BP gears up for the end of peak oil
Sigh.
“Peak oil” is the idea that there’s not enough out there, that we’ll want to use but cannot. The current thinking is the opposite, that we no longer wish to use and there’s gonna be plenty out there. If we were to have the end of “peak oil” then BP would be drilling for more. Which ain’t what they’re doin’.
BP gear down…
But that doesn’t work.
Shortest headline I can come up with in 10 seconds is “BP anticipates declining oil demand” but that’s still longer, and not very catchy.
Peak Oil has been ten years away for my whole adult life. Forty years now.
Experience would suggest betting on oil being around another forty.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/18/turkey-greece-clash-over-oil-and-gas-in-the-eastern-mediterranean.html
Greece and Turkey are having a bit of a battle over oil, with the French wading in on the Greek side. Even flogging them some Rafale fighters in case it gets a bit tasty.
So someone thinks fossil fuels are not over yet. But then the paper of record doesn’t need to reflect reality does it, not in these new post modern times.
The Germans learned how to make oil over 90 years ago. So even if production was to peak, it’d be around for a while yet.
But I agree. There’s plenty of oil. Just a routine technological advance, fracking, and the Greens are desperate to prevent Western and other countries making themselves independent of foreign oil.
Mixed narrative? After scaremongering about running out of oil under the catchphrase “peak oil” they’re now reporting on its plentitude using the same catchphrase.
I suppose it’s better for then than admitting they were wrong.
Which peak oil is this?
IIRC we have been reaching peak oil every decade since the 60s
“The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones”
The cry of peak oil in the ’70s and ’80s was the left’s wet dream as it was supposed to signal the end of capitalism. As Chester says, it was always just round the corner.
@Chester Draws… When I was working in the North Sea industry back in the 1970s it was believed that anything worth developing would have been found and be producing by the mid-80s, at which time there was likely to be no new employment opportunities because everything offshore would be automated and run by several lads sitting in an office in Tullos. Our kids subsequently replaced us and they’re now well into their 40s.
Even George Monbiot admitted that the left had got peak oil wrong nearly a decade ago
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/02/peak-oil-we-we-wrong
@ Bernie G.
Not quite – Forties was a fantastic money-spinner because its sunk costs were mostly when oil was $10/bbl and production was when oil was around $40/bbl: the return on equity was approaching 100%. So there was fantastic levels of exploration and it was expected that all the *good* fields would be producing soon. The marginal fields would be produced *if* they could latch onto a pipeline or when the oil price went up after all the good fields were depleted. We *have* had a lot of small fields tied into pipelines built for big ones (Forties, Brent, Ninian …).
However “west of Shetlands” wasn’t explored until technology for exploiting fields in deep seas was developed.
In those days I was an Investment Analyst covering, inter alia, North Sea Oil (not claiming I was the best – Wood Mack had two better and Ed at Norwich Union was the best buy-side analyst but I was quite good).
@john77…
I was speaking of general assumptions by the public, inter alia was it worth pursuing a career in the oil industry or was oil a five-minute wonder. As time moved on and technology improved, the oil price increased, prospects began to look a lot more attractive. That said there remained an element of boom/bust throughout the 80s and many quit the industry out of frustration.
Until relatively recently the succeeding generation have only know the industry as a one-way street. I worked through five downturns.
@ Bernie G
When I said “not quite” I did mean “not quite” rather than completely the opposite.
Don’t worry we’ll hit peak oil the same time we get nuclear fusion, probably in about 10 years in to the future.
‘Global demand for oil may already have peaked as the coronavirus crisis is likely to have a “significant and persistent” impact on global economic activity, according to BP.’
Persistent? This Covid mess should be over in less than a year.
‘Spencer Dale, the oil major’s chief economist and a former director of the Bank of England, said that assessing the impact of Covid-19 was highly uncertain because of the rise in new infections and the lack of an approved vaccine. However’
However? There is no “but.” Assessing it was highly uncertain, according to HIM. He doesn’t get a “however.”
‘BP gears up for the end of peak oil’
Agreed, Tim. The fine Telegraph writer doesn’t know what it means.
Used to follow Wood Mackenzie’s output, think I even knew one of the analysts.