Saudi Flack: Oil Plentiful, Don't Worry  

Daily Kos seems to have peak oil diary entires appearing relatively frequently lately (well, I've seen at least 3 anyway) - this one examines the Saudi claim that the world will run out of uses for oil before they run out of oil.

Adel al-Jubeir, to Americans one of the most familiar Saudi faces and the top foreign policy adviser and public relations flack for Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah, said Wednesday, "The world is more likely to run out of uses for oil than Saudi Arabia is going to run out of oil." Ahhhhhhhh. Big sigh of relief.

Over the next five years, the Saudis have promised to boost production from their current 9.5 million barrels a day to 12.5 million. Al-Jubeir claims that the Saudis could pump at this level for the next 50 years.

To say that skeptics abound is an understatement.

Contrary to al-Jubeir's glowing report, Sadad Al-Husseini, who not so long ago retired as Head of Exploration at the Saudi-owned Aramco, believes the US government has wildly overestimated both Saudi Arabia's and global reserves.

While I've enjoyed "The Oil Drum"'s series of posts on Saudi Arabia and Matthew Simmons' "Twilight In The Desert", I am starting to find Heading Out's warnings about the possibility of a rapid decline in production quite alarming - I had been assuming this wouldn't happen (in Saudi) for quite some time. A rapid descent as we go over the peak will not be pleasant, should it eventuate (which is why having a "just in case" plan is a good idea).

The problem with more efficient extraction methods is that they also accelerate the oil removal and that means that the down slope of the curve after production has peaked becomes much steeper. A confirmation of that comes, unfortunately, from the UK where the decline in production from the North Sea is now reported, at Powerswitch as having climbed to 17% over the last year, which is an accelerating decline, and is a hint that the oil production problem will be on us much earlier than we might have hoped.

Um! In regard to secrecy, I guess my immediate answer is here and here . The world has moved into the internet era, and while it is not yet possible to get daily production runs from individual fields, one can also find out, from tanker discussions , for example, that supply from Saudi Arabia has declined more than could normally be anticipated.

This may or may not be a better source than more official channels, since there now appears to be a debate as to whether Venezuela produced 2.7 mbd last month as the EIA report, or whether as the IEA would have it, the production has dropped to around 2.1 mbd – which is a big drop, if true.

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