Standard
Gasoline Co photo of Huntington Beach
Oil processing plant #8, January 1930.
Huntington Beach,
Calif.― "Oil City"
shown in the photo above
brings back memories to some
who lived in Huntington
Beach and grew up during the
prominent oil era.
From the city's first strike
to its
continued production today,
the photograph above shows
that at one time this "Oil
City" had active oil
processing plants such as
the Standard Gasoline
Company plant number 8 in
Huntington Beach.
10 men stand in a grassy
field with a large complex
of buildings and derricks in
the background. This
was one of the most
profitable regions in the
country during the time.
Today there are still many
derricks and pumps within
the city bounds and
extending out to the city
waters where the underground
fields continue to produce.
While oil is reaching all
time highs in per barrel
pricing, Los Angeles and
Orange County drivers have
likewise paid some of the
highest prices for fuel in
the USA in a supply and
demand market situation.
The history of oil is
interesting because of the
way it has been used in the
past 100 years. Some say
affordable supplies will be
depleted in much less time
as they claim peak oil
production has occurred.
Proponents of this theory
vary in their predictions
for the amount of time it
will take to deplete current
supplies, but they use
numbers that predict
emerging countries such as
China and India will require
larger sums in the next few
years to fuel the growth and
increasing wealth of average
citizens who seek personal
vehicles such as cars.
If the predicted decline
gets under way, production
could conservatively drop by
3% per year, every year.
War, terrorism, extreme
weather and other
geopolitical factors will
likely push the effective
decline rate even higher,
thus cutting the total
supply by 50% in 7 years.
These estimates come from
numerous sources, not the
least of which is Vice
President Dick Cheney
himself. In a 1999 speech he
gave while CEO of
Halliburton, Cheney stated:
By some estimates, there
will be an average of
two-percent annual growth in
global oil demand over the
years ahead, along with,
conservatively, a
three-percent natural
decline in production from
existing reserves. That
means by 2010 we will need n
additional 50 million
barrels per day.
Will global oil production
peak and go into terminal
decline within the next five
years, as some predict?
Andrew Gould, CEO of oil
services firm Schlumberger,
for instance, recently
stated that an accurate
average decline rate is hard
to estimate, but an overall
figure of 8% is not
unreasonable. 8%
yearly decline would cut
global oil production by 50%
in under nine years. A
seemingly unbridgeable
supply/demand gap opening up
after 2007 could lead to
major fuel shortages and
increasingly severe
blackouts beginning around
2008-2012. As we potentially
head toward the downslope of
the global oil production
curve, we may find ourselves
slipping into what some
scientists are already
calling the coming post
industrial stone age.
Sobering thoughts that
hopefully will not play out
so quickly and in this
manner. But for nations that
build economies around
driving cars and domestic
productions and consumption,
clearly something will have
to change if oil supplies
decline in the near future.
The above projections and
information come from Matt
Savinar, author of "Life
After the Oil Crash."
(lifeaftertheoilcrash.net)
HB site |
