PowerSwitch

On their website today.

Oil supplies could 'last 140 years'
New technology is making it possible to drill deeper

A Saudi oil executive has challenged the idea that supplies are running out, saying that just 18 per cent of the global supply of crude has been tapped.


Abdallah Jumah, president and CEO of the state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Company, better known as Aramco, said the world has potentially 4.5 trillion barrels in reserves - enough to last 140 years at current levels of consumption.

"The world has only consumed about 18 per cent of its conventional potential," Jumah said, rejecting fears that supplies will run out in a few decades.

Experts have estimated that the Earth's recoverable oil resource is between three trillion and more than four trillion barrels. If consumption rises about two per cent a year from today's levels of about 85 million barrels a day, the low end of that range would only be enough to last until 2070.

Rex Tillerson, the chairman of Exxon Mobil, has said that world demand for oil will increase by 50 per cent in the next decade.

Jumah said new technology and better recovery rates would make it possible to find enough new oil resources to add one trillion barrels to world reserves over the next 25 years.

Gulf of Mexico find

Drilling is now going on as deep as 3,000 metres below the Gulf of Mexico and between 2,100 and 2,500 metres elsewhere. Experts say a newly discovered petroleum pool beneath the Gulf of Mexico eventually could yield anywhere from three billion to 15 billion barrels.

Industry leaders have gathered in Austria this week for a conference sponsored by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Earlier this week, the 11-nation group agreed to maintain its current production target of 28 million barrels a day but made clear it would consider a cutting its output before the end of the year if oil prices continue to fall.

Crude prices have fallen to a five-month low, dropping by more than $12 a barrel since record highs in mid-July. Analysts say ample supplies and the easing of political tensions in Lebanon and Iran have driven prices lower.

It's a hopeless article confusing reserves with extraction rates and not recognising the uncontested fact that long before the reserves are used up extraction rates start to fall making their straw man just wrong in the most basic way possible.

Yeah, but it's totally misleading to anybody reading it.
I posted earlier when Chevron announced the find that one of the dangers
would be a false sense of security prompting the average US consumer
to happily assume business as usual.

And can you guess who believes this shite?! Why, it's my good friend Alex Jones of course! Yay!

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/Se ... 906oil.htm

Good old "Abiotic Alex"! Taking on the lizards and all...

There is a rumour that the oil companies are manipulating the oil price down because they are worried that the Republicans might lose the coming elections.

If things are so good, why are they hyping the Gulf of Mexico finds. They are going to be extremely costly oil. The find shows that the easy oil is gone and if the price drops any further it won't be a find any more as it won't be commercially viable to get the oil out of the ground. Anyway its only 2.5 years American supply and 6 months world supply, and that at 18 billion barrels. If Jack 2 is so good, we're in deep doodoo.

The Saudis have being exagerating their reserves ever since OPC was set up, so why believe what they're saying now. Also why did they buy in a tanker load of petrol this summer if they've got so much oil?

And again on the website today...

Saudis fear fall in oil demand

Kyoto could reduce the demand for Saudi oil

Saudi Arabia has said it could become a victim of "selective" global environment policies, and called a balance between a cleaner environment and development to be struck.


The kingdom, whose economy heavily relies on its oil income, said the using new technology was the best solution to achieve economic development without harming the climate.

The Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Nuaimi, said: "We are concerned that some environment-related decisions, which some countries are trying to impose, could reduce global consumption of oil.

"This could hamper our economic development programmes because of our heavy reliance on oil exports," al-Nuaimi told an international conference on the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), in Riyadh.

"We are trying to (convince) the world to adopt positive environment decisions that safeguard the environment and contribute to global economic development."

Introduced more than eight years ago, the CDM is a part of the Kyoto Protocol that is directed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions of mainly carbon-based activities by establishing environment-friendly projects using advanced technology.

Energy consumption

Oil producers fear that their exports could be adversely affected if industrialised countries reach the emissions targets outlined in the Kyoto Protocol in six years.

The Saudi government is a signatory to Kyoto, which intends to reduce global warming by up to 0.28C by 2050.

Conference chairman Muhammad al-Sabban, an adviser to the Saudi oil minister, said the kingdom was keen to ensure that "oil does not become a victim of selective policies being adopted by certain countries," a reference to industrialised nations.

Al-Sabban said the methods used by the international community to "reduce energy consumption" would not provide a cleaner environment.

"The solution is through developing the technological alternatives... We believe that CDM provides the required balance between energy, development and environment," al-Sabban said.