Se termina el petróleo

Ustedes no me hacen caso, pero yo lo vengo anunciando por acá hace rato, se termina el petróleo. A comprar autos a cuerda.

Muy interesante artículo en Reason sobre las reservas mundiales de petróleo y gas. Según el autor, existen reservas para satisfacer la demanda por los próximos 25 años si se hacen las inversiones necesarias para mantener los niveles de producción.

El gran problema, como de costumbre, es que el 77% de las reservas conocidas están en manos de compañías estatales que no invierten lo suficiente. No se pierdan el análisis de la situación de la producción en Irán y Venezuela:

Petroleum geologists are pretty sure that there is more than enough oil in the world to meet projected demand for at least the next 25 years. In other words, as I reported in my article “Peak Oil Panic” last year, geologically speaking “peak oil” is at least a generation away.

But the days when you could punch a hole in the ground and up would bubble some crude have now passed. It will take increasing technical savvy and a lot of money to keep oil production up with demand. Fortunately, the International Energy Agency believes that projected demand for oil and gas can be met if producers invest $4.3 trillion and $3.9 trillion (in 2005 dollars) respectively over the next 25 years. The question is that level of investment happening?

That’s were I get worried. The problem arises because 77 percent of the world’s known oil reserves are in the hands of state-owned oil companies. Such “companies” do not respond with alacrity to market signals and so are under-investing in new production technologies and even in maintaining the production facilities that they currently have. I have earlier pointed out that an “oil crisis,” that is, a steep rapid run up in the price of oil may occur at any time due to government incompetence or maliciousness.