Just five countries in the Middle East sit on top of nearly two-
thirds of the proven oil reserves in the world. Of these five,
only Iran and Iraq remain outside of the U.S. sphere of influence,
possibly the real reason why President Bush designated them,
along with North Korea, as the “axis of evil.”
The U.S. is the world’s leading consumer, using over
26 percent of daily consumption despite having less than 5
percent of the world’s population. It is increasingly
dependent on foreign oil, having imported 56 percent of domestic
supplies in 2000 (though most of this comes from Canada, Mexico,
and Venezuela).
The petro-cabinet assembled by Bush has hopscotched the world—
from Central Asia and Equitorial Africa to the Andean region
and Alaska—to secure more sources to feed the West. Yet,
oil discoveries peaked in the 1960s. Today, newly discovered
reserves amount to only one-quarter of annual global consumption.
Since
the first oil well began pumping in Titusville, Pennsylvania
on August 27, 1859, some 900 billion barrels of oil have been
sucked out of the earth. Slightly over 1 trillion barrels
in proven reserves exist around the world. Forecasting future
discovery is tricky at best, but perhaps another half-trillion
barrels of oil in undiscovered conventional reserves remains
hidden.
It’s estimated that world production will peak between
2010 and 2020. Skeptics, led by disciples of M. King Hubbert,
who accurately predicted in 1956 that oil production would
peak in the lower 48 states around 1970, contend that prices
will rise sharply after 2010 as production peaks and reaches
a point of diminishing returns.
Others dispute this, noting that contrary to expectations,
two new “supergiant” fields have been discovered
in Kazakhstan and Iran in the last decade. As prices rise,
it makes deep-ocean, marginal fields, and artic exploration
more economical. Ironically, as fossil-fuel induced global
warming melts the glaciers, oil companies are anticipating
a gold rush in the largely unexplored and environmentally
fragile polar regions.
Unconventional
sources—tar sands in Western Canada, the heavy oil belt
in Venezuela, and oil shale in the U.S., Brazil, Zaire, India,
and many other countries—will likely become major producers
of oil by the mid-21st century, as improved technology and
rising costs render them feasible. While all conventional
reserves—proven, unproven, and already pumped—amount
at upper estimates to 2.5 trillion barrels, it’s thought
that another 3 trillion barrels can be extracted from unconventional
sources.
Also, Third World regions are at the beginning of the discovery
curve, likely resulting in increasing output in future decades.
This hasn’t escaped the notice of the Bush administration.
The White House had Secretary of State Colin Powell stop in
at the Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development in September
to catch some flack over the profligate American lifestyle
before embarking on his real business: Currying favor with
oil-rich African nations like Gabon and Angola. Sub-Saharan
Africa already provides the U.S. with 15 percent of its daily
supply, which is expected to rise to 25 percent by 2015.
Walter Kansteiner, assistant secretary of state for Africa,
is blunt about U.S. policy toward the forgotten continent.
“African oil is of national strategic interest to us,
and it will increase and become more important as we go forward.”
U.S. policy has kept oil cheap, stymying the development of
cleaner fuels and transportation. Even if the White House
dropped its hostility to alternative fuels, it would take
decades to wean the economy from oil because of the need to
create a massive new infrastructure for the production, transportation,
and distribution of a new energy supply, such as hydrogen
fuel cells. From today’s vantage point, it appears that
oil dependence and oil wars will continue to dominate the
landscape.
