The Oil Drum

Rich Heinberg has an interesting piece that should be brought to the attention of TOD. Here is the link to it at The Energy Bulletin. Worth reading.

The [Middle East] situation clearly requires comment [and integration], as it has enormous implications both for the world as a whole and for the small but growing community of people involved in preparations for Peak Oil. Mainstream reporting seems to miss much of the context of events and, when discussing the Middle East, the geopolitical struggle for control of energy resources nearly always forms much of that context.
[...]
At the ASPO conference a well-connected industry insider who wishes not to be directly quoted told me that his own sources inside Saudi Arabia insist that production from Ghawar is now down to less than three million barrels per day, and that the Saudis are maintaining total production at only slowly dwindling levels by producing other fields at maximum rates. This, if true, would be a bombshell: most estimates give production from Ghawar at 5.5 Mb/d.

Update [2006-4-9 13:47:29 by Dave]:  I am aware that this has been discussed on TOD's most recent open threads. Still, I believe it deserves a more thorough analysis and thread unto itself.

This story is based on Seymour "Sy" Hersh's article about to be published in the New Yorker entitled The Iran Plans.

When a child is finally able to read, write and understand some things, there are two lessons that should be taught first, and these are

1. The The Golden Rule which states in one formulation "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
2. Never, ever, engage in a land war in Asia, a remark attributed to General Douglas MacArthur who also said "Anyone who commits the American Army in the Asian mainland should have his head examined."

The Bush administration now appears poised to learn nothing from their first mistake, which violates precept #2 above, the invasion of Iraq. They now seem hell bent on repeating that mistake. Not since the The Cuban Missle Crisis in 1962, which followed the Bay of Pigs fiasco, has the world faced a crisis of this magnitude. Here we'll analyze the Hersh article, the geopolitics & oil issues involved and the possible fallout from a US or Israeli military engagement with Iran. This possibility can't be taken seriously enough--it is tantamount to World War III should it actually occur. If some of you TOD readers believe this is an alarmist post, rest assured, it is.