End of the Oil Age
The oil is running out. What is going to happen when the Oil Age ends?
OIL
SHORTAGES LOOK CERTAIN BY 2007; LNG TO THE RESCUE?
It takes about four years to bring a new oil field online after discovery. The Petroleum Review has done a detailed analysis in a world where discovery of “mega” fields has fallen off to almost nothing and looked at what's coming online in the next few years. The conclusion: by 2007 the world will start to feel the real bite of Peak Oil. When it comes to LNG as a savior for the economy and home heating, every analysis says that whatever LNG arrives will be too little, too late.
Has global
oil production peaked?
Today's civilization depends on an abundant and relatively cheap supply of oil. It fuels most of our vehicles, aircraft, ships, and trains. It provides the raw material for fertilizer, some clothing fabrics, most plastics, and many chemicals. Oil heats many of our homes and businesses. So when experts discuss when oil production will begin to decline, the world pays heed. The question now making the rounds in energy circles: Has production already peaked?
Forecast of Rising Oil Demand Challenges Tired Saudi Fields
When visitors tour the headquarters of Saudi Arabia's oil empire — a sleek glass building rising from the desert in Dhahran near the Persian Gulf — they are reminded of its mission in a film projected on a giant screen. "We supply what the world demands every day," it declares. For decades, that has largely been true. Ever since its rich reserves were discovered more than a half-century ago, Saudi Arabia has pumped the oil needed to keep pace with rising needs, becoming the mainstay of the global energy markets.
Crude Awakening
Remember 1973? If you do, there are plenty of reasons to wish you didn't. Chief among them (right after leisure suits) would be the oil crisis that began in October. The Middle Eastern OPEC nations stopped exports to the United States and other Western nations just as stateside oil production was peaking. The artificial shortage that followed had devastating effects: The price of gas quadrupled in the United States, climbing from 25 cents to more than a dollar, in a matter of months. The American Automobile Association reported that in one isolated week up to 20 percent of the country's gas stations had no fuel; in some places motorists were forced to wait in line for two to three hours to gas up. The number of homes built with gas heat dropped.
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