[Texgreen] World oil may have peaked already

[Roger Baker]

[In any case there's not a certain enough supply to be building major  
new roads (especially with borrowed money) until the supply situation  
is better understood or a new Saudi Arabia pops up. -- Roger]



http://www.platts.com/Oil/News/6360268.xml?

Congressman says US report points to arrival of peak oil

Washington (Platts)--28Feb2007

A draft US Government Accountability Office report finds that, though it
is difficult to assess whether the world has reached "peak oil," a large
number of experts surveyed for the report believe the world may have  
reached
the peak for conventional petroleum supplies, said Representative Roscoe
Bartlett, Republican-Maryland.

      Bartlett, who has raised concerns that the world has produced  
more oil
than remains in reserves, ordered the report from GAO -- the nonpartisan
investigative arm of Congress -- and will release it within the next  
month.

      He said the report authors did not get a fix on how much oil is  
left in
the world because principal oil suppliers would offer no information  
about how
much oil they have left.

      "They have no reason to tell us and little reason to be truthful,"
Bartlett said, so it is "very difficult to determine a date specific"  
when the
world will reach peak oil.

      But he added that the GAO report found that "the largest number of
[experts] believe that it has occurred, that conventional supplies have
peaked."

      Jim Wells, director of the natural and resources and  
environment division
at GAO, told the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations
Subcommittee at a hearing Wednesday that the report includes a  
recommendation
related to the lack of reliable data on world oil supplies. Wells  
also said
the report provides "an extensive look at ... the academic and  
scientific
community and all the various studies that have been done, and has  
calculated
a consensus on where they think peak oil is in our future."

      Wells refused to provide more details on the report because he  
said
Bartlett has 30 days by law to do so before GAO can publish the results.

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