BP’s chief economist Christof Rühl has expressed his opinion on Peak Oil. Yet another economist that has difficulty understanding what Peak Oil is. I think that the shareholders in BP should be worried about their future. What opinions do you have on this statement?
In an interview with EurActive he made the following statement (read intervie):
Question: But isn’t the result the same in terms of economic impact, whether it is peak oil or severely restricted access?
Rühl: “No, the result is not the same. Because this situation will react to prices and other fuels becoming available, and it will react to low prices and to these barriers coming down again. Physical peak oil, which I have no reason to accept as a valid statement either on theoretical, scientific or ideological grounds, would be insensitive to prices. In fact the whole hypothesis of peak oil – which is that there is a certain amount of oil in the ground, consumed at a certain rate, and then it’s finished – does not react to anything. Whereas we believe that whatever can be turned into oil strongly depends on technology and technology depends on prices as well.
Therefore there will never be a moment when the world runs out of oil because there will always be a price at which the last drop of oil can clear the market. And you can turn anything into oil if you are willing to pay the financial and environmental price. It is more likely that demand will peak, which is what we are seeing in Japan and in Europe. And then of course there is another constraint. The human capacity of digging hydrocarbons out of the ground and burning them and turning them into energy seems to be much larger than the atmospheric capacity to absorb the resulting CO2. That is likely to be more of a natural limit than all these peak oil theories combined. Peak oil has been predicted for 150 years. It has never happened, and it will stay this way.”
(Swedish)
BP:s chefsekonom Christof Rühl har uttalat sig om Peak Oil. Ytterligare en ekonom som har svårt att förstå vad Peak Oil är. Jag tycker att aktieägarna i BP skall vara oroliga för framtiden. Vad har ni för åsikter om uttalandet här ovan?
Uttalandet är gjord i en intervju med EurActiv.com.
Aleklett's Energy Mix 
Michael Lardelli
October 6, 2008
Everyone has the right to say any stupid and/or ignorant thing they want. Christof Rühl is no exception. The really irritating thing however is these leaders will never be held to account for their stupidity. In one year they earn what would take a normal person several lifetimes to accumulate and they make decisions ultimately affecting the lives of millions but even when oil production is down 50% in a few decades they will never admit to the reality of peak oil – or they will pretend that they always supported the idea. All the power, all the money and no responsibility. (How can there be responsibility when you could work for one year and then quit and please yourself for several lifetimes of average living standard? Where is the risk in poor performance?)
aleklett
October 6, 2008
This is a response from Colin Campbell, how has framed the expression Peak Oil:
BP is one of the world’s largest oil companies with a long and glorious history having pioneered the discovery of oil in the Middle East and North Sea, as well as bringing in the largest field in North America. It is therefore surprising to find the company’s chief economist make the following statement that appears to deny any knowledge of natural depletion which must be more than evident in many of the company’s own fields.
It is hard to accept that even the flattest of flat-earth economists can have failed to observe the depletion of oil in his own country, where the peak of discovery in 1974 delivered a corresponding peak of production in 1999 despite the application of the most advanced technology and an open market environment. The world is made up many different producing countries, each having its own depletion profile. As many as 52 are now producing less than at same date in the past, which suggests that many have passed their natural peak, as imposed by the limits of Nature and the immutable physics of the reservoir.
It is true that we may never find and produce the last gallon, hidden in some remote corner of the Planet, but it is extremely irresponsible for an oil company spokesman to say that Peak production will never happen. While he may be ignorant of the world situation, he could at least reveal when his own company passed the peak of its discovery, which is probably long ago, and must inevitably deliver a corresponding peak of production, notwithstanding all the remarkable advances in technology.
brodeur
October 20, 2008
Det kan bero på att ni inte förstår vad han säger. Så en bild på en glad Alektett i DI där det gafflades om Peak oil. Det som har hänt är att efterfrågan har fallit och ingenting annat. Då faller priset. Oljeefterfrågan är oelastiskt i det korta perspektivet men när elasticiteten väl sätter in efter ett tag så byter man teknologi och går inte tillbaka bara för att oljan blir billigare. Efterfrågan kommer att falla drastiskt med den politiska agenda som nu råder. Lyssna på Presidentkandidaterna i USA och de CO2 tokiga EU topparna.