Nine Years Ago, Oil Was Projected to Fall to Five Dollars

April 21, 2008
Nine Years Ago, Oil Was Projected to Fall to Five Dollars

Nine years ago The Economist ran a big story on oil, which was then selling for $10 a barrel. The magazine warned that this might not last. Instead, it suggested, oil might well fall to $5 a barrel.

In any case, The Economist asserted, the world faced “the prospect of cheap, plentiful oil for the foreseeable future."

Last week, oil hit $117.

Study sees harmful hunt for extra oil

February 18, 2007
Study sees harmful hunt for extra oil

All the world's extra oil supply is likely to come from expensive and environmentally damaging unconventional sources within 15 years, according to a detailed study.

This will mean increasing reliance on hard-to-develop sources of energy such as the Canadian oil sands and Venezuela's Orinoco tar belt.

A report from Wood Mackenzie, the Edinburgh-based consultancy, calculates that the world holds 3,600bn barrels of unconventional oil and gas that need a lot of energy to extract.

The study makes clear the shift could come sooner than many people in the industry had expected, even though some major conventional oil fields will still be increasing their production in 2020. Those increases will not be enough to offset the decline at other fields.

"It becomes unclear beyond 2020 that conventional oil will be able to meet any of the demand growth," Wood Mackenzie said. The report added that natural gas products such as liquids and condensate would also become important sources of growth.

The increasing reliance on unconventional oil will require a substantial reshaping of the energy industry.

UPI Poll: Oil seen as factor for Iraq war

January 25, 2007
UPI Poll: Oil seen as factor for Iraq war

A total of 32.7 percent of the 6,909 U.S. respondents to a Jan. 16-18 Zogby interactive poll said Iraq's oil was a "major" concern and 23.7 percent said it was not a factor. Participants were asked to rate the role of oil in the invasion decision on a 1-5 scale, with 1 being "not a factor" and 5 representing a "major factor."

Democrats drying up oil industry tax breaks

January 17, 2007
Democrats drying up oil industry tax breaks

WASHINGTON — When oil company executives came before the Republican-controlled Congress in 2005 to defend their record profits amid high gasoline prices, they were spared the indignity of being sworn in under bright TV lights, as the tobacco chiefs had been a decade earlier.

But with Democrats in charge, perhaps no industry will find the new Congress less hospitable
than the oil industry.

That will be underscored Thursday when the House is expected to approve a bill that would
repeal billions of dollars in oil industry tax breaks passed by the GOP-controlled Congress.