FT: World will struggle to meet oil demand
That was the headline in the Financial Times on October 28.
Without extra investment to raise production, the natural annual rate of output decline is 9.1 per cent, the International Energy Agency says in its annual report, the World Energy Outlook, a draft of which has been obtained by the Financial Times.
The findings suggest the world will struggle to produce enough oil to make up for steep declines in existing fields, such as those in the North Sea, Russia and Alaska, and meet long-term demand. The effort will become even more acute as prices fall and investment decisions are delayed.
The IEA, the oil watchdog, forecasts that China, India and other developing countries’ demand will require investments of $360bn each year until 2030.
The agency says even with investment, the annual rate of output decline is 6.4 per cent.
The bit in bold is key I think!
Now that indeed is a bit of concerning news. However, what gets more interesting is what got reported today.
The International Energy Agency yesterday sought to play down a report that it believes global oil production is falling faster than previously thought.
…
“The future rate of decline in output from producing oilfields as they mature is the single most important determinant of the amount of new capacity that will need to be built globally to meet demand,” the FT quoted the draft report as saying, adding that the IEA believed it would require a “significant increase in future investments just to maintain the current level of production”.
Now, if I were to put on my cynical hat (hmm, maybe it’s made of tin-foil 
), perhaps we could translate that statement as:
Someone leaked the real version before we could fiddle the results.
Kinda takes us back to this Fatih Birol classic:
“You are from the press? This is not for you. This is not for the press.”
Of course in the meantime, the rest of the British press has more pressing issues on it’s mind. Not impedending economic collapse, not ecological footprint overshoot… nope, dodgy BBC radio shows.
Oiii, Brown and Cameron, get back to your proper work
Once again the printed media in this country has wound me up.
For anyone reading this blog outside the UK (and thus not been bombarded by the media overload on this non-event), this is kinda what happended.
Russel Brand is recording his BBC Radio 2 show, and his normal sidekick is away… so fellow Radio 2 presenter Jonathan Ross stands in. Naturally, this is an accident waiting to happen since both are known to occaisionally cross the line on what is ‘acceptable’.
Things get a little out of hand, and somewhat childish, resulting in a series of answer phone messages left on Andrew Sach’s phone.
Now, had the answer phone messages being left with a person who was close to either Brand/Ross… then it possibly would have been acceptable. However, I would admit that what they did was wrong.
Now, for some reason, whoever had editorial control over all this saw no issues with this, and let all this be broadcast. Somebody should have spotted this was somewhat dodgy, not broadcast the episode and made private apologies to Sachs and family.
Anyway, that didn’t happen and it went out on Radio 2. At the time, only two people complained, and that was only about the use of the ‘F word’.
But then the right-wing press jumps in and whips up a storm. Grand daughter can now see a bit of publicity in it for her and starts saying how she and her family have been offended and upset by it all.
Then all of a sudden, the number of complaints now rockets to 30000, a large number of whom probably never listened to the show.
The bandwagon is well a truly rolling now, and even the PM and Leader of the opposition start complaining about it, and what the BBC are going to do. Come on!!!! For f&£ks sake, you’ve got more important things to sort out.
And then on Thursday, I see the front page of the Sun. Grrrrrr. This girl who was so upset by the whole episode isn’t that upset, because she’s gone and sold her story to the Sun saying how Brand would shout ‘Que’ (reference to Andrew Sach’s ‘Manuel‘ character in Fawlty Towers) when they had sex.
What a complete media whore!!! Grrrr.
That’s what annoys me about the whole thing. Not the act itself (which was something they shouldn’t have done), but the over-reaction afterwards.