Reply #1: The Center for Strategic & International Studies [View All]

[amandabeech]

held a conference on this topic on Tuesday, Feb. 24, in D.C. Two representatives from SaudiAramco were present, as well as Matthew Simmons, an investment banker from Houston who specializes in energy investments. Simmons is at least acquainted with Cheney, and participated in the energy task force. He seems to agree that oil and then natural gas will run short sooner rather than later, and shares the viewpoint of Price that Saudi fields will not be able to increase production much beyond the 10,000,0000-odd barrels per day that they now pump, at least without damaging the fields to the point that less oil will inevitably be pumped from them. Sometimes I wonder if some of the information that Cheney will not divulge concerns very serious and alarming discussion about oil and gas depletion.

I personally think that oil will be in short supply by 2020 and will be extremely pricey, but this is not a popular position in the general populace. While I applaud the NYT for publishing stores like this that discuss some aspects of the oil depletion problem, I find that they frequently do not put the quantities of oil being pumped from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Alaska, etc. in perspective. For example, the United States now uses approximately 20,000,000 barrels of oil per day, double Saudi production. The world is now consuming approximate 80,000,000 barrels per day, of which the Saudis are providing 12.5%. Estimates vary on the amount of oil the world is expected to consume (if it is available) by 2020, but I've seen estimates of at least 120,000,000 per day. Even if the Saudis can get their production up to 19-20,000,000 barrels per day, it still won't be enough, particularly since production is declining in just about all other oil provinces, and no one has suggested where all this new oil might be found.

For more on the conference,

http://csis.org

Simmons' presentation: http://www.csis.org/energy/040224_simmons.pdf

For more of Matthew Simmons, see Simmons & Company International

http://simmonsco-intl.com