In a column posted in the U.K. newspaper, The Independent, writer Steve Conner noted that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has determined “global production [of oil] is likely to peak in about 10 years – at least a decade earlier than most governments had estimated.”
Dr Fatih Birol, the chief economist of the IEA, surved “more than 800 oil fields in the world, covering three quarters of global reserves.” The study found “that most of the biggest fields have already peaked and that the rate of decline in oil production is now running at nearly twice the pace as calculated just two years ago.”
Conner pointed out that oil supplies and oil prices are directly related. “There is now a real risk of a crunch in the oil supply after next year when demand picks up because not enough is being done to build up new supplies of oil to compensate for the rapid decline in existing fields.”
Echoing what Boone Pickens has been saying for the past year as he has traveled the nation promoting the Pickens Plan, Dr. Birol said,
“Even if demand remained steady, the world would have to find the equivalent of four Saudi Arabias to maintain production, and six Saudi Arabias if it is to keep up with the expected increase in demand between now and 2030.”
While the world’s oil supplies may have peaked, America’s supplies of natural gas have boomed with the most recent surveys indicated we have enough reserves to last over 100 years.
In one reaction to Mr. Conner’s column in The Independent, a writer pointed out that Mr. Pickens predicted the “peaking” of world oil back in 2007.
To read the entire column on the world’s oil supplies, click HERE.
— The Pickens Plan