Interview med Sadad al Husseini

"The Facts Are There" (Bowden, Andrews / Energy Bulletin)

Question: Why do you think there is so much denial that world oil production is approaching or has reached a plateau?

Sadad: There is a push-back to the notion that there is a plateau in world oil supplies which is largely based on lack of information or lack of research. In fact, if you look at published information—for example, British Petroleum’s annual statistical report—it very clearly shows that from 2003 forward, oil production has hardly increased. So the information is there. If you look at some of the advertising that Chevron has been putting out for years now, they clearly say we’re half-way through the world’s reserves. The information is there. The facts are there. Oil prices did not jump four-fold over a three- or four-year period for any reason other than a shortage of supply. Yes, there may have been some recent volatility in 2008, but the price trend started climbing way back in 2002-2003. So, these are realities and the push-back is a sense that somehow the market is not able to deal with these realities, that somehow people can’t cope with these realities.

On the other hand, if you don’t talk about them, you never will fix the situation. This is not going to get any better. This is going to get worse because you have population growth all over the world, you have a standard of living that is improving all over the world, you have aspirations across the globe for a better quality of life, and people want energy, so it’s actually important to talk about the facts and come up with solutions rather than act as if these issues don’t exist and then wait for some solution to materialize out of nowhere. That’s a role of government—to highlight these issues and to fix them, or at least take a stand and try to fix them. So I think the push-back is probably ill-advised.