Well Iraq is an obvious one, but probably just the first of many as the great powers move to secure the remaining reserves of Oil for themselves. We could also see Water Wars and conflict over other crucial resources heat up in the coming years.
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart
people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really
mean it.
- Mark Twain
This is a great article from FTW that just about sums up
the issue of Resource Wars, particularly in regard to
Oil....
The Beginning
of the Oil End Game
featuring
original FTW maps
Major Powers
Jockey for Position and Risk All-Out War Before the 2007-8
Oil Cliff
Maps Reveal Rapid Global Realignment/Competition
By
Michael C. Ruppert
©
Copyright 2005, From The Wilderness Publications,
www.fromthewilderness.com.
All Rights Reserved. May be reprinted, distributed or
posted on an Internet web site for non-profit purposes
only.
January 25, 2005, PST
1300 (FTW)
-
Three
key facts are of overriding importance to world events
today.
FACT
ONE - If
the actions - rather than the words - of the oil business'
major players provide the best gauge of how they see the
future, then ponder the following. Crude oil prices have
doubled since 2001, but oil companies have increased their
budgets for exploring new oil fields by only a small
fraction. Likewise, U.S. refineries are working close to
capacity, yet no new refinery has been constructed since
1976. And oil tankers are fully booked, but outdated ships
are being decommissioned faster than new ones are being
built.
- Mark Williams,
Technology
Review,
February 2005
LONDON
-- Major oil companies are replacing dwindling reserves by
acquiring other oil companies instead of exploring for new
fields, a strategic shift with implications for global oil
supplies, investment bank Credit Suisse First Boston said
in a report Monday.
Integrated
oil companies are spending only 12% of their total capital
expenditures on finding new oil fields, down from nearly a
third in 1990, the report said. Integrated oil companies
like U.S. super-major ExxonMobil Corp (XOM) have upstream
oil exploration and pumping and downstream refining and
marketing operations.
In
addition, with the world's biggest oil companies convinced
exploration is too costly and risky, the steady growth of
the world's total oil reserves has fallen sharply, the bank
said. Global oil reserves are being replaced at a rate of
1.2% a year in the last three years, compared to 2.3% over
the last 20 years, even as oil demand growth is hitting new
records with China and India becoming industrial powers,
the bank said.
-- Dow Jones Newswire, January
17, 2005
FACT TWO
-
Let's forget about economic growth, how about just
offsetting declines. If Mr. Raymond's curve reflects
reality we would still have to find about 30 Gb/yr. How are
we doing?
From
http://www.ems.org/rls/2004/01/28/oil_supply_short.html
we
find the following:
The
rate of major new oil field discoveries has fallen
dramatically in recent years. [Global discovery peaked in
the 1960s. Per capita energy production peaked in 1979.
-Ed] There
were 13 discoveries of over 500 million barrels in 2000,
six in 2001 and just two in 2002, according to the
industry analysts IHS Energy. For 2003, not a single new
discovery over 500 million barrels has been reported.
Key findings of a recent Petroleum Review report
are:
•
Between 2003 and early 2007 some 8 million barrels/day of
new capacity is expected to come on stream.
• In
2005, 18 projects with a potential peak capacity of 3
million barrels a day are due to come on stream, slowing in
2006 with 11 new projects followed by 3 in 2007, and 3 in
2008 adding a cumulative 4 million barrels/day of potential
new capacity at their peak.
• It
appears likely that from 2007, the volumes of new
production will fall short of the need to replace lost
capacity from depleting older
fields.
Further
confirming this trend, recent E&D results strongly
support the expectation of a near term peak in oil
production. The net present value of all discoveries for
the 5 oil majors during 2001/2/3 was less than their
exploration costs.
-- Murray Duffin,
Energy
Pulse,
November 17, 2004
(These calculations were
confirmed by the Oil Depletion Analysis
Centre of the UK in November 2004
and by FTW's
Dale Allen
Pfeiffer's independent calculations in February of
2004. There was not a single
discovery of a 500 Mb field in 2003 and - as far as we
know (as of this writing) the same holds true for 2004.
The world is currently consuming a billion barrels of
oil every eleven and one half days.)
Fact Three
--
Look at this imbalance: The average American consumes 25
barrels of oil a year. In China, the average is about 1.3
barrels per year; in India, less than
one…
The
challenge is huge. For China and India to reach just
one-quarter of the level of US oil consumption, world
output would have to rise by 44 percent. To get to half the
US level, world production would need to nearly double.
That's impossible. The world's oil reserves are finite. And
the view is spreading that global oil output will soon
peak.
