Re: [Marxism] Fw: Peak oil redux

["S. Artesian" <sartesian@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

For some reason this didn't make it into the "home delivery" function of the 
list yesterday so at the risk of repeating myself for only the 102nd time:

No doubt at some point in the future the oil will be depleted, but that is
NOT what happened before, and that is not what is happening to explain the
movement of oil prices.  Didn't happen in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 98, 2001, 2003,
2007, 2008, or 2009.

The world is in no danger of running out of oil.  The issue is return on
investment.

We've been through this a hundred times, and a hundred and one times I will
repeat:

1. the data used by peak oil theorists is selective, and purposefully skewed
to support not theories but an ideology.

2. worldwide reserves have not declined with increased production but have
in fact increased.

3. yes, oil production peaked in the US in 1970, and that was a function of
the rate of profit.  It also peaked in Venezuela, and that marked the big
shift to the importation of Saudi oil,  where production costs where 40% of
the world average.  Production costs in the Saudi fields have not increased
markedly.  As a matter of fact, production costs in the "difficult" areas of
the Norwegian fields of the North Sea are below $10/barrel.

4. Venezuela's production declined beginning in 1970s despite the fact that
known, proved ORDINARY [as opposed to the super-heavy Orinoco basin
reserves] more than doubled between the 1970s and 1990s.

5. What does not apply to oil, peak theory, applies even less, or doesn't
apply even more to natural gas, natural gas liquids, methyl hydrates.

6.  The issue for the bourgeoisie is profitability.  Reserves are defined
ECONOMICALLY, not geologically.

7.  You want to factor the US silk road strategy and the war in Iraq?  I
agree.  The war in Iraq was determined not by the shortage of oil, but by
its overproduction, with the decline in prices and ROI of 2002 providing the
final push.  The war was designed not to hoard supplies, but to drive the
price up.

8.  We live in a different world now?  No we don't.  We live in the world of
capitalist accumulation.


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