Oil and gas may run short by 2015 according to what was said by industry experts from the National Petroleum Council (NPC) at their 117th meeting in Washington, USA, on July 18. They reached this conclusion after finishing their 422-pages report, called “Facing the Hard Truths about Energy: A Comprehensive View to 2030 of Global Oil and Natural Gas”, which is the most explicit study ever carried out into this industry.
The NPC is a body of 175 authorities that reports to the US government and includes heads of world’s biggest petroleum companies, such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Occidental Petroleum, Shell and British Petroleum. The report was prepared by more than 350 specialists in the field.
It says that car fuel efficiency should be increased “at the maximum rate possible” and there should be a crackdown on 4x4s. It further calls for “aggressive energy efficiency standards” for buildings and measures to “set an effective cost for emitting carbon dioxide” to combat global warming.
The oil experts warned that “humanity is approaching an unprecedented crisis when not enough oil and gas will be produced to keep industrial civilisation running”. This is the first time the industry has accepted and admitted that soon it may no longer be able to meet demand for oil and gas products. It has been acknowledged by both US and European specialists.
“Accumulating risks to the supply of reliable, affordable energy: require an integrated national strategy,” according to the report. “Over the next 25 years the US and the world face hard truths about the global energy future,” that will require “all economic, environmentally responsible energy sources to assure adequate, reliable supply” the report further said.
“The world is not running out of energy resources (renewable energy sources can never end),” the NPC report concluded, “but many complex challenges could keep the world’s diverse energy resources from becoming the sufficient, reliable, and economic energy supplies upon which people depend. ... While risks have always typified the energy business, they are now accumulating and converging in new ways”.
More information can be found at www.npc.org
