IEA Report Leaked

55 thoughts on “IEA Report Leaked”

1. I posted this after your last article, but really pertains to the IEA report. I found it to be optimistic as well. Here’s the comment from the previous post

   “Latest preview of the upcoming IEA report. Not pretty with steep declines and a lack of investment in key areas (mentioned above by RR). Some caveats though, as it does mention that huge investment will be required to keep declines at about 6% per year and that the demand in 2030 will be 106 mbd (or lower given the recession) as opposed to the 116 mbd they are calling for

   http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e5e78778-a53f-11dd-b4f5-000077b07658.html

   Robert, can you explain how demand can be even 106 mbd when we are stuck at 87 mbd. Where would that extra 19 mbd come from when there are to be declines of 6% a year?

   Will third gen. biofuels eventually scale up enough to provide some of this? Algae seems promising but the companies never release data on their processes AND the scale up doesn’t seem to happen. Of course with crude below $70, can it scale up at all, regardless of how many steps are cut from the process.

   On that note, with more gas available through shale plays, and some advances in GTL in the media, can GTL step in and provide the liquids to get us through the next few decades” ?

   Thanks for your attention Robert.

2. 2030 is still 22 years away … a generation.

   I don’t think I’d treat anyone’s projections that far out too seriously. We have the full compendium of why humans can’t predict, and especially that far out.

   If a pinch could be argued for 5-10 years I might take that more seriously, because the world changes a bit less in that timeframe.

   But 2030? Energy requirements depend tremendously on the inventions that are, or are not, made in that time. To either count them, or discount them, is to assume a future, and not to honestly “find” one.

   – odograph

3. Thanks for your attention Robert.

   I actually updated the article with the Mulva comments specifically to answer some of your questions. I also answered this in comments following the previous post, so be sure to check that.

   Cheers, RR

4. thanks very much Robert, your work is greatly appreciated and important. Keep it up…

5. I agree with Odo. Forecasting out 20-30 years is fraught with uncertainty.

   I was playing with the numbers a bit in a spreadsheet. At 86 million barrels per day the OECD consumes about 51 MMBPD and the rest of the world 35. If the OECD shrinks by 3% a year and the developing countries increase by 4%, you get a worldwide demand of 110 MMBPD in 2030. BUT, if the developing world only achieves 3% growth you get 93.5 MMPD. And if the OECD can cut consumption by 4% per year if the developing countries grow by just 3% you basically hold even with where we are today. Just a small change in growth assumptions can make a big change in your forecast of future demand when carried out over 22 years.

   By 2030 we will be 3 generations of cars removed from today (the US fleet turns over every 7 years on average). Who knows what advances we might achieve in that amount of time. If the US auto fleet looked more like the UK fleet, we could perhaps reduce demand by 8-10 MMBPD. Any significant penetration of hybrid or electric cars into the market would profoundly affect demand.

6. Robert,

   I emailed the editor of the FT about the paper’s continuing misrepresentation of peak oil “theory” – simply to make the point, as I do not expect them to publish my letter.

   I also emailed Martin Wolf, the FT’s associate editor, questioning his prescription for avoiding worldwide economic meltdown – stimulating consumption through massive Government on-take of debt – on the grounds that it might be unwise to continue to regard debt (certainly consumer debt) as an asset when a net decline in energy could soon be upon us.

   To his credit, he replied straight away. However, he dismissed my assertion that I’d prefer to be a saver than a debtor as wrong-headed since, in his view, all I am achieving by saving is shifting my (presumably inevitable) consumption into the (presumably assured) future.

   He also assured me that I was wrong to think that the consumer society might soon be threatened by rising prices and falling supplies of fossil energy – “…this is why climate scientists are so worried”. He did not say whether he believed that there is no limit to fossil fuel supplies or whether the era of unaffordability/unavailability would dawn too late to save us from global warming.

   Perhaps oddly, Mr Wolf seems to be saying that consumption is unstoppable and overshoot is unavoidable. In that case, the consensus among many economists that leaders must deal with the debt conflagration by throwing gasoline on to it is nothing more than a secret wish to fry everyone get it over with.

