Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Are we ready for 100 USD barrel oil again?

The recent increase of Oil prices may indicate we are reaching the peak oil of most of the big reservoirs worldwide. The giant Saudi Gwar field is drilled horizontally to extend the plateau prior the natural declination.
What scares me is that the declination of those fields may be dramatically quick.  I do not think we are prepared at the moment to change so quickly our economic model based on  oil to an alternative reliable source or energy.
The world consumes 25 billion barrels a year and the consumption rate will increase mainly derived by China economy, as an example every month a million cars are sold and that only requires and additional million barrels of oil every day. If we see the new discovered oil reserves are insignificant with the increase in consumption that we are facing.
I believe is time to invest in exploration technology that will allow us to go beyond the limits; like drill in ultra deepwater offshore and Artic exploration.
I think the strategy of selling assets at this moment is not reasonable; will look good in paper in the short term, but will be in trouble when investors evaluate the reserve replacement portfolio. As a logic consequence the share value is compromised.
On the contrary is important to discover more reserves, by the drill bit or acquiring key assets worldwide securing the best fields with proven reserves, this is the trend Chinese oil companies are following today are they on the right track?.

Look forward for your comments!, have a nice and productive work week.

See ya soon!

Driller