The Oil Drum: Europe

The waste crisis in Naples has been ongoing for more than a week by now. Today (Jan 7), the Italian newspapers are announcing the intervention of the army to retake some control of the situation.

The energy watchdog of the OECD countries, the International Energy Agency (IEA), recently started to talk about looming oil shortages. The high oil price of today will remain is the message they are spreading. We need to save more oil, invest more in increasing oil production and upscale alternatives. However, the IEA does not see a peak in worldwide oil production occurring in the coming decades. Based on the expectation that large amounts of oil will be discovered, not yet on the radar of oil companies worldwide. This new stance follows below from the translated transcript of an interview recently broadcasted on the Dutch television channel RTL-Z with Aad van Bohemen, the Director of Crisis Management at the IEA

What is the significance of the current crisis on the oil market?

“The situation on the oil market is worrisome in the sense of there being more demand than supply. This does not mean that we should panic because of an acute shortage of oil, there is sufficient oil in the world. There is production capacity that can be brought to the market by the oil producing countries. But this capacity should be brought to the market to meet supply. So the situation is on overall worrisome, but it is not yet time to panic.”