[Peakoil] Oil production limit reached: expert

[Antony Barry]

 From http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1682899.htm

Oil production limit reached: expert

An international oil industry expert says the limit of global oil  
production has been reached.

Academic and former National Iranian Oil Company executive Dr Ali  
Samsam Bakhtiari has told the Financial Services Institute in Sydney  
the world's oil fields are producing as much oil as they can.

He says giant fields in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are struggling to  
meet production targets.

Dr Bakhtiari says the massive output declines in the North Sea oil  
fields and Mexican oil fields will have a major economic impact.

"Crude oil is the master domino," he said. "When you tumble crude  
oil, all the other dominos tumble."

Dr Bakhtiari says for the first time in 150 years, the world is  
entering an era in which it cannot have all the oil it wants.

He says there are five years left to plan priorities for the use of  
crude oil.

"Some countries don't even know what is happening," he said.

"Some huge companies don't even know what is happening and they are  
going to be ambushed and trapped and they are going to panic.

"The worst thing you can do is to panic when the prices are going to  
go sky-high."

He says he does not know how high the price of crude oil has to go to  
reduce demand but so far, it has tripled in four years.

He says OPEC is already producing as much as it can and new  
discoveries are small.

"The problem will become the day that you cannot optimise by price,"  
he said.

"You will have to optimise by availability, so there won't be oil for  
everyone."

ABC TV's Four Corners program this week examines the state of the  
world's oil reserves. The full program can be seen at 8:30pm tonight.


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