"World oil crisis looms" and other mostly harmless developments

As far as marvelous news go you can't ask for more than the respected news service Jane's. Recently published and partly accessible for free: World Oil Crisis Looms:

Other companies and even governments have hyped up the estimates of how much oil they have, which is a vital factor in measuring their economic health. If exaggeration proves to be widespread, it would have an immense impact on the Middle East, whose economic weight is almost totally dependent on oil and natural gas.
....
Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that internal documents and other data indicated that Shell had over estimated its proven oil reserves in Oman by as much as 40 per cent. But that seems to have been done because everyone hoped that the latest drilling techniques would reach more deposits than in the past and merit upgrading the estimates of reserves.

The Oman estimates were based on assessments made in May 2000 by a senior Shell executive who was subsequently fired. He was among several executives who were said to have known about the unrealistic estimates of reserves and to have done nothing about it.

If the exaggeration is confirmed, the estimate of recoverable oil will have to be lowered. That is bad news for Oman, which claims reserves of 5.4bn barrels and is heavily dependent on oil and gas exports but it is also bad news for the world as a whole.

As the world's natural resources shrink and global warming changes the environment, competition for unimpeded access to them has intensified and will continue to do so. About four-fifths of the world's known oil reserves lie in politically unstable or contested regions.

It is worth considering that a great proportion of the world's remaining oil exists in a roughly triangular basin between Oman, Kirkuk in northern Iraq and southeastern Iran. Easy territory. Also if the Ghawar fields in eastern Saudi Arabia continue to steeply decline then that country will really feel the pinch.

Surely such minor matters as these wouldn't generate warfare for the next 20 years?

Posted by HongPong at April 24, 2004 01:54 AM
Listed under International Politics , Security .