The oil spill and credit crunch were bad. An oil crunch would be worse
Small print of BP Statistical Review of World Energy is troubling
<LI id=contrib-shift sizcache="1" sizset="55">
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis...9/oil-spill-credit-crunch-bp#history-link-box
The oil spill and credit crunch were bad. An oil crunch would be worse | Jeremy Leggett | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
After BP's chief economist, Christoph Buhl, finished his presentation launching the annual BP Statistical Review of World Energy this afternoon, I reminded him that last year he had played a question on peak oil for laughs, pouring scorn on the issue. In the interim, I pointed out, more and more people had become worried about the prospect for a premature peak in global oil production, not least the companies in the UK
Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES).
Given the heightened stakes with risk assessment in BP's world of late, how safe did he feel he that BP is serving its shareholders well by insisting, as he had, that "reserves remain sufficient to meet demand growth" and that "the supply will never peak". As he well knew, growing numbers of people – not least in his own industry – consider this assessment to be dangerously complacent.
"Very safe," he said. The invitation-only audience duly laughed.
I felt as the occasional whistleblowers must have felt when
Goldman Sachs and their peers heaped scorn on them as they warned that some complex derivatives might end up not being assets at all, but rather toxic sludge on the global balance sheet.
scanned my copy of the Statistical Review. At the top of the inside cover I read, in a big, bold font: "The Review is one of the most widely respected and authoritative publications in the field of energy economics, used for reference by the media, academia, world governments and energy companies."
A bible in other words. Journalists base statistics in articles on it, the world over. Students base learned papers upon it. World governments base their energy policies on it. And energy companies echo it, for it most part, to all who will listen.
And in small print at the bottom of the same page I read: "The data series for proved oil and gas reserves … does not necessarily meet the definitions, guidelines and practices used for determining proved reserves at company level, for instance, …. as published by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), nor does it necessarily represent BP's view of proved reserves by country. Rather, the data series has been compiled using a combination of primary official sources and third-party data."
----------------------------
In other words, lots of guesses. Party on.
So if it's not the doomsday catch phrase, it's not a discussion about peak oil? That's laughable.
"We're running out of conventional oil ya know" just doesn't cut it? lol.
There is obviously plenty of serious talk there. Laughing real quietly.