--
The Christian Science Monitor, January 20, 2005
These three facts alone dictate
a global mêlée over oil and that is in fact what is
happening. It seems clear now that the world's major oil
consuming nations have decided to position themselves to
control as much oil as possible before the now certain 2007
cliff event. The first fact underscores a point
FTW
has been making for
years now. Even if Peak Oil was some fabrication (hard to
believe at this point), the world is behaving as though it
were quite real and imminent. The fact that there is
virtually no exploration or refinery construction means
that the majors understand clearly that there is no more
significant oil to find and their investments would never
be paid off.
As the following maps disclose, events in just the last
year reveal the building frenzy behind these conflicts
which are threatening to escalate to military conflict
soon. Sometimes a picture is worth more
than a thousand
words.
BATTLE LINES BEING DRAWN
China is by far the most aggressive player. It has moved on
almost every continent to buy (with US dollars while they
still have value) existing oil fields. A recent deal
between China and Venezuela must be making Washington and
Wall Street wince. The Venezuelan national PdVSA oil
company owns more than 10,000 US Citgo gas stations. Could
Washington sit idly by if Venezuela started shipping gas
meant for Kansas City or Little Rock to Shanghai?
Recently, in two bold moves China made offers to purchase a
large interest in Alberta's tar sands and placed an
outright offer to buy America's Unocal for $13 billion
cash. Unocal holds large leases in the waters off of
Southeast Asia. Those leases do not suggest there are large
finds to be made. They would have been developed had that
been the case. This region has been explored thoroughly.
China's interest is in getting even the smaller reserves
close by because of its insatiable demand.
However Canada's national government in Ottawa has
moved to thwart
China's Alberta
investment, provoking angry responses from the Alberta
government which is concerned about jobs and income.
Alberta wants to do a deal with China. China wants to do
a deal with Alberta. Even though tar sands recovery is
anything but energy efficient or profitable, China could
care less about the destruction of Alberta's landscape.
In World War II the Nazi government of Adolf Hitler made
synthetic crude oil from coal. In war it was damn the
costs and forget the inefficiency or insustainability.
War machines need oil. Economies need oil.
The Ottawa move could not have occurred without impetus
from Washington. So if the US blocks China from Canada's
tar sands and Unocal, China's already desperate oil hunt
becomes even more urgent and frenzied.
The recent ill-founded and almost comical reports of
Chinese suspects linked to al-Qaeda turning up in Boston is
another (Karl) Rovian preparation of the American people
for future conflict with China. Rove is banking that the
same 70% of Americans who believed that 9/11 was
perpetrated by Saddam Hussein will buy this one too.
Russia is either already selling or
contemplating the sale of air-to-ground and anti-armor
missiles to Iran, Syria and Venezuela. Still smarting
from its geostrategic loss in Ukraine, it is far from
out of the game. As I recently observed of this new
wrinkle:
"Remember
that arms races become economically self-propelled
Frankensteins on their own. It's the way money works. This
progression of events is historically characteristic of all
previous warfare.
"Homo
Sapiens survived the Cold War because (especially on the
issue of nukes) both sides were controlled by the same
interests and money. MAD was never going to happen anyway.
Not then...
"There
are no such restraints now.
"But
also, the planet is rising up in resistance as Lilliputians
or gnats to torment the giant in any way possible. The
revolution has begun. It is asymmetric. It is even outside
of any previously-described legal definition of
'revolution' that I know of. The world is just saying "No"
and it seems to mean it."
AFRICA
But far and away, from FTW's
perspective Africa
is where we are most likely to see conflict in the short
term. Africa's undeveloped reserves are larger and Africa
itself is less under US hegemonic control. A clear sign of
this was a recent seven-nation tour by Iranian President
al-Khatami to the African continent, followed almost
immediately by announcement of a pending oil development
agreement with Nigeria and a completed one with The Ivory
Coast. Bribery is a way of life in the region and the US
can play this game better than anyone. It remains to be
seen whether West African leadership can withstand the
temptation long enough to do a real deal with Iran. Already
this year the French government has sent its Mirage
fighter-bombers on strafing runs in the Ivory Coast. We
should expect a coup there fairly soon.
The signs are clear. With the rest of the world lining up
behind Iran, Iran obviously feels confident enough to go
head to head with the US in Africa, banking on the fact
that much of Africa's people and leadership understand
clearly that the US - as one State Department observer
quipped - has only one interest in Africa: oil.
How many wars can the US fight? How big is Gulliver's
reach? These Lilliputians are not gathering in one
convenient place to be swatted. They are spreading Gulliver
very thin and showing no fear. How long before shots are
fired; first in proxy wars, then in direct superpower
confrontations?
That time cannot be far off.
As you look at the following maps bear in mind that all of
these developments have taken place within just the last
year and most within the last six months. These images show
clearly the rate at which the world has begun playing the
end game for oil.
Please
click on either image to view the full size version.
