Yet Another Study Predicting a 'Worldwide Glut of Oil'

We face a worldwide glut of oil, with profound economic and geopolitical implications, most of them good ... So much for peak oil. According to a fascinating new study by Leonardo Maugeri of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the the John F Kennedy School of Government, we should stop worrying about when the oil runs out and get ready for $70 a barrel prices (using the Brent benchmark). Likely supply of the black stuff has been significantly underestimated, he reckons, with a veritable glut of new production due to come on stream over the next eight years. – UK Telegraph

Dominant Social Theme: OIl is scarce, damnit!

Free-Market Analysis: There are many opportunities for us to say "told you so," as the 2000s wind on. We've been "on the money" about gold and silver going up, about the establishment of an Islamic crescent arc in the Middle East and generally about the elite's phony scarcity memes ... which brings us to Peak Oil.

Less than a year ago, we posted an article entitled, "America's New Production and the Farce of Peak Oil." Here's an excerpt:

We have been writing about the economic illiteracy that supports Peak Oil for nearly a decade now. We have always believed it to be a kind of propaganda – a dominant social theme advanced by the Anglosphere power elite for purposes of control and further exploitation.

The great Western banking families always float scarcity memes as a way to consolidate control and further expand global governance. In fact, if the Peak Oil meme is now going out of fashion, this may only mean that some other kind of propagandistic measures is about to be initiated. We don't know what it is but we can guess, as it seems obvious and evident that the powers-that-be are trying to form pan-national building blocks for world government. The EU is supposed to be one and the North American Union – a merger of Mexico, Canada and the US – is supposed to be another.

This sudden "discovery" of the Americas' potential for energy sufficiency may be a way of tying together North and South American economies. By making energy available within the Americas, a certain degree of continental solidarity may be fostered, along with a number of binding political and economic ties.

Here's the link to that story: "America's New Production and the Farce of Peak Oil."

Here are two more links on the farce of Peak Oil:

"Peak Oil"

"Libertarian Truths and the Big Lie of Peak Oil ... Now Confirmed?"

As we've observed, reports about increased oil production and potential production are beginning to become more plentiful within the mainstream media ... as plentiful as expanded oil discoveries themselves.

This article in the Telegraph is just one more reversing the tide of gloom and doom fostered by the power elite's scarcity memes. The idea of these dominant social themes is to panic people into accepting globalist solutions to non-existent problems.

What we call the Internet Reformation has made the propagation of these memes increasingly questionable and now it would seem for Peak Oil, anyway, that the floodgates are opening. Here's some more from the Telegraph article:

Here's the relevant bit of Mr Maugeri's analysis: Based on original bottom up, field by field analysis of most oil exploration and development projects in the world, this paper suggests that an unrestricted, additional production (the level of production targeted by each single project, according to its schedule, unadjusted for risk) of more than 49 million barrels per day of oil (crude oil, and natureal gas liquids, or NGLs) is targeted for 2020, the equivalent of more than half the current world production capacity of 93mbd.

Even adjusting this figure for risk factors, the additional production by 2020 could be 29mbd. Factoring in depletion rates from currently producing fields reduces the net gain to around 17.6mbd, but even this would represent the most significant percentage gain in any decade since the 1980s.

Where's all this stuff coming from? Since 2003, the industry has been engaged in an unparalleled investment cycle to meet growing world demand, which reached its climax from 2010 onwards. Three year investment in oil and gas exploration and production was more than $1.5 trillion.

As can be seen ... production increases almost everywhere, with "unconventional oils", such as US shale/tight oils, Canadian tar sands, and Brazil's pre-salt oils, accounting for a growing proportion ...

This all looks very encouraging. According to Mr Maugeri, all but 20pc of this new production is economic at $70 a barrel, so depending on demand by 2020, the price could fall a lot lower once all that new supply comes on stream. It looks as if we going to be able to get down and dirty with oil for a long time yet.

There's a tonality of surprise in the article, but really there shouldn't be. There are so many reasons to suspect the narrative of Peak Oil that the only real surprise is how long it's taken the lies to collapse.

In fact, the same nonsensical scarcity theme was last peddled aggressively in the 1970s, a time that parallels the current decade-plus in uncanny ways.

It is not clear to us why the power elite behind scarcity memes has sought to mimic so much of the 1970s in these slightly more modern times. But obviously, they have some sort of playbook. The simplest argument is that the elites are simply nudging us toward a "greener" world within a do-able timeline. The 1970s began the process and the 2000s have continued it.

Is a "greener" world as the elites conceive of it an admirable environment? Not from our point of view. It would simply be a more controlled one that would support ever-more intrusive global governance. We always believed this was the goal of Peak Oil promotions and it's gratifying to see these scarcity memes begin to dissipate.

It cannot be repeated too often: Austrian economics and human action show us clearly that we have little to fear regarding a catastrophic collapse of civilization from a resource standpoint.

People have the ability of foresight and most calamities are visible far away and easily ameliorated with some planning. Oil itself may be abiotic and in any event, were oil to really start to run out, chances are something else would take its place fairly smoothly.

It is important to debunk elite scarcity propaganda wherever possible, for it eases the grip that elites have tried to obtain. Whether it is food, water, air or oil ... we have more to fear from fellow humans than any sudden scarcity.

Conclusion: Our "elites" are far more of a problem than any phony scarcities they promote. Debunking scarcity memes is perhaps the easy part.