If the oil companies had an ounce of sense, they would become energy companies instead of oil companies and parley this profit bonanza into a dominance in renewable energy. They have the bucks to be major players in wind, solar, the latest and best batteries and even electric cars. The next oil price crisis is going to be much bigger than the one just past. It might even be the one that will not finish with a downturn in the price of oil. It is almost certain to be the one that will push everyone into renewable energy and then the oportunity will be lost for the oil companies.

The article dismisses the story of peak oil by quoting one energy expert from Goldman Sachs. The rest of the story then becomes hard to swallow. The oil countries over-state their reserves in order to gain bargaining power, are the reserves really there? No reasons are mentioned for the lack of influence, nor why nations have angrily taken back control of their oil production. No suggestion that burning less oil might be advantageous in trying to stop global climate change. No mention of alternative energy sources. So the story comes across as weak conjecture.

This article provides some interesting insights into current oil production problems worldwide, and analysts interviewed state that some of these issues are of the industry's own making. While many sources are quoted and named, 6 of them are oil-industry analysts and 2 are oil-company executives. This piece reads more as a straight-on analysis, not as a news report; the reporter should have included a wider range of viewpoints to make it more informative and newsworthy. Also, the reporter quotes many statistics about oil production drops -- the core of this article -- without naming the reports/sources where he got them from. Also, instead of including actual percentages, the reporter uses phrases like "about 20 percent" and ... More »

This is a reasonable depiction of the oil situation; but the publisher is the New York Times, and I expect better reportage on a wider range of issues contributing not only to the oil drain, repeating the mantra on China and state-owned drilling fields, but to the technology of drilling, the threat to the environment, and the specter of alternative fuels replacing at least some of the demand. On the economic front, the Times could have investigated the theory that oil supplies are still available even if expensive because third world countries can no longer afford fuel, and that has caused terrible hardship in countries where pain is real and not felt at the pump. The piece alludes to depletion theories such as put forth by ... More »

This article gives insights into the thinking of major oil companies and financial markets.

A superb story from the New York Times which lays out in detail the failure of Western companies to invest in exploration, the increasing nationalization of reserves, and the likelihood that nations ill-equipped to extract the resource even from proven fields will in future have one hand wrapped around the world's throat and the other in the consumer's pocket. Peak oil, if not real in terms of potential, will certainly be real in terms of actual development.