting article disagreeing with the "peak oil" lobby.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,20390685-5001028,00.html

Not everyone is convinced that the motor car is about to disappear.

[dean]

Of cause that's something the ExxonMobil boss would say. An impartial detailed analysis would help.

[loudvtss]

Just heard on the news that the price of petrol could drop to $1 a litre during xmas/new years. Then the ExxonMobil boss was saying we still have plenthy of oil available. Go figure what the truth is but as long as the price keeps dropping then I'm happy.

[cwhast]

That ExxonMobil boss was acting very strange... almost like he wasn't telling the truth. On Ten Late News tonight when he said how much of the proven reserves we had used he nervously gulped.

[SSASSC1]

I really do tend to agree that there is a heap of oil still out there. Hopefully more than we can all use in my lifetime anyway :)

[Fusebox]

The price of oil is also driven my market speculation, the Israel/Lebanon coming to an end, the news of possible new oil reserves in the gulf of Mexico, helped ease global oil prices. Any new "war" threat from/between Nth Korea, Iran, U.S, could drive oil prices right back up.

It would be interesting to see how much less oil consumers are consuming, since a lot of people did switch over to smaller more efficient cars, as well as people moving over to gas.

[my_Berlina]

Ofcause having tonnes of Oil still available doesn't solve the Green house issues. These still need to be addressed some how.
That is why I subscribe to GreenFleet http://www.greenfleet.com.au/, (actually a double subscription, cause that's about how much fuel I use in a year). We still need to get the government focused on alternative (non CO2 producing) power generation where it can be done reasonably, but currently the portability of energy provided by petrol means it remains the best option for transport.

[Guzzles]

Of cause that's something the ExxonMobil boss would say. An impartial detailed analysis would help.

Wouldn't the oil businesses have more advantages if they told us that there is not much oil left (even if there is still enough), driving prices up hence making more money?

[boofhead]

Wouldn't the oil businesses have more advantages if they told us that there is not much oil left (even if there is still enough), driving prices up hence making more money?

The problem with that approach is that we may change to alternative solutions and energy sources much more quickly, which could lead to a longer term issue with the price of oil.

One of the programs I saw recently stated that the issue is the cost of extraction of the remaining oil stocks - there is still significant reserves but the cost will rise as the technologies used to get it out of the ground are much more complex and thus the costs will be passed on

[mad.ed]

Ofcause having tonnes of Oil still available doesn't solve the Green house issues. These still need to be addressed some how.
That is why I subscribe to GreenFleet http://www.greenfleet.com.au/, (actually a double subscription, cause that's about how much fuel I use in a year). We still need to get the government focused on alternative (non CO2 producing) power generation where it can be done reasonably, but currently the portability of energy provided by petrol means it remains the best option for transport.My opinion is the australian government wont be focusing on alternative power generation for a while to come yet,there is a lot of money being made in the seabourne coal trade .I remember someone saying that the callide power station would be the last coal fired boilers to be built in australia , can think of 2 that come on line since then.

[Guzzles]

The problem with that approach is that we may change to alternative solutions and energy sources much more quickly, which could lead to a longer term issue with the price of oil.

One of the programs I saw recently stated that the issue is the cost of extraction of the remaining oil stocks - there is still significant reserves but the cost will rise as the technologies used to get it out of the ground are much more complex and thus the costs will be passed on

I considered that but I thought they could still get more money with hire prices/telling nothing is left as the demand isn't going to go down in the near future anyways. Developing nations like china would not use the new forms of energy as they are too expensive. Also the whole world is still 99,9% suited to oil. The world could not switch over to alternative solutions in a short time.
But you are right in the long time it could be an issue for oil companys.