Group bets $100,000 against rosy oil supply forecast

Friday, February 08, 2008

From a press release issued by Association for the Study of Peak Oil-USA (ASPO-USA):

HOUSTON (Feb. 6, 2008) – A group of businessmen and energy experts who believe that global oil production will soon peak, plateau and decline has issued a $100,000 wager to Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), a prominent oil forecasting think tank. Members of the challenger group also renewed an invitation to hold a public debate on the issue of peak oil with CERA.

The group is betting against CERA’s June 2007 forecast that world oil production capacity will reach 112 million barrels per day (mmb/d) by 2017, which extrapolates* to107 mmb/d of actual production, up from about 87 million barrels today. CERA will hold its annual conference in Houston next week.

“CERA is forecasting an addition of 20 million barrels within a decade,” said Steve Andrews, co-founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil-USA (ASPO-USA). “That’s a vision in search of reality. Anything is possible on paper, but we are betting you can’t do that with the drill bit.”

The challenger group also notes that CERA called for a civil dialogue on peak oil, but then declined several invitations to engage in such a conversation. Andrews said members of ASPO-USA would be happy to debate the issue, during CERA week, or at another time and place that is mutually convenient.

The 11 members of the betting pool have issued the wager to raise awareness about the fragile state of the world’s future oil supplies. Participants include Jeremy Gilbert (former Chief Petroleum Engineer for British Petroleum), Matt Simmons (Houston energy banker), Jean Laherrere (retired oil executive), Herman Franssen (economist), Marvin Gottlieb (businessman), Jim Baldauf (ASPO-USA co-founder), Steve Andrews, Bob Kanner (investment manager), Scott Pugh (retired Captain U.S. Navy), Aage Figenschou (oil industry, shipping), and Randy Udall (ASPO-USA co-founder) and Andrews.