>This will occur when the five large OPEC producers in the Middle East >- Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE - are no longer able >and willing to pump their oil fast enough to meet the growth in world >demand. All the other oil suppliers throughout the world (including >the UK's North Sea) are in decline,
I may be mistaken, but I believe this statement is in error on at least one count (Russia) and perhaps on several of which I am less cognizant (Brazil? Venezuela? Mexico? other Eurasia deposits? others?). At one time Russia was *the* single largest producer of oil in the world (yes, larger than Saudi Arabia) but then as their Communist Empire collapsed this brief spurt was over. Their oil is in harsher weather conditions and just setting up a well doesn't quite ensure continued production. There are probably other factors as to why Russian oil has production problems historically, but it is plentiful enough so that OPEC recently had to have some conflict with them over production and pricing. Meanwhile, given Russia's indebtedness to the West (I guess), this plays nicely for the moment into the picture, so that they have a chance to do a very cash-rich real-world productive business with us while we scramble for some answers. Perhaps then one way to look at it is that they form part of a buffer to the crash: they can be there for us while we have our rude awakening? In any case, we have recently indicated in our own foreign policy that we intend not only to continue to be whores, to some extent, to nations with oil, but that we specifically see Russian Oil as on the very short list of alternatives to M.E. oil. I agree with much of what the author said, with the possibility that we are on the cusp of some level of oil-economic-crash, and with the general idea of the importance of brainstorming to foresee consequences of an oil-crash, so this is not to quibble with everything. Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/