   Little wonder that the FT is not interested in presenting peak oil accurately.

7. I think we’ll see $200 oil next year. Of course,that’ll only be $50 in today’s dollars. Governments poured trillions of liquidity into the system. They did it because credit markets are stuck. Credit markets are stuck because consumers are overextended. So,we’ll just super extend them,LOL. Central banks are compounding the inflationary moves by lowering interest rates to near zero. Get ready for a commodity boom that makes the last one look tame.

8. “I think we’ll see $200 oil next year. Of course,that’ll only be $50 in today’s dollars.”

   Ouch! 😉

   (I’m reassured by the decline in TIPS. Not convinced, just reassured.)

   – odograph

9. Time for an alternative to make economic sense, then, in spite of DOE, USDA, etc. etc. (call it Uncle Sam’s) best efforts.

   Growth will take place in a different industry.

10. The answer to how much oil we will have in the future lies in thug state politics — will Venezuela tap its enormous reserves of heavy oil, much larger than that of any Mideast power? What will Cuba do? Will Mexico get serious about oil re-investment? Will Iran, Iraq and Libya stabilize? Will Russia develop viable system of contract law? Will Africa ever, ever stop being Africa?
    It is simple: If you want to rely on oil, you are putting the future of the U.S. into the hands of thug states. Drill, baby, drill. And get out your baby bottles–both are great solutions.
    Biofuels, especially palm oil, look promising. Yields per hectare of planted palm oil in 10 years could be four times historical yields — look for enormous plantations on degraded lands in Brazil. At more than $40-60 a barrel (even with current yields), palm oil makes lots of money, no subsidies. With the new hybrids, palm oil looks like a true winner. Southeast Asia becomes a palm oil power.
    We may see a runaway oil glut for the next several years, but we should move aggressively to limit out exposure to oil thug states.
    I doubt we have the political will to do it. Neither party is speaking truth the future.
    We can’t drill our way out, but we can tax gasoline consumption.
    That is the cold hard fact. No one wants to hear it.

11. “If you want to rely on oil, you are putting the future of the U.S. into the hands of thug states.”

    Not to mention the thugs they fund,like Al Qaida,Hezbollah,Hamas,and FARC. I get called a communist for being in favor of a ban on internal combustion. But,we have the resources to power an electric economy. Electric transportation would cut our trade deficit by half. It would mean a smaller payroll for jihadi’s. We wouldn’t spend so many billions defending the Strait of Hormuz. And thug states wouldn’t have the power to dismantle our economy with the flip of a valve. We ban lots of things in the US. Which poses the greatest danger to national security,crack,automatic weapons, or internal combustion?

12. Maury-

    I would vote for a RPG-toting, crackhead, gay socialist, if he would just propose we largely get off of ICEs in 15 years or less, and balance the federal budget.

    We face far, far, far greater danger from the Bushes, who have spent trillions upon trillions of dollars of borrowed money, while palling around with the terror-financiers of Saudi Arabia.

    f you wanted to wreck the USA, would you a) set off some some bombs and brag about it, or b) load the country down with unsupportable debt, and leave it vulnerable to oil blackmail?

    Bush chose b. Mission Accomplished.

13. King-
    this was a report out today: It suggest Cnadian oilsands are profitable all the way down to $32 a barrel. Probably, the marginal cost of production is way lower.

    CALGARY–The chief executive of Suncor Energy Inc. says he disagrees with the doom-and-gloom notion that falling crude oil prices have rendered the company’s oilsands projects uneconomic.

    “There seem to be a lot of misunderstandings and panic in the market,” Rick George told an analyst conference call to discuss the company’s third-quarter results on Wednesday.

    Taking into consideration operating costs, the discount given to low-quality oilsands crude, and the falling Canadian dollar, George said Suncor would be able to earn $28 on each barrel of oil with a West Texas Intermediate price of US$60.

