Ghawar, Saudi Arabia: 7%
Wall Street Journal: Tracking Saudi Oil From Space
At a time of high anxiety over soaring fuel prices and scarce supplies, oil analysts are resorting to satellite imagery to crack one of the industry’s biggest unknowns — whether Saudi Arabia’s massive Ghawar field is slipping into depleted old age.
Saudi Arabia has long contended that its famed Ghawar field, responsible for around 7% of global supply, remains in fine shape and will continue to churn out around five million barrels a day for years.
But Saudi Arabia doesn’t publish data to back that up. Skeptical analysts in the West insist the field is in decline, an event they say presages a peak in world oil production…
“This is junk science,” says Houston investment banker Matthew Simmons, who insists that only detailed, on-the-ground records can speak to the field’s real condition. Mr. Simmons’s 2005 book, “Twilight in the Desert,” cited technical papers to argue that Ghawar and Saudi Arabia’s other giant fields were showing signs of increasing stress and would soon slip into decline. Mr. Simmons is a well-known proponent of the theory that world-wide oil production may already have hit its all-time peak.
Simmons has been talking about this for years. Here’s something from 2004:
IAGS.org: New study raises doubts about Saudi oil reserves
Tokyo, Japan: 27%
Bloomberg.com: Japanese Stocks Fall on Toyota, Bridgestone Earnings Reports
Toyota, Japan’s largest company by value, tumbled the most in a month after saying profit will likely slide 27 percent this year. Smaller rivals Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. also sank. Bridgestone, the world’s No. 2 tiremaker, said net income fell in the first quarter amid rising raw material costs.
If there is any doubt about what’s behind the future trouble for the world’s largest automobile manufacturer and one of the largest tire manufacturers, this article closed with the likely suspect: “Crude oil for June delivery rose to a record $124.61 a barrel in New York yesterday.”
Washington: $75
NY Times: Senate Democrats Seeking a Special Tax on Oil Profits
Scientists are desperately trying to get accurate numbers on the collapsing oil supply. Car companies are predicting lower profits in the future. The price of a barrel of oil keeps climbing, because there is a slow realization that supply can’t keep up with demand. What do our politicians in Washington do?
The only section of the Democrats’ proposal that seems to have widespread bipartisan support is suspending deliveries into the government’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve until oil prices drop to $75 a barrel.
A Republican energy package, offered last week, would also suspend the diversion of roughly 70,000 barrels of oil a day into the reserve.
I just saw John McCain blame OPEC for the high price of oil. He obviously doesn’t believe that OPEC is telling the truth about how much oil it can produce. McCain believes OPEC can produce more, and they’re holding back to keep the price high. It is only a matter of time before lower OPEC production becomes obvious, and if our politicians won’t consider the possibility until then, there will be a panic. When that happens, if the senate has its way, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will be bone dry.
As for the Democrats’ proposal to suspend deliveries into the SPR until oil drops to $75 a barrel, what else do you expect from a party that can so totally screw up their own presidential nomination process? And we want these people in charge of health care? Not that the Republicans have done much to earn our trust over the past eight years!
Moscow: #2
The United States imports 65% of its oil. Any disruption to the global oil supply system would have a catastrophic effect on America’s economy, and on our ability to defend ourselves and our allies around the world.
Russia is the world’s #2 exporter of oil. Russian oil production has apparently peaked, but as an exporter, it is in great position in a future world where the United States will be starved for oil and dependent on imports.
Myanmar: 22,000 and climbing
The Economist: A disaster in Myanmar
While we focus on the price of a tank of gas or the latest polls, numbers of a different, very real kind remain uncounted in Myanmar, reminding us what’s really important.
On the night of Friday May 2nd and continuing on Saturday morning a terrifying cyclone, the worst storm in living memory, struck the regions around the main city, Yangon, flattening entire villages with winds of up to 120mph (190kph). The Irrawaddy delta was hit by a huge wave, perhaps 12 feet (3.5 metres) high, sweeping away thousands of people.
By Tuesday it was reported that at least 22,000 had been killed and many more were missing, while hundreds of thousands have been left homeless. Electricity and drinking-water supplies have been wiped out in many areas. Many who survived the storm are now vulnerable to deadly disease. It looks like being the worst natural disaster to hit Asia since 2005 when an earthquake hit Pakistan-controlled Kashmir killing about 75,000, or even since the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed around a quarter of a million people in December 2004.
With all the natural disasters, oil and water depletion, climate change, and overpopulation one starts to get thinking of our own mortality. Depending on what belief system you may embrace it’s either the wrath of God for our selfish plundering or the “Big Bang” turning in upon itself because of all the unnatural use and by-products by man. It doesn’t matter now how we found ourselves in this mess it’s where do we go from here. Personally, I am stopping to smell the roses a lot more.
Peak oil, which is not the cause of the current commodities bubble, or certainly not the sole or even leading cause, is also a fairly poor causation candidate for lower stock prices of Asian auto manufacturers. Recession in the Us combined with a weak dollar (making imports cost more) are far more likely culprits.
Increased oil prices will likely increase auto sales. If we are indeed in the very early stage of a peak oil scenario you will likely see the first wave turn out to be earlier than normal replacement of autos with newer, more fuel efficient models. Certainly that will occur before Americans begin to take national mass transit seriously (if they ever do).