Get ready for the last oil war (From Energy Bulletin)

[Speck Tater]

War with Iran? War in the Middle East? This article examines some of the forces at work. This is a long read, but chocked full of interesting information and analysis on the probability of, and possible causes of the next "world war".

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http://www.energybulletin.net/node/45944

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The now accelerating countdown to Peak Oil marking the ultimate peak of world production – with a faster fall-off in net export supplies than total production under several logical scenarios - can only aggravate existing global and regional tensions, especially in the Mid East. Any decline in global export supply (currently running at about 51 million barrels/day (Mbd)) will be catastrophic for attempts at maintaining flagging credibility in ‘market supply/demand balance’ and open market price setting. The date at which this will happen, without war accelerating the process through destroying oil infrastructures is of course disputed. Several studies indicate likely date could be 2012-2013.

When we arrive at permanent undersupply, prices will explode. This will be the end of market trading. Bilateral country-to-country arrangements will replace open market trading – returning world oil commerce to pre-1990s structures and arrangements, best suited to opaque and complex supply deals. Moving on from oil-for-food, supply deals will be dominated by weapons-for-oil, and support for using them. This was a key part of supply deals operated by major powers with Iraq, including third party supply of oil from Iraq’s Sunnite-ruled GCC neighbor countries, during the 1980-88 war.

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Answering the key question of when this Oil Apocalypse could or might start is in fact relatively easy:
When there is world economic crisis, as in 1929-36, this is nearly always a ‘Mother of War’. When we have global economic crisis at least equal in intensity to the 1929 crisis, we can assume we also have the basic geo-economic conditions able to trigger Oil Apocalypse, especially where recession is thought of, and presented by media as “only due to oil supply shortage and high prices”.

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More at link.