    “This is not a case of us not being able to make money at $60,” he said.

14. Benny – Suncor is talking about its cash costs for producing crude, not accounting for amortizing its investment. I was talking about a 15% ROI on new invesment. At $60 it still pays to invest in oil sands. Below that companies won’t put in additional capital to maintain or expand operations in the oil sands.

    Suncor was assuring its investors that it could maintain earnings in the current price environment.

15. King-
    Okay, but it is the marginal cost of production that determines whether or not any company keeps doing anything. If the marginal cost of a barrel of oils ands is, say, $20, then that company will keep producing oil down to $20 a barrel….
    they might not start up new investments, but they will continue to produce….
    that’s why a monster, honking all-out oil glut can happen in 2009-10.

16. Ford just released some info on their 2010 Ford Fusion/Mercury Milan twins. They’re supposed to be able to go 47 or so miles on electricity alone and then have a range of 700 miles.

17. the world has entered the era of “tug-a-war” between “peak oil” and “peak investment affordability”. will the main consumers/suppliers be capable economically to continue the OIL HABIT? how will national spending priorities[e.g.- SSA, HEALTH CARE, EDUCATION/RETRAINING, INFRASTRUCTURE GROWTH/REPAIR,ETC] influence the flows of capital dollars?

    the current situation in Brazil[PBR deep water development] has illustrated the conflict between national politics, investment sources, world-wide demand changes, etc on the ability to forecast the timing or significance of those supposed large findings. these type global impediments can only get worse with time.

    these conflicts only highlight the urgency of our need for energy prioritization and stategic plans. the USA is unlikely to become “energy independent”, but can minimize dependencies and maximize our own capacities.

    fran

18. Drewboy,that’s 47 MPH in electric mode and 700 mi. range. Let’s hope Ford and GM are still around in 2010. CNBC was yapping about GM asking Toyota for help today. Makes no sense,but they’re flailing wildly at this point,so anything’s possible.

19. Maury,

    The initial report I read in the automotive press said it wrong, and there’s no edit function here once I found the reality over it.

    I think Ford is probably in a better place with their product plans to weather this than GM. They have smaller cars coming sooner and with the reputation of the existing Fusion, I will not hesitate to give this one a shot. GM on the other hand is delaying every other potentially helpful project save for the Volt. Heck even Chrysler has cash on hand and dramatic plans for hybrid/electric cars.

20. Record profits for Exxon. Minting money baby…

    Ford’s testing the Escape plug-in in several cities Drewboy. Could hit showrooms before the Volt. The Prius should hit by this time next year. Ford just got a $10M grant from the Feds to bring 20 hybrid/PHEV models to market. I think PHEV’s will be hot. Especially with a $7500 tax rebate.

21. Benny – I would agree with you that in the short run $30 is possible but unlikely.

    The country most at risk from low prices is Venezuela. They depend on heavy oil from the Orinoco for about 1/3 of their production. Orinoco crude is sold at a discount to WTI and Brent to specialized refineries. Their marginal cash cost of production is even higher than the oil sands. Chavez is selling their conventional crude at a discount and generous terms to his neighbors in order to spread his Marxcist revolution. Having run off the international companies, he has few options for reinvestment in the oil sector. Venezuelan production will shrink even faster at these prices.

    BTW – gas is $2.03 at the mother station across the street this morning.

22. Cheapest gas in the Houston metro is in Deer Park at $1.89.

    ExxonMobil posted the largest quarterly profit ever this morning at $14.83 billion. Can’t wait to read what Robert’s old friends over at Oilwatchdog have to say about this.

    It is also funny that GDP showed only a -0.3% growth rate. That is essentially flat and proves McCain’s point that the economic fundamentals are still good. The market corrections are getting the speculators not the producers.

23. negative = flat = good

    Got it 😉

    – odograph

24. The cheapest gas around my area is $2.35 a gallon. We’ve got half a dozen refineries less than 10 miles away. It chaps my ass that it’s $1.89 after getting shipped to places like Missouri.

