A message of hope?
With this last Update of the year, it is of course our first pleasure to wish all our readers a very fine Christmas and a good start in 2009, and that peace, strength and health may accompany you, your family and all humans for the coming period and year. Of course these wishes are also extended to those readers from other Religions and Calendars.
Allowing for some reflection of the past period, we may say that the world has been put into a fast period of change that may extend well into the coming years and of which the consequences cannot be seen yet. This period may be called “The Great Robbery” in coming history-books, or “the time when the world-economy was smashed” (not just “crashed”, not the difference!) or just “the great change-over”, as we may see the balances in the world shift from uni-polar to more multi-polar.
Whatever has happened and is happening, we may only be able to appreciate in a few years, as the results of change become more visible, and also their causes, but we may already know that the repercussions for the oil & gas industry of the current rapid slide into a global recession will be vast and far-reaching.
The amount of announcements of project-cancellations and “indefinite delays” is increasing rapidly, as can be read in several sections of this Update, and most probably many more will follow in the coming months.
Oil-prices have gone from a historic high to an almost historic low in record time, putting not only many projects in jeopardy but also bringing most producer countries into trouble, especially if the current low-price-environment continues, which it probably will for some time.
Demand for oil, and to a certain extent also for gas, will probably go down next year as the global down-turn will start to speed up and deepen, most likely keeping prices low. This will prevent necessary investment into projects that will counter-balance the increasing world-wide depletion, which will continue, even as the insistent and wide-spread “concern and anticipation” on the assumed rapid depletion of the main Saudi-Arabian mega-fields turned out to be false.
Whilst a Message of Hope is often spread around this time of Christmas, it will be unrealistic to already hope for “better times”, as we are just at the beginning of this turbulent period. But what we may hope for is that one day, hopefully soon, the people behind the current developments, behind the unnecessary wars, behind the state-funded terrorism and behind the many “false-flag-operations” at many levels, may be brought to Justice and Responsibility. The world will be a better place for it.
Rest me to wish “all the best” to our readers and that you may enjoy some peace-of-mind and maybe some rest and will find strength and stability to encounter the challenges that will no-doubt be part of life and living in 2009.
Alexander
Commentaries are always welcome at alexander@gas-oil-power.com
