NYT: Shell Cuts 20% Off Estimates of Oil and Gas in Its Reserves

[stopbush]

So, you mean the people who said we're going to run out of oil sooner rather than later might be right?

Shell Cuts 20% Off Estimates of Oil and Gas in Its Reserves
By JONATHAN FUERBRINGER

Royal Dutch/Shell said yesterday that it was reducing its proven oil and gas reserves by 20 percent, a surprising announcement that raised questions about the company and about the tabulation of oil and gas reserves throughout the industry.

The morning disclosure sent the stocks of the two companies that control Shell, Europe's second-largest oil company, down more than 7 percent and left some analysts with doubts about the outlook for the company.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/10/business/10oil.html?pagewanted=print&position=

[kalian]

1. Scary, isn't it?

But there is no such thing as oil peak...or global warming...or
oh, nevermind :eyes:

[mouse7]

2. How do you lose 20% of the oil you have in the ground?

It's in the ground. That means it can't go anywhere.

[kalian]

5. You don't "lose it"....

you overestimate it...and THAT'S the key issue here about the
oil reserves.
Remember early last year there was much talk about the Caspian Sea
oil reserves... Well, it turned out to be less than HALF of what was
originally stated and the US quickly lost interest in the region.
We're lucky it turned out that way because we would have ended up
in a shooting war with the Russians... We'd all be glowing in the
dark right about now... :eyes:

[stopbush]

9. I think you mean they Overestimate it n/t

[kalian]

12. Yeah....heh

:D

[havocmom]

10. same accountants that cooked the books for ENRON and others?

Makes sense: Go out and tell everyone there is oodles of oil to last indefinately. Sell lots of stock to the common folk (the real jobs of COEs is to sell stock). Once you have gobbled up all the $$ average people could possibily invest (knowing some borrowed to invest)come clean and say "Sorry, it was all a mirage and sit pretty with everyone's nest egg safely tucked in your accounts offshore and your hand picked 'lawmakers' in power making sure that nothing you did was actually illegal by the means of letting you write the legislation which regulates you.

[ClintonTyree]

3. I can hear Condi Rice now....................

"who knew that the world would be running out of oil so soon? Had we known, the administration would have explored alternative fuels much sooner". Or something to that effect.

[Gin]

4. No...I see this as an oppoortunity for them to invade another country

and seize their natural resources. Stand by for the next move.

[kalian]

6. Only the US will be invading....

remember, Shell is a EUROPEAN oil company, NOT American.
The US is invading for its oil companies. War...is indeed a racket.

[stopbush]

7. Or, bush called in a chit to an oil buddy

to justify the changing reason for invading Iraq. I can hear him now: "So what if they didn't have WMD, so what if they weren't an imminent threat? It's a good thing we liberated Iraq or Saddam would have blown up all his oil..."

[mhr]

8. Peak Oil Peak Oil Peak Oil

Websites of interest include:

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Home.html
http://www.oilcrash.com/
http://www.wolfatthedoor.org.uk/
http://www.asponews.org
http://www.gulland.ca/depletion/depletion.htm
http://www.dieoff.org/
http://www.oilanalytics.org/
http://www.greatchange.org/
http://www.oilcrisis.com/
http://www.after-oil.co.uk/
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/
http://hubbert.mines.edu
http://www.museletter.com/archive/cia-oil.html

Energy Resources
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/

Alas Babylon
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlasBabylon/

Running on Empty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RunningOnEmpty2/

[reprobate]

11. Peak oil is the needle that will pop the american balloon.

While europe has been sinking fortunes into alternative fuels, we, as followers of the junta have been invading sovereign nations for their oil. That's like stealing an empty purse.

I've heard it said that internal combustion engines can be easily converted to use hydrogen for fuel. So instead of research to see how to cheaply convert to a hydrogen standard as a stopgap until the fuel cell becomes cheap and usefull, we insist on proping up the oil standard. There may come a time when the US controls most of the oil that's left, and it will be very expensive, but no one but us will want it.

When peak oil is reached, and it may within a decade, it will result in the United States sinking into third world status.

The united states of america, first among the third world.

Thanks, George.

[kalian]

13. The US will simply invade every country...

and steal what they have...whether it be oil or alternative energy
sources.

[midnight armadillo]

14. Hydrogen won't help

Hydrogen is most readily produced from: natural gas, oil, and coal.

Nat gas is at its production limits. Peak oil means that oil prices forever rise. That leaves coal, which is dirty as all heck but the US has tons of it.

The other main source of hydrogen is the electrolysis of water, which requires massive amounts of electricity, and the only way to meet projected US demands with that would be a construction spree for nuclear power plants.

Hydrogen is hardly a panacea.