Saudi's Say they Have Enough Oil for Everybody

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WASHINGTON (AP) - Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said Tuesday the kingdom has plenty of oil in the ground to meet global demand for now and would raise production if prices rose too high.

I, for one, simply do not believe it. Of course, the words "for now" say it all.

i agree, i dont think that they have enough oil, BUT they have enough for now, so theres no point in thinking 20 years ahead! live now, be happy with the oil we have, and waste to our hearts content! i mean, if we sit here trying to find a way to conserve oil, then find a new thing to use instead, what would we do? let our children have it???

hedonism is a wonderfull thing
but, if it's true, that at least gives us some more time to figure out new sources of energy

Saudi's Say they Have Enough Oil for Everybody

Yeah right. I trust thier word as far as I trust the word of Bush when he says that its not all about Oil. EVERYTHING is about Oil and we are running out of the cheap stuff. They are afraid thier priviledged position in the world is going to crumble from underneath them very soon, and they are right.

well good... maybe they should lower the price so that we don't cut them off at the nuts.

Higher gas prices are actually not to be blamed on the saudis...
it is the big oil guys in the states that have found the surefire way of increasing profit is to increase price... anyone else wonder why so many of the big oil guys consolidated this year? less deals to cut... less backroom agreements to hide.

actually, although i come across as having a clue...I freely admit to be going on supposition at this point...
I just don't like any big oil companies so they make a really good boogyman.

I have to take anything the Saudis say about their oil reserves and capabilities with a grain of salt. Unlike Western energy MNCs, their reserves are a state secret. There is no transparency.

We already know the Western MNCs have overstated their reserves before and been forced to lower them. The OPEC nations' reserves are all believed to be inflated anyway since they allocate quotas by stated reserves.

It is in OPEC's interest to keep the world economy healthy, so demand doesn't drop. By admitting crippling shortfalls are on they way, they could provoke a global recession, or at the very least a major investment in alternative fuel sources. It would be in their interest to extract as much money as they can from their customers and concealing any future problems. Nations tend to act in their own interest.

It's also interesting to note that Saudi Arabia has reportedly been the largest buyer of solar panels in the world, and that they have also reportedly wired their oil infrastructure with dirty bombs to prevent hostile take over. If cheap oil truly is running out, their highly concentrated energy industry would be vulnerable to hostile take over. It's in their interest to lie and say everything is fine.

But can Saudi Arabia really meet global energy needs if we also factor in projected increase in demand as well as the depletion of existing fields?



Let's remember what Vice President Cheney said in 1999, when he was CEO of Halliburton:

"There will be an average of 2% annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead, along with, conservatively, a 3% natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need in the order of an additional 50 million barrels a day. This is equivalent to more than six Saudi Arabia's of today's size." (empasis added)

Not long after Cheney would be in office as the Vice President, would launch an energy task force (which included Matt Simmons)...

The same Matt Simmons who has a book out later this year, "Twilight in the Desert", tackling this very issue of Saudi claims and the possibility that Saudi has or is close to peaking.

As to the comment above me, high prices can't be "blamed" on Saudis or the US oil companies or Bush or Terrorism or Yukos or anything else. Prices are what the market will bear. If you must blame anything, blame an energy-intensive, constantly-expanding world economy and world population rather foolishly built on a non-renewable, non-sustainable resource.

Half the pie is gone, and a lot more hungry customers just walked in the door. That's the problem.