'Saudi Arabia Has Capacity to Boost Oil Output' --IEA (AFP)

From the new World Media Watch up now at the URL in the sig below,
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com



1//The Daily Star, Lebanon Wednesday, November 16, 2005

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=3&article_id=20060



‘SAUDI ARABIA HAS CAPACITY TO BOOST OIL OUTPUT’

IEA: kingdom can raise and maintain production at 18.2 million bpd

By Agence France Presse (AFP)

PARIS: Saudi Arabia has the means to sharply increase its oil production to 18.2 million barrels per day by 2030 from the current level of 10.5 million, the deputy head of the International Energy Agency, William Ramsay, said on Tuesday. "We have access to several sources of information we consider fairly reliable and we think that the country can attain and maintain in the long-run this level of production," Ramsay said in the French trade magazine Le petrole et le gaz arabes (Arab Oil and Gas) to appear on Thursday.



(SNIP)


U.S. businessman Matthew Simmons raised serious doubts about the world's oil reserves last year when he said that production in Saudi Arabia, which has the most reserves in the world, had already peaked and was now heading into a phase of decline. His comments were rejected by Saudi leaders.



Ramsay said the IEA, created in 1974 after the first oil shock, did not share Simmons' concerns.


(SNIP)


"Producing 18.2 million barrels a day is not a technical challenge but rather a challenge in terms of policy and the market," he said.



Ramsay said a current debate over "peak oil" - the expected decline in oil production as a result of the rapid depletion of reserves - was distracting politicians from the key issues and "could lead them to make decisions that are unreasonable in economic terms." "Should we take strong measures today if the peak oil does not pose a threat for the near future? We think that scientific and technological progress will enable us to postpone that date and therefore we don't need to talk about it right now," he said.



"There are other issues that are more pressing," he said.



(MORE)

sounds like they got something to hide to me

peace

asses about opening them there spigots? He promised that back in 00, and ever since he took office, prices have gone through the roof!!!

... nor do many other countries, for that matter, so this is mostly guesswork based on hearsay.

If Simmons is right, everyone gets caught with their pants down. In the meantime, the oil companies get to rake in higher and higher profits on progressive scarcity.

the OPEC daily pumping quotas are based on estimates of reserves, so countries have a vested interest in overestimating the size of their reserves.

... and those estimates from OPEC countries sort of fly in the face of recent downwardly revised estimates of reserves under control by some of the oil companies.

Cheers.

The tooth fairy.

This 'announcement' runs counter to virtually all other informed sources on the topic of remaining Saudi reserves. Simmons isn't the only one calling bs on their habit of announcing spuriously huge (100B barrel) reserves increases every decade or so just to keep the market from getting too jittery.

12.5Mbpd is highly unlikely. 18.2 would be laughable if the subject wasn't so serious.

"Hey, wait a minute - where's everybody going?"

:eyes:

No. Just peak CHEAP oil with huge profit margins. Sustained high prices will make other sources of oil, such as tar sands, profitable. Want to make a good long-term investment? Buy stock in Suncor Energy Inc. (SU on the NYSE).

I, for one, look forward to a reduction of money flowing into Saudi Arabia, which flows back out as anti-semetic propaganda, support for radical Salafist clerics and movements, and Jihadi terror.

of not only CHEAP but easily accessible energy to meet DEMAND.

peace

prices down??? Saudis are wanting to keep their power but if they don't have oil they have nothing!!!

but not as much as everyone would like. Looking to them to keep us in SUVs 30 years from now is extremely foolish, IMHO. And as Hatrack has joked, much additional production will be of the heavy, high sulfur variety which can be turned into usable products in only a few of the world's refineries.

If the Saudis pump their reservoirs too quickly, they can damage the structure and make it difficult to get the maximum amount out. It is better to deal with less now and get more later.