The Oil Drum: Europe

As an addendum to the Olduvai 2008 post there's a movie available that digests the main ideas presented there.

This was an original idea of Nate Hagens and Chris Vernon to somehow broaden the TOD readership spectrum to people with busy schedules and/or short attention spans. This new Olduvai assessment seemed a good place to start, although in the future the objective is to have more concise and direct movies, targeted for people who are not so savvy on fossil fuel depletion.

The budget was €0, so this piece of media is far from perfect, to which we ask for your understanding.

You can watch the movie using these links:

Google Video

YouTube (part 1)

YouTube (part 2)

Forecast for Conventional Fossil Fuels per Capita.
Sources: UN for Population model, Jean Laherrère [pdf!] for Natural Gas, Energy Watch Group for Coal and The Oil Drum - Khebab for Oil. Click for large version.

Doesn't this graph just chill you?

Let's try to have a broader look on the Natural Gas supply challenge that both Europe and North America face these days, with the help of Jean Laherrère.

[editor's note, by Dave] Generously, Matt Simmons and SCI have given me permission to reference their report Simmons Oil Monthly - Qatar, by Robert A. Kessler, April 24, 2006. Matt wanted me to "alert readers that SCI made a major exception to their strict rules of only sending their institutional research to their institutional clients". My thanks to Matt and SCI for making this report available. I believe it will appear soon on the Simmons & Company International website. I'll do an update when that happens.

Update [2006-6-11 15:33:22 by Dave]: The SCI report I used for this story is now available there. Simmons Oil Monthly - Qatar (large pdf warning).

Without much fanfare, Qatar announced a moratorium on new development of the natural gas North Field basin, a decision that had actually been taken in 2005. At the same time, in a recent presentation by Matt Simmons entitled Tight Oil Supplies, we run into this intriguing slide (#44, big pdf warning).

The North Field/South Pars Natural Gas Complex
Figure 1 -- Click to Enlarge

This report will go into considerable detail about the future role of the North Field/South Pars natural gas field, it's size and importance, the reasons for the moratorium and finally important questions about both the geology and proven reserves of the field. As Simmons notes in his slide, there is a "large degree of uncertainty regarding [the] true potential [of this field]". The topic is important regarding the uncommon phrase "peak natural gas" on a global scale. As we know, natural gas production has already peaked in North America.