25. Flat is pretty good, given the financial market uncertainty. It means that 95% of all Americans still have jobs and are still producing goods which other Americans are buying.

    Those that were trading paper – be it commondity futures contracts or credit default swaps, or flipping houses in hot real estate markets or other speculative investments that didn’t have anything to do with the underlying cost to produce a good – they are in trouble.

26. How quickly things turn around:

    As Gas Prices Go Down, Driving Goes Up

27. My younger friends asked me what a recession was like … I said you wake up in the morning and the news is that x-thousand jobs were lost here, and x-thousand jobs were lost there.

    It’s true that it’s still mostly financial (was Fidelity one of the bad guys? American Express?), but the non-financial layoffs are catching my eye: Visteon, Xerox, Cirrus Design, Yahoo, Time Inc., and Swissport Cargo Services …

    “The fundamentals of the economy are strong” was wrong the first time, and it’s still wrong.

    – odograph

28. Can’t wait to read what Robert’s old friends over at Oilwatchdog have to say about this.

    I am guessing “election year price manipulation.”

    How quickly things turn around:

    As Gas Prices Go Down, Driving Goes Up

    I am going to put up a post on this, but right now the current one continues to get very heavy traffic. It has been linked to at Reddit and DollarCollapse (among others) and has been viewed several thousand times already.

    RR

29. Odograph sez:

    Here’s a good link. A good report, and the title does not imply what you think it might:

    The GDP report: Moderately bad, perhaps more than moderately misleading

30. Robert may not enjoy How the World Works today!

31. King-
    I share your complete contempt for Chavez. Nevertheless, I have read reports, including some from Headed Out at TOD, that place extraction costs from Venezuela into the single digits per barrel. BUt with the lunatic Chavez in power, fat lot of good it will do the world.
    On future global oil prices, pick a number. Oil did hit $10 a barrel in the Clinton Admininstration, in a rip-roaring national and global economy.
    Now, people are suggesting that oil will stay above $10 a barrel, in a global recession. Maybe, maybe not.
    As for the economy doing okay now, or in the last eight years, I must disagree. The Dow is lower now than when Bush took office. Home prices are falling 20 percent to 30 percent a year. The third quarter was just a preview of the fourth quarter. We have piled $5 trillion on to our national debt on Bush’s watch and counting.
    This translates into unfolding debacle, not good. Good was when the economy was growing, and 2-3 million new jobs were created every year, and we were running federal surpluses. The Clinton years (and an R-Party Congress!). That was good.
    I share reservations about Obama. He never talks about aggressive new job creation through private enterprise, or gasoline taxes. He always talks about some woe-begotten people. He has never run a business in his life. His energy plan seems to involve giving away federal money, although the sums are dwarfed by ongoing Bush bank give-aways, now heading north of $2trillion.
    It looks like we will just have to hope that Obama gets it right.

32. “As Gas Prices Go Down, Driving Goes Up”

    I wouldn’t rely too much on that particular article. Did you see this quote?

    “Willy Lewis, a nurse’s aide, said he just started mowing his lawn every week again after mowing it every third week this summer to save gasoline”

    I can’t begin to tell you how stupid this guy is. I cut grass for a living. My weekly customers are cutting their grass every two to three weeks now. It takes about 75 cents worth of gas to cut a yard at $4.00 a gallon. When a yard is high,it has to be cut two or three times. Vinton is colder than my locale. The grass won’t grow an inch in that week. He’s a moron.

33. I liked Clinton Benny. He was a better Republican than Bush and reformed welfare to boot. But,the surplus thing was a myth. Obama is no Clinton Democrat. He’s a Carter Democrat. We’re in deep doo doo for the next 4 years.

    The Myth of the Clinton Surplus

    http://www.letxa.com/articles/16

34. For the centrists in the audience, deficit and surplus from centrists.org:

    see the graph

    (I only glanced at their pages, no idea if the are real centrists … like me!)

    – odograph

35. “As soon as I get a chance I want to write up something on OPEC mismanagement”

    Robert, that is something for the rest of us to look forward to!

