A Libertarian's Guide To Peak Oil  

This is the best guide to the oil market I've seen - easy going but covers a wide range of ground. And it includes the excellent paragraph below about ravenous fat men.

I could point out that crude oil formations underneath the Saudi desert, or Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, or wherever, aren't our property – even if they aren't private property per se – and therefore we are no more entitled to that crude than a ravenous fat man is entitled to a free meal everywhere he goes. However, the militant mercantilist is unlikely to care about such niceties, and is probably happy knowing his government is willing to stick guns in peoples faces and demand they fork over their property because "we need it more."

Unfortunately it does go a bit free-market mystic at the end, but its still worth a read.

We cannot ignore the fact that this an industry interlaced with government from top to bottom, whether we are talking about the huge state-owned firms of the big producing nations or our own heavily regulated supermajors. That is the reality, lamentable and regrettable as it is. But as libertarians, we need to remember a few things. First, whatever ends up replacing petroleum will come in its own good time, later than we'd like but probably sooner than we expect. It will come because it stores energy and power better than gasoline does and more cheaply to boot. It will come with some tremendous benefits and some unfortunate drawbacks.