The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.
The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.
Lucky we’ve just decided to build a series of nuclear plants then, eh?
7 responses so far ↓
1 Luis Enrique // Nov 10, 2009 at 10:30 am
In whose interest would it be to conceal looming shortages?
Would the share prices of the oil companies rise or fall, if expected reserves & future discoveries were revised downwards? On the one hand, of course, there’s less oil to be taken out of the ground and sold – that makes the oil companies less valuable – but on the other hand, the price at which they’ll sell the oil is likely to be much higher.
it’s all very well saying ‘politicians’ are fibbing to prevent a panic, but if the oil companies thought panic would be profitable, I suspect we’d be panicking.
On the other hand, if they are fibbing about likely future oil flows, the oil companies cannot play that game forever; the share price will fall when truth outs. Watch out for insider share sales, I suppose.
2 Serf // Nov 10, 2009 at 12:28 pm
I have attended lectures by Fatih Birol, and he always highlights potential risks to his forecasts.
More scaremongering by greenies.
Luis,
The over stated reserves are not those of the major oil companies, but of the state owned ones. So if this turns out to be true, Exxon is quids in.
3 Luis Enrique // Nov 10, 2009 at 12:57 pm
why would the US being doing what’s claimed above?
4 Jim // Nov 10, 2009 at 1:43 pm
We won’t be building nuclear plants anytime soon though. Firstly we don’t have the engineers to do it, secondly many of the hi tech parts come from Japan and there is a big backlog.
You could also add that we probably won’t be able to afford them, but that goes without saying really.
5 Matthew // Nov 10, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Luis – keep the price down in an election year (not saying it was done in an election year or that was the motive but just as an idea?)
6 john b // Nov 10, 2009 at 11:55 pm
@4 yes we do; no they don’t; no there isn’t; yes we can. Otherwise, spot on.
7 Omri // Nov 11, 2009 at 3:37 am
Lucky indeed. Now “we” can get into all sorts of embarrassing international misadventures trying to procure uranium. Just like France!
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