The Oil Glut of 2009…and Why it Won't Last

• A rude bet on crude prices - $100 before $20,

• Western oil majors feel the political pinch,

• A non-cow dung alternative fuel and plenty more...

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Eric Fry, offering a wild guess about the oil market…

As the price of crude oil continues its death spiral, forward-looking investors have every reason to scratch their heads in amazement. The oil market seems to be pricing in a global economic condition that would be even more dire than a second Great Depression. $35 oil seems to imply that mankind will resume its reliance on ancient energy sources like whale oil, tallow and cow dung.

Maybe so…but we doubt it.

Late last year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its World Energy Outlook 2008, which presents a thorough field-by-field analysis of production trends at the world's 800 largest oil fields. This comprehensive study suggests that the oil price is much more likely to rise than fall over the next few years.

The IEA stops short of promoting that "Peak Oil" theory that the planet is running out of hydrocarbons. But the Agency does point out that output from the world's major oil fields is declining much faster than previously believed. More >>>

The Peak Oil Crisis: The Economic Rebound

Thursday, 12 February 2009 10:59 - A few years ago, peak oil was relatively easy to understand. At some point in the future, and estimates varied as to exactly when, oil production was going to start declining due to a combination of geologic and geopolitical factors, prices were going to rise precipitously and a massive civilization-wrenching paradigm shift would start as the world transitioned from oil to other forms of energy.

Those who understood that oil was going to start running out one day spread themselves along a spectrum of just when this unhappy event would happen. Pessimists saw the decline of oil production beginning in 3 to 5 years, optimists said 10, 20 or 30 years, and most of the world's peoples did not have the faintest clue that the oil was ever going to run out. Things were so simple 18 months ago.

In 2007, however, it was revealed that a collection of realtors, appraisers, mortgage brokers, bankers, builders, financiers, insurers, securities raters and assorted others had been making lots of money by selling houses to people who could not afford them and then dumping the tainted mortgages on the world's banking system. When all the dust from these revelations settled, it looked as if many of the world's banks had suffered grievous if not fatal damage and what could turn out to be the greatest economic downturn of modern times had been set loose. So where does oil fit into all this? More >>>

Scientists at UNESCO Forum Call for Action to Halt Rising Acidity in World’s Oceans

2 February 2009: Over 150 leading marine scientists from 26 countries are calling for immediate action by government leaders worldwide to sharply reduce carbon dioxide emissions so as to avoid widespread and severe damage to marine ecosystems from ocean acidification.
The call was made with the release of the Monaco Declaration on Ocean Acidification, which was developed by participants attending a UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) symposium on “The Ocean in a High-CO2 World,” from 6-9 October 2008, in Monaco.

The Declaration notes that levels of acidity are accelerating and that its negative socio-economic impacts can only be limited by cutting back on the amounts of greenhouse gases released to the atmosphere. James Orr, UN Marine Environment Laboratory, a Monaco-based subsidiary of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), stated that “the chemistry is so fundamental and changes so rapid and severe that impacts on organisms appear unavoidable.” [UNESCO Press Release] [IAEA Marine Environment Laboratory] [Monaco Declaration on Ocean Acidification] [IAEA Press Release]