GregPalast/Chavez oil stats vs. Peak Oil ....Who's right ?

[EVDebs]

Greg Palast's interview with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela states that Chavez believes Venezuela has more oil in reserves than the entire Middle East

NO MORE CHEAP OIL SAYS CHAVEZ
BBC Newsnight
Monday April 3, 200

""US Department of Energy analyses seen by Newsnight show that at $50 a
barrel Venezuela - not Saudi Arabia - will have the biggest oil reserves
in OPEC. Venezuela has vast deposits of extra heavy oil in the Orinoco.
Traditionally these have not been counted because at $20 a barrel they
were too expensive to exploit - but at $50 a barrel melting them into
liquid petroleum becomes extremely profitable.

The US DoE report shows that at today's prices Venezuela's oil reserves
are bigger than those of the entire Middle East including Saudi Arabia,
the Gulf states, Iran and Iraq. The US DoE also identifies Canada as
another future oil superpower. Venezuela's deposits alone could extend
the oil age for another 100 years.

The US DoE estimates that Chavez controls 1.3 trillion barrels of oil -
more than the entire declared oil reserves of the rest of the planet.
Hugo Chavez told Newsnight's Greg Palast that "Venezuela has the largest
oil reserves in the world. In the future Venezuela won't have any more
oil - but that's in the 22nd century. Venezuela has oil for 200 years."
Chavez will ask the OPEC meeting in June to formally accept that
Venezuela's reserves are now bigger than Saudi Arabia's. ""

Also see The Guardian's article at
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1745467,00.html

In most reports of Peak Oil, I've read that the entire world has only 1 trillion barrels of oil remaining in reserve. Are the US DoE reports more of Bush administration 'catapulting of propaganda' or is Chavez just trying for a higher oil price in order to avoid the laws of supply and demand ? In other words, is Chavez's big mouth creating conditions for military action against Venezuela (or covert subversion of his administration) by demanding a higher oil price, which would have gone down anyway had reports of the DoE been made public and put into media awareness ?

What the heck is going on here, folks, if we're in Iraq for oil and permanent bases to secure said oil, and now we have THIS going on ?

BTW, world oil reserves by country 2005 show differently than the DoE's report

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0872964.html

but contradicted with another DoE report used as source for this chart

""Source: Oil & Gas Journal, Vol. 102, No. 47 (Dec. 10, 2004). From: U.S. Energy Information Administration. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/petroleu.html ""

[mdmc]

1. lots of oil in the ME

:shrug:

[EVDebs]

8. Peak Oil says world has only enough oil for about 25 more years

1 trillion barrels left with daily consumption of around 85 million barrels (today) and projected to rise to 120 million barrels per day soon. The arithmetic shows between 22 to 27 years left; I'm assuming higher demand, therefore more like 20 years left.

This is why guys like Sen McCain prefer sustained presence in the ME
"When asked this week on CNN how long the U.S. military is likely to remain in Iraq, Senator John McCain replied "probably" 10 or 20 years. "That's not so bad," he said"

Heads In The Sand
www.spectrumz.com/z/fair_use/2004/09_04.html

[The2ndWheel]

2. CIA/Oil corporation plant

Come on, what better cover than a Socialist President of Venezuela?

Chavez signs a death pact with the rest of them, they try and "overthrow" him a couple times, strike a deal with Robertson to call for his head, he eventually gets the US military deep into Venezuela.

Almost a perfect plan.

[Marie26]

3. I can't even tell if you're kidding or not. nt

[The2ndWheel]

10. I am

We'd never see it coming though.

[Marie26]

14. That's for sure!

Brilliant plan. :)

[400Years]

5. lay down the crack pipe

[The2ndWheel]

12. What else would I do at work? nt

[Nederland]

4. Hugo Chavez is right

Peak Oil advocates have a long history of being wrong.

[400Years]

9. we're not talking about light sweet crude here

[EVDebs]

16. So why did Nixon plan to seize Saudi oil fields in '73 and what are

we doing in Iraq (securing similar vast oil fields) for ?

Britain Says US Planned to Seize Oil in '73 Crisis
www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0102-01.htm

[Nederland]

24. Do you actually think

that we're making money on Iraq? Please, Iraq is costing us trillions...

[AX10]

6. Did the US DoE actually prove this?

[TheBaldyMan]

7. You nailed it with the grade of oil in question

It is possible to use hydrocracker technology to break down the heavy stuff down into shorter hydrocarbon chains. This means that a greater proportion of the base feed stock can be fractionated into usable petroleum products.

As the article mentions Canadian oil sands can also benefit from his technology. Saudi Oil reserves are heavy but not as difficult to extract as the Venezuelan and Canadian reserves. There are also technologies that can produce oil products from coal as well as the original source of oil - oil bearing shale.

