12 April 2006

Oil Major CEO talks about "the real problem of peak oil" | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse

Oil Major CEO talks about "the real problem of peak oil" | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse: "People are failing to deal with the reality of the price, which has nothing to do with speculators or even any lack of reserves, which are ample. 'It is a problem of capacities and of timing,' de Margerie says. 'This is the real problem of peak oil.'

The oil is there, he says, but the amount you can deliver today depends on how many wells you can drill and how fast you can deplete an oilfield, not to mention gaining the co- operation of governments, which guard access to the precious resource jealously. There is no prospect of reaching the lofty peaks that economists at the International Energy Agency, predict will be needed to satisfy world demand for oil.

There are not enough engineers, rigs, pipelines and drillers to increase current world output of 85 million barrels per day to 120 million, he says.

It would be possible only in a world without politics, he says. 'If there were no Americans, no Iranians, no English, no French and no Italians. Not a world I know.'"

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