    As a pre-emptive comment, “OPEC mismanagement” is probably a misleading impression created by our incompetent western media.

    What is OPEC? Most so-called OPEC exporters produce flat out — as much as they can — and effectively ignore the OPEC quotas that they help set.

    OPEC is simply a convenient curtain behind which Saudi Arabia (with occasional help from Kuwait) has pursued its own interests as it preceives them.

    OPEC announces a production cut — but we all know that only Saudi will seriously cut production, if it decides to. Saudis are too realistic to try to micro-manage the global oil market, but they have done a fairly reasonable job of taking advantage of circumstances to keep the oil price generally high, with occasional periods of low price to preserve their long term value by wiping out alternate energy development.

    All in all, not a bad record. Let’s wish that western politicians could “mismanage” their own economies as effectively.

36. Back to the IEA report–last year they said global demand will be 116 mbd in 2030, and this year they say it will be 106mbd. Presto-change-o, 10 mbd of demand eliminated! And so, next year do they say demand in 2030 will be 96 mbd?
    Really, you can ask the winos in the park what oil demand will be in 2030, or the IEA. Or me.
    I wonder if we will using much oil in 2030. Ground transportation will be primarily powered by battery. Airplanes and ships I guess.
    I asked the winos, and they told me.

37. Maury – I had the same reaction to the grass cutting quote. Although in LA he might have a pretty big lawn that requires a riding lawnmower to cut. Yes, you can be poor in LA (the state not the left coast city) and have a little house on a big lot.

    Benny – I stand by my earlier comment. The fundamentals in the American economy are good. We have a productive workforce that produces quality goods and services. I’ve been travelling a bit more around the country lately. I still see people standing in line at Starbucks to buy $5 cups of coffee. It seems like every airplane I ride on is full or nearly full. I’m trying to book a vacation for next summer but having trouble finding hotels and condos with vacancy.

    I watched the World Series last night, every seat was full despite the highest ticket prices ever. And speaking of sports, the terrible economy doesn’t seem to hurt Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboy’s plans to sell $735 million in personal seat licenses for the new stadium. The Jets/Giants plan to raise even more for their new stadium.

    When I open the Sunday newspaper there are 2 full sections with employment ads. Registered nurses in the Houston area can make $50 per hour. We have offshore operations jobs that are going begging for nearly that much pay, requiring little or no prior training.

    The poor in the US in 2008 live a better quality of life than most of the middle class in the 1960’s. We have 10-20 million illegals still working and living here and more trying to get in every day (well less lately, but there is still a net inflow).

    We are a long way from “Pelosivilles” and the great depression of 2009.

38. King-
    Save one of those offshore unskilled jobs at $50 an hour for me. If my PR shop for architects nosedives, I may take you up on it.
    If you cannot find a hotel room by next summer, come stay at one of my trailers here near downtown L.A. We have beaches, mountains, culture, and also slums, brothels, and gangbangers. You will see a lot of things you will never see in LA.

39. I like how much the price in oil drop is hurting the “thug nations” of Iran and Venezuela. Do they (OPEC as a whole) have enough financial discipline to cut production like a true regulatory agency? We’ll find out soon. It would be nice if a federal policy artificially brought the price of oil back up so we could continue to see the gains in miles per gallon and reduced vehicle miles traveled. That sort of policy is just too European for the US of A though.
    phil

40. KofK,

    “When I open the Sunday newspaper there are 2 full sections with employment ads.”

    Does that source exist online ?

    I’m getting retrained in HVAC/R and graduation is Dec.

    Thanks
    RBM

41. King said:

    “When I open the Sunday newspaper there are 2 full sections with employment ads. Registered nurses in the Houston area can make $50 per hour.”

    I definitely agree … for the most part.

    But there are exceptions … if they wanted to go hunting or fishing, or to eat wild-caught ocean fish without checking the toxicity.

    – odograph

42. I don’t know why I grabbed the wrong line:

    The poor in the US in 2008 live a better quality of life than most of the middle class in the 1960’s.

43. Benny – I know downtown LA. I used to call on Socal Gas and Socal Edison and LADWP in the late 1990s. I’ve ridden Angels Flight many times. I heard it was supposed to reopen soon.

44. RBM – try Chron.com

    I don’t know much about the HVAC opportunities here in Texas. There is still a commercial building boom here in Texas. Good luck.

    My wife was in the hospital about a year ago. One of her nurses was from San Diego. She and her husband both worked in the medical field and had relocated to Katy, TX sight unseen because they couldn’t afford to live in SoCal. She said she made the same wages or higher in Texas, no state income tax, plus they could buy a nice house.

45. Be careful of praising Katy, King. I might move there, and stink the whole place up.

46. Thanks King,

    Chron farms their job board services out to yahoo’s hotjobs.

    I got registered with yahoo, something that’s been on my to-do list, anyway.

    RBM

47. RBM – I’ll keep an eye out for HVAC jobs in the Sunday Chronicle – while I still subscribe.

    Filled up the KoK hybrid at $1.99 after work tonight. I didn’t really need the gas – call it a vanity fillup. Just so I can say I paid less than $2.

48. Benny – you could relocate your business to Texas and save a lot of money.

    Victor Davis Hanson does a nice job of providing some perspective on the current financial situation: America – Compared to What?

    I’d still rather ride this crisis out in the US than somewhere else.

49. “Registered nurses in the Houston area can make $50 per hour.”

    Hold Watchers at the local refineries make $25 per hour to start King. This isn’t a position that requires education,experience,or the abilty to walk while chewing gum. Your job is watching a door. Make sure nobody goes in alone,because there may be toxic vapors inside. Oh,and make sure everybody signs the log. Yup,these is rough times.

50. Your job is watching a door. Make sure nobody goes in alone,because there may be toxic vapors inside.

    I have some interesting stories about that from a former life. I was in a distillation tower once, came out, and my watch was nowhere to be found. Mind you, they are supposed to be making sure I am OK inside the column, and that my oxygen is good. Finally, the guy comes walking up, and I asked where he had been. “Smoke break.” He walked off and left me in the tower with nobody to watch.

    Another time, I walked up and saw a watch outside of a column. She had the oxygen monitor inside the skirt of the distillation column (which does not contact the atmosphere inside the column). I explained this to her.

    The fact is, one company I used to work for would just grab people off the street and give them some basic training for turnarounds. But it’s scary how unqualified some of those people were.

    RR

51. For King:

    MARK SCHMITT
    The American Prospect, New America Foundation

    BRINK LINDSEY
    Cato Institute, The Age of Abundance

    – odograph

52. Maury – my point exactly. There are opportunities out there for people willing to work or relocate to get them. This isn’t the worst economy ever, it is an adjustment. Too much of our economy was tied up building houses people couldn’t afford or trading paper assets and not building tangible assets.

    Particularly in the energy sector I see lots of opportunity.

53. “But it’s scary how unqualified some of those people were.”

    My brother-in-law works at the Citgo refinery in Lake Charles Robert. Last time we were over that way,he was complaining about nobody wanting the job. They’d been trying to hire for the position for two weeks. No experience required. I grew up aroung the oil patch. We weren’t doing so bad during the 70’s,when the oil embargo and lines for gas were killing the rest of the country,but it was like a depression around here during the 80’s. Now,the average age of oilfield workers is something like 50,and these youngsters turn their noses up at $25 an hour. Americans don’t remember what a real recession is like. With 6% unemployment,3% inflation,and interest rates that would make people downright giddy for most of our history,most people really believe the economy sucks.

54. “it is an adjustment”

    Adoption skill will be more useful than in the recent past.

    The energy sector is the focus of my job search – for reasons obvious to those here.

    RBM

55. @King

    “willing to … relocate”

    Who pays ?

    I am willing to relocate, but out of 16 students in my class I’m the only one who is.

    RBM

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