Expert says Saudi oil may have peaked

[CHIMO]

As oil prices remain above $45 a barrel, a major market mover has cast a worrying future prediction.

Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, of Simmons & Co International, has been outspoken in his warnings about peak oil before. His new statement is his strongest yet, "we may have already passed peak oil".

Arguments are commonplace over whether it will happen at all, when it will happen or whether it has already happened. Simmons, a Republican adviser to the Bush-Cheney energy plan, believes it "is the world's number one problem, far more serious than global warming".

"This is dangerous stuff," warns Simmons. "If we say they have not peaked and then they choose to further increase production, they will only hasten their field decline, and waste huge amounts of valuable oil into the bargain. And oil, as we are only now coming to realise, is the world's most precious resource."

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/80C89E7E-1DE9-42BC-920B-91E5850FB067.htm

[slor]

1. "world's most precious resource...."

yet please continue wasting it with your hummers!

[CHIMO]

2. That Part Got Me Too

I was going to write a comment below the article but I thought that I would see if others would notice. I guess people are expendable. Sort of like co-lateral.
Sad when that is the way that we view the world.

[Canuckistanian]

3. And where do we get those oil reserve numbers from?

Why, yes, it's the oil companies themselves. Nothing to worry about here.

[CHIMO]

4. Chickens May Be Coming Home

To roost.

"At the same time as the Shell write-off, El Paso realised they had been producing their fields too hard. As a result they had to write off 41% of their reserves." In 2004 Shell first announced it had lost about 20% of its oil reserves.

Another clue came as Simmons discovered a ferocious debate that had been going on inside Saudi Aramco about overproduction.

"The company claimed in the early 1970s that it would be able to produce 20 to 25 mbpd, then by 1978 it was 12mbpd. Now it looks like 9.8mbpd is the maximum," he says.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/80C89E7E-1DE9-42BC-920B-91E5850FB067.htm