So there I was, reading along, enjoying a nice little tit for tat between Strahan and Clarke, when I hit these sentences:

This view is held not only by ‘peak oil’ forecasters, but also major oil industry consultancies such PFC Energy, and even by notable opponents of the idea of an early global peak: the International Energy Agency, Shell and ExxonMobil – whose CEO Rex Tillerson told me recently that non-OPEC would be all over in “two to three years”.

Well I damm near fell out of my chair! Tillerson, THE Rex Tillerson of ExxonMobil SAID THAT?!

Well, not exactly, in fact, not nearly.

Here is the actual whole page from Strahan’s website:

http://www.davidstrahan.com/blog/?p=29

Here, according to Strahan himself, is Mr.Tillerson’s arguement, given in quotation marks by Strahan:

“We don’t do peak oil calculations, because the problem with the whole peak oil debate is that people have to assume they know how much is in the container in order to calculate the peak. And as we’ve learned over time, over the last 15 years, the estimates of what’s in the container, largely by governmental agencies, have gone up three times.”

“I think the ability to continue to grow volumes of non-OPEC production substantially is very challenging. So the question is more how long can you sustain with some modest growth, because we do in our outlook see some continued growth in non-OPEC in the near term, the next two to three years. So then the question is how long can the non-OPEC supply maintain a plateau so to speak, and that in some sense is a function of access to non-OPEC countries”.

Mr Tillerson insists that if access to resources improved - particularly to federal lands in the US, or in a more stable Russia - the situation could be transformed.”
----
So Tillerson takes the traditional oil industry line, that (a) it’s about access, and (b) no one knows how much oil your starting with, so estimating the how much is left in the ground is not workable i.e., all the conjecture about being 54%, 42%, or 20% through the world supply is conjecture, educated conjecture perhaps, but conjecture nonetheless. Due to the volumes of oil we are discussing, small amounts of measurement error could mean several decades of difference in peak timing.

This is interesting by the way, because it is very close to arguments I brought about almost a year ago on TOD, regarding the URR numbers, which were of course ignored. Then Robert Rapier made a set of arguments about HL modeling, and even given his very high standing on TOD was pretty much chopped to pieces with no real answer to his arguments, centering around HL modeling.

Now of course, Strahan declares Tilerson wrong on all counts, which is his right, but makes his case with an astoundingly arrogant sentence,
“Apparently Mr Tillerson has not yet read The Last Oil Shock, where I explain all this.”

We will lay aside how likely it is that a major oil company executive is going to accept Mr. Strahan as his guiding source for information about the status of world oil supplies (pardon me while I roll on the floor) but it is also apparent that Mr. Strahan has never read “How To Win Friends and Influence People.”

Let me make it clear that I take no interest in the spitting contest between Duncan Clarke and David Strahan except as entertainment value. If I had to bet my money, I would bet they will both be wrong by considerable margins.
And despite Strahan's assurance that all answers reside in his book, the arguments concerning URR and how to extablish them rage on.

But the insertation of a wild claim such as “non-OPEC would be all over in “two to three years” into the mouth of a major oil executive is exactly the kind of thing that will cause people to percieve you as, what were Strahans words, quoting Clarke?, “a delusional cult whose advocates are compared to “millenarians making their survival plans; occult groups searching for final redemption; even alien encounter schools promising lift-off to distant planets for the chosen and the faithful”. As a concept peak oil is obviously swivel-eyed and writes in green ink, you insinuate, because of the kind of people who attend its conferences.”

It also explains why people who have risen to the standing that Rex Tillerson, love him or hate him, has in the oil industry are usually clever enough not to talk to writers such as Strahan.

Of course, book titles such as “The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man.” can’t help....gee, nothing millenarian or survivalist about that huh?

Remember, that on Strahans OWN website, he is talking peak, which means around half through the known URR if you accept his model, right? How soon is “Petroleum Man’s imminent extinction if we assume that much (about half) remaining oil in the ground? Sure, it may get very hard to get, it may get very expensive, the poor may be driven or starved out, but Petroleum Man with money and power is going to be with us for the rest of our natural lives, peak now, peak later or no peak (in our lifetime).

Why do the loudest spokespeople for the Peak cause always take the most hyperbolic and radical positions, and essentially put a beany with a propeller on their head for the adversaries to easily poke fun at?

I used to recommend friends to come over to TOD, but I am being honest, I stopped doing it. These are people I do business with. I couldn't afford the risk that they would run into some of the over the top weirdness. Now, if they would land on the good stuff, Stuart Staniford, Robert Rapier, or some of the brilliant technical work, yes. so I send them the original sources of the good stuff. :-)

Guilt by association is a real thing, at the conferences and on the web.

And the day that Rex Tillerson actually says out of his own mouth " that non-OPEC would be all over in “two to three years”, even if he KNEW it was the absolute truth, I will throw a copy of Strahan's book in the ole knapsack and head for the hills.

RC
Remember we are only one cubic mile from feedom
(post not spell checked or carefully proofed, I have wasted too much time already)