Saudi oil exec: Don't worry, we have plenty of oil
At a conference today in Vienna sponsored by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Abdallah S. Jum'ah, president and CEO of the state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco), proclaimed that the world has only consumed about 18 percent of its total crude oil supply. He said that with a 4.5 trillion barrel global potential, there is enough to maintain current consumption levels for 140 years.Many industry experts believe the there are at least 3 trillion barrels of oil left on Earth, possibly more than 4 trillion. Rex W. Tillerson, the chairman of Exxon Mobil, however, points out that global demand for oil will rise by 50 percent in just the next decade. It sounds like an incomprehensible figure until you factor in the rapid growth the Chinese economy. According to Xinhua, China's car sales were up about 27 percent during the first six months of 2006 while recording an overall profit increase of 76 percent when compared to the same period last year.
Jum'ah went on to challenge oil ministers and executives to step up exploration and add 1 trillion barrels to the world's known supply in the next 25 years. He believes that new technologies should make it possible to realize that target.
Even if Jum'ah is correct about the world having 4.5 trillion barrels of oil waiting to be pumped, he doesn't actually address the peak oil theory at which point the rate of the world's total oil production will enter a decline in relation to the exponentially growing demand.
[Source: Associated Press via MSNBC]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Arpad 8:30PM (9/13/2006)
Oh boy! You mean we can continue to convert over 4 trillion barrels of oil into atmospheric carbon particles for the next 140 years! Cool! Just when we thought we were going to have to actually worry about how we polluted or our MPG.
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Shaky 1:11AM (9/14/2006)
*** he doesn't actually address the peak oil theory ***
Why would he? Maybe he doesn't address it because he doesn't see any reason to suspect "Peak Oil" is on the horizon. Or perhaps because those who do talk about it tend to engage in hyperbole and use lurid terms like "exponential growth" for something that's growing pretty slowly.
Maybe you didn't pause to actually do the math on that 50% accumulated growth over 10 years ... which turns out to be only 4% per year. Most businesses would be quite depressed if projections called for growth of only 4% a year.
I'm not sure why you think 4% growth per annum is "incomprehensible". I hope you don't one day ponder the growth of iPod sales -- you'd have a freakin' heart attack.
Oh, by the way, considering that there are about 750 MILLION cars in use worldwide, that growth in Chinese car sales of another ONE million cars a year that you're panting about doesn't seem terribly profound.
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