Shale was abandoned as a source of oil because sources that were easier to exploit were found and coal was used in Nazi-occupied Europe in WWII.

Increasing prices could re-activate incentive to exploit these sources but would still be more expensive and the US would still be stuck with $3.00+ gasoline prices.

edited for typos & errors

[EVDebs]

11. So, Chavez is ACTUALLY helping the US et al by pegging oil at $50

So, why is BushCo going after this guy ?

[TheBaldyMan]

15. That grade of crude isn't economic to exploit at much lower prices

Bushco hates him because he robs from the rich and gives to the poor.

[EVDebs]

17. Or Chavez may be supporting the Iranian Petro-Euro bourse

and the DoE's figures, which in the InfoPlease reserves chart I mentioned above shows DoE estimating smaller recoverable reserves. If higher priced oil (at around 5% of per barrel price, the US economy can only go to a price of $6 per gallon according to a PBS simulation/documentary) !

Goldman Sachs even said $110 per barrel was a possibility.

[TheBaldyMan]

22. the US has hardly any tax on its gas so $pb prices hit US hard

here in the UK/EU gas is very heavily taxed so a doubling of oil prices barely registers. Try $18/gal when $15 is tax and you get the idea.

An increase to $6/gal would translate to $21/gal here. a tough hike in price but not unbearable. EU fuel standards are a lot tougher, SUVs are very heavily taxed, no tax breaks for SUV manufacturers and many more compacts because of the sky-high fuel prices.

No mass market car with a 22mpg SUV would sell in the UK. There would be a couple of 'petrol-heads' that would get one but nothing to pull GM out of the hole.

My advice - take the tin-foil hat off and buy a compact that does 45+ miles per gallon.

[stillcool]

13. I was under the impression.....

that it's like a poker game, and nobody knows who's holding. The reserves are what ever the gov says they are.....speculate?

[EVDebs]

18. DoE is lying in order to try to destabilize Chavez. eom

[sweetheart]

20. yes, my impression as well

Everyone needs observe that chavez AND bush are riding
the luck of big-energy... they are "powered" by the
oil price, both of them. Chavez has more reserves at
a higher extraction price, and Bush (well we know).

I suspect, that in the further future, economic historians
knowing how much oil actually *was* discovered over the
centuries, will see how price inflation was used by
various political clans for war profiteering.

Misinformation is the weapon, poker indeed.

[MadHound]

19. Rather than the US being bent over an oil barrel, no matter who owns it

Why not put the US on a path to energy self sufficiency? We have plenty of wind, enough to power the fulfill US electrical needs, we have hybrid technologies, and farmlands in which to grow the crops for biodiesel. We have absolutely got to improve our battery technology, but other than that:shrug: I don't really see what is preventing us from weaning ourselves off of oil and other non-renewable resources. Profit and short sightedness is all that I can think of.

[Up2Late]

21. You wouldn't know this from the "News" but Canada is our #1 supplier

<http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_a.htm>

Saudi Arabia only supply a small amount of our imports, something like 23-25%.

Imports in Thousands of
Barrels per year ---2000 --- 2001 --- 2002 ---2003 --- 2004 --- 2005

Saudi Arabia ---- 575,274/ 606,753/ 566,512/ 647,666/ 570,137/ 556,006

Venezuela ------- 565,865/ 566,996/ 510,362/ 502,328/ 568,944/ 549,535

Canada ---------- 661,351/ 667,374/ 719,334/ 756,354/ 782,598/ 792,691

Mexico ---------- 502,509/ 525,557/ 564,497/ 592,466/ 609,225/ 600,676

[TheBaldyMan]

23. looks like the big four won't be going over to the euro in a rush

unless they actually sell more oil to the EU.

Prepare to invade Canada.

[robertpaulsen]

25. I don't think you have to choose between believing the stats or Peak Oil.

It's quite possible Chavez/Palast is correct. That has no bearing on whether world oil production will peak, but it might possibly affect when.


A couple things, though. The articles connected with this story seem to say two conflicting things. They say Chavez wants to upgrade the amount of proven reserves Venezuela has to 312b barrels. That's significantly less than 1.3 trillion barrels. So what exactly does that mean when the DoE says Chavez controls 1.3 trillion barrels? The meaning is pretty murky.

But let's be clear: no one is saying that we now have 1.3 trillion barrels more than we thought we had. Chavez says he has 312 billion barrels, DoE thought he had 77.2 billion. That's a difference of 234.8 billion barrels. That's still quite an amazing "unknown" quantity of oil there. But not enough to keep the peak away for too long.