<Friday open threadThe Oil DrumWhat would we have predicted for Kuwait?>

67 comments on Oil Prices

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Stuart Staniford on January 20, 2006 - 7:27pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Here's the history for those who aren't already familiar with this issue:


My guess has been that a sizeable fraction of savvy oil traders have never believed these numbers.  I don't know if it will move the oil markets that much.

However, what we may see is more recognition of this by the larger society.  New York Times doesn't mention it today, however.

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alan on January 20, 2006 - 8:53pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Another way to read this: only 1/4 of the 99 GB they are claiming are proven reserves.
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Leanan on January 20, 2006 - 9:06pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes.  Proven reserves are only 24 GB.

Someone who has read the actual report posted a synopsis at PeakOil.com:

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic16642-0-asc-30.html

He describes it as "very disturbing reading indeed."

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Stuart Staniford on January 20, 2006 - 9:08pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I put up a new thread for Kuwait with a quick linearization of the production data (which turns out to get about the right answer).
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step back on January 21, 2006 - 8:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Man, every time an Emir dies, some new stuff hits the fan.

So the bottom line is that Kuwait was bullshitting the world about its reserves just like Sadam Hussein was bullshitting about having Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Kuwait's bull shit was so good that it fooled the Mother of All Bullshitters, Sadam, to go to war in hopes of cashing in on all that non-existant oil back in 1991.

Kuwait's bull shit was so good that it fooled the Father of the Ultimate Bullshitter, Geroge I father of George II, to go to war to stop Sadam from cashing in on the non-existant Kuwaiti oil. (George I got a small "honorarium" for coming to Kuwaits rescue. Not a bribe, an honorarium.)

Luckily for us, Simmons is all wrong about the rest of those straight shooters from the ME street. Other than Kuwait's Emir and Sadam of Iraq, all those other Middle East leaders are not  bullshitters. They're giving us the straight dope (or is it hemp?).   SA really does have the "proved" reserves that it has proven time and again it can tap into when the demand spikes.

The world is safe from bullshit.
Woo hoo.

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dissident on January 21, 2006 - 12:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Bullshitting is effective because most media and analysts lack  the ability for critical thought.  When SA annouces it really has 900 billion barrels of oil they should be laughed at instead of having such patent nonsense rebroadcast as if there was some plausibility to it.  There are no secret oil provinces in SA that have a few Ghawars waiting to be exploited.  This is based on decades of exploratory drilling and the fact that Ghawar sized fields would have been impossible to miss.  The existing fields have enough data about them to impose constraints on the total oil in the ground.
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Anonymoose on January 20, 2006 - 8:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
It is interesting in the graph that Iraq, followed by Kuwait are the first to bump their reserves numbers. Then those two are the same as each other in what, 1983? Then kuwait is better than Iraq from 1983 to what looks like 1989 when Iraq catches up again. Sometime around 1986-1988 it looks like UAE and Iran start going head to head with the original two, and then all four of them are close to each other the same for 7 years straight. Almost at the same time these 4 get to be each around the same level, and each of them at over half of Saudi Arabia. Then all of a sudden Saudi Arabia goes way up. Funny to me :)
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Jack on January 21, 2006 - 3:19am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I believe it is broadly accepted the the increases in cited reserve numbers came about in anticipation of OPEC allocating production limits based on reserves in the mid-1980s. The convergence at 100 GB would seem to reflect a political driven negotiation to equalize production limits - not any kind of systematic reassessment of actual reserves.
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