The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas, which held its first meeting June 26, comprises 32 members of the House of Commons, or lower chamber, and seven from the House of Lords, or upper chamber.
It aims to collate predictions for when production may peak and consider the implications for energy policy, rather than push a particular view, said the group's chairman, John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP for Birmingham Yardley, central England.
``Will oil production peak?'' Hemming said in a telephone interview. ``Yes, it will. Will it peak in my lifetime is a question worth considering. If you look at the issue of being energy-resource constrained, you use energy more efficiently. We need to aim to be more economical with energy.'' The group will next meet July 24, he said in an e-mail today.
Interest in peak oil has risen as the price of oil has doubled over the past three years and as consumers become more reliant on energy supplies from Russia, the Middle East and Africa. Politicians are also growing more concerned about the impact on the climate of burning fossil fuels.
Peak oil refers to an approaching highpoint in global production rather than when oil will run out. Some analysts say that date is imminent, while others say supply will keep rising as less-accessible resources are discovered and exploited. As a finite resource, the fact that oil output will eventually peak is undisputed.
`Long Time'
The International Energy Agency, the principle energy adviser to the world's biggest industrialized nations since the Arab oil embargo of 1973, has no firm notion of when production will peak.
``We think that it may be a long time from now,'' IEA Executive Director Claude Mandil said in a July 3 interview in Dublin. ``It's a big question; it depends on the investment in the Middle East, Russia, Venezuela, those countries which have a lot of known and unknown reserves. The production will depend on their investment.''
Crude oil production has already peaked in some countries, including the U.K., Norway and Mexico, and in one member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Indonesia.
