Expert says Saudi oil may have peaked

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Expert says Saudi oil may have peaked

By Adam Porter
Tuesday 22 February 2005, 6:46 Makka Time, 3:46 GMT


The Saudi Arabian oilfield al-Qatif east of Riyadh


As oil prices remain above $45 a barrel, a major market mover has cast a worrying future prediction.

Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, of Simmons & Co International, has been outspoken in his warnings about peak oil before. His new statement is his strongest yet, "we may have already passed peak oil".

/snip/

Overproduction

"If you look at what Iran is doing, they are actually going to inject natural gas to the tune of 2bcf (billion cubic feet), through a 72in pipe into their Aghajari oilfield. It is a $2bn project. This is in order just to boost production from 200,000bpd to 300,000bpd. In the 1970s Aghajari was producing 1mbpd. It has been overproduced."

Simmons also says the same thing happened with the oil company El Paso last year.

"At the same time as the Shell write-off, El Paso realised they had been producing their fields too hard. As a result they had to write off 41% of their reserves." In 2004 Shell first announced it had lost about 20% of its oil

20%!!

Ummm - like that's pretty serious - right?

and I'd bet some other companies it's more than that?

Wunder if the PNACers got their eyes on our Canuk oil

:scared:

If oil production were to slowly fall off. I don't want the economies of any countries crashing ofcourse, but a steady drop over time maybe beneficial. It would force investment in alternative fuels, and keep the US out of poking it's noses in foregin countries.

we are going to liberate you.