Some Questions, no answers
In considering the current issue, a host of questions came up, for which there seem to be no answers.
* The official figures for demand are heading towards 110 mm bpd for 2020 and even higher for 2030. But with the current 82 – 85 mm bpd supply, it seems that the supply-chain is maxed out for the coming years. How is this going to fit?
* We are being told that the current CO2-levels are nearing dangerous levels, nevertheless the emissions are expected to increase substantially in the coming years. How does that fit?
* And what about the CH4, the NOx and the many other emissions?
* The “solution” to prevent further CO2-emissions is said to be, the currently still experimental, Carbon Capture and Sequestration (or Storage) CCS. But a CCS-installation doubles the costs of a power plant and decreases its efficiency with 20%. So for every 4 power plants with CCS a fifth need to be built just to cover the losses due to the CCS. Is this viable or sustainable?
* The Ministers of the OPEC-countries are unanimous in their assessment that the market is well-supplied at the moment, and different sources substantiate this. The price-increases are almost all due to excessive speculation, is being added. However, in the land of the excessive speculation the fingers are pointing in other directions and the blame is put at the emerging economies, something which is not substantiated by the figures. How is such a difference in perception possible? Or is something else going on?
* In several articles the ways of the speculation and its conscious uncontrollability is addressed, and the US Congress is starting to talk to take action against the “London Route”, one of the main back-doors for the speculators. At the same time new ways are being created, “dark pools”, to make speculation even more uncontrollable, whilst the US Government is keeping with its standpoint that speculation is only a “minor factor”. What is actually going on?
* To keep up with projected demand, vast amounts of projects, be it onshore-installations, offshore-platforms, tankers, power-plants, pipelines, LNG-installations, -tankers and –regasification installations and so much more, will need to be build. But at the same time there are currently hardly any projects that are ready in time and within budget due to skilled labour constraint and rising costs. How is that going to work?
These are just a few questions that came up in reading the contradictory runes of the moment, whilst looking into the future. The picture becomes ever more quagmirish.
On the financial side, of the oil-price and oil-price-projections, what arises is the sense that a small group of people is driving this, creating the projections and the self-fulfilling prophecies.
Until it changes…. and the change may come sudden and hard.
Alexander
P.s.: In Features, one of the interesting articles “How much water is needed to produce various types of energy?” gives a good overview on the water-usage for different energy-types.
Responses are always welcome at Alexander@gas-oil-power.com
