The world is running low on Gas - Lord Oxburgh ex Shell boss wants the oil barons to wake up

Lord Ron Oxburgh is a former chairman of Shell. He is now the chairman of D1 Oils, a British company developing biofuels that can be produced in the tropics on sub-agricultural land (an insane and doomed project like post war groundnut schemes using Jatropha). He also sits as a crossbencher (Independent) in the House of Lords. On Tuesday he will deliver a speech at the Cork conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) entitled Out of Oil, Into Hot Water

In it he will issue a stark warning that global oil demand will outstrip supply within 20 years as production hits a plateau. He also forecasts oil prices hitting US$150 in the long term.

He accuses some in the industry of having their heads “almost in the sand” about oil depletion, and concludes “we may be sleepwalking into a problem which is actually going to be very serious and it may be too late to do anything about it by the time we are fully aware”.

Read an interview with him here with Dave Strahan Author of, "The Last Oil Shock"

Q: Your talk at the Association for the Study of Peak Oil conference in Cork this week is called ‘Out of Oil, Into Hot Water’. What exactly do you mean by that?

A: Hot water basically refers to the fact that world energy demand is continuing to rise. It’s rising because of increases in population, and that population is not only becoming more numerous but more wealthy as well. As it becomes more wealthy per capita energy use increases too. So the world energy demand is just rising relentlessly. In parallel, we have clearly got tightening supplies of fossil fuels.

Read on ...

NB : There are currently 98 oil producing countries in the world, of which 64 are thought to have passed their geologically imposed production peak, and of those 60 are in terminal production decline.

Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil Sunday Times today

The North Sea Central Area Transmission System (CATS) gas pipeline,which shut on July 1 after its concrete casing was damaged by a ship's anchor near Teesside port has now been repaired. Testing started SEptember 1/2nd and it is expected that gas / oil flows are back to normal.

The 404 Km seabed CATS pipeline brigs gas ashore at Teesside from the Armada, Seymour, North Everest, Banff, Eastern Trough Area Project, J-Block, Lomond and Erskine fields U.K. gas network operator National Grid PLC NGG. The pipe has previously been delivering gas at a rate of just over 40 Mn cubic metres a week.

This has dramatically affected landing of North Sea oil and gas - and hence Government revenues. The impact on summertime wholesale gas prices can be seen in the attached chart.