The Oil Drum

Today, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) had a Page 1 article about limits to world oil production. The article begins:

A growing number of oil-industry chieftains are endorsing an idea long deemed fringe: The world is approaching a practical limit to the number of barrels of crude oil that can be pumped every day.

Some predict that, despite the world's fast-growing thirst for oil, producers could hit that ceiling as soon as 2012. This rough limit -- which two senior industry officials recently pegged at about 100 million barrels a day -- is well short of global demand projections over the next few decades. Current production is about 85 million barrels a day.

The WSJ sees a number of above-ground issues as being the reason for this looming plateau (below the fold...)

It's a slow day here at TOD, so I think I'll just give you some links to consider for the evening.

First off, Over at EB today, there's a good piece by our friends Andrews and Udall from ASPO-USA with another response to CERA and its credibility.

Here's a new blog on energy over at the WSJ worth keeping an eye on (they kindly mentioned TOD today).

We haven't mentioned friend of TOD Lou Grinzo's Cost of Energy in a while, always a good read.

The folks who have been around a while know that I am big fan of John Robb's work.

And last but certainly not least, Kurt Cobb has a new one out today entitled "Why the Precautionary Principle Doesn't Cut Both Ways."

The above numbers come from a poll of market economists who are asked their opinion on various macro-economic topics (click on pic to enlarge).

So, that's 3 reasons (beyond the fact that it's in the WSJ) not to think it's a good thing, right?

• poll
• market
• economist