On Friday president of ASPO Kjell Aleklett was invited to write a comment to the article “The market sets high oil prices to tell us what to do” in Financial Times by Martin Wolf and you can now read in on FT.com. (Read the comment).

The blog text is written in Swedish but some of the blogs will be translated to English by Michael Lardelli, who lives in Adelaide, Australia. Michael has lived in Sweden for some years. The English text will follow the Swedish text in the blog.

The blog: Aleklett's Energy Mix

Today I got the OPEC Annual Report 2007 in the mail box (old fashion mail box) and I concluded that this is a report that most persons don’t care about. But the fact is that we should do that as we al depend on OPEC in one way or the other. In the foreword Abdalla Salem El-Badri, Secretary General tell us that the problem we see is just problem with the US dollar, geopolitical tensions, etc:

For more than a decade, English petroleum geologist Colin Campbell has been sounding the warning bell about the coming of peak oil and its disturbing ramifications for the world. .......

Read editorial in Washington Times

Fatih Birol, the chief economist of International Energy Agency, was interview in the german magazine Internationale Politik recently. He made several interesting. The most intriguing is perhaps his new motto: "Leave oil before it leaves us"

Some other statements were these
"We see a sharp decline in production from the existing oil fields, especially in the North Sea, the USA and many non-OPEC countries."

"Exactly 12.5 million barrel a day are still missing, about 15 % of the global oil demand. This gap means that we could face a supply shortage and very high prices during the next years."

"I think we should leave oil before it leaves us. That should be our motto."

Read the original interview: Internationale Politik (In german)
Or a english translation: Newsvine

The Scottish Parliament recently passed a landmark motion on food security which includes for the first time a call to take account of peak oil when planning our future food economy.

Some of the interesting facts that were pointed out were these:

• North Sea oil output peaked at 2.8m barrels a day in 1999, and last year this output was down by almost 60% on that peak.
• Estimates vary as to when global oil production will peak, with the French Government taking a conservative view that the decline will begin in 2013.
• What is not in doubt is that demand for oil continues to outstrip global supply, meaning that local disputes like that at Grangemouth have a disproportionate effect on international oil prices, whilst pressure for biofuels is undermining efforts to tackle climate change.
• As oil supplies dwindle globally, food supplies in Scotland and around the world are likely to be seriously affected, given the extent to which modern agriculture is dependent on oil.

More information can be found here: Scottish Greens

An article in the New York Times questions the conventional economic theory that increased prices will give more oil. As oil prices have reached near 120 dollars/barrel no significant decrease in demand and no major increase in production have occured.

“According to normal economic theory, and the history of oil, rising prices have two major effects,” said Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the International Energy Agency in Paris. “They reduce demand and they induce oil supplies. Not this time.”

Full article available from: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/business/worldbusiness/29oil.html

Viktor Vekselberg, an owner of TNK-BP, stated that the Russian oil production has peaked and may decline the following years. He also said that the Russian oil industry need tax breaks to spur new exploration and more development.

Vekselberg has now joined the vice president of LUKOIL, Leonid Fedun who also recently claimed that Russian oil production have peaked.

Read more here: Bloomberg News

International Energy Agency boss Nobuo Tanaka warned yesterday that there is a risk record oil prices could tip the world economy into recession. Asked whether prices of nearly $118 a barrel could drive the world economy into recession, he said: "Yes, I certainly have some concern."

"High prices definitely dampen demand - it's happening now, definitely it will have some negative impact on economic growth - that's for sure," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum in Rome. (source: Upstream Online)

The Acting Deputy Secretary of Energy Jeffrey Kupfer in the USA joined in:
"Oil prices are clearly too high. We are not happy with the prices or the direction they're going in," Reuters quoted Kupfer as saying.

Producer countries have blamed the weakness of the US dollar for the strength of the oil market and have said supplies for now are more than adequate. By contrast, Kupfer said fundamentals of supply and demand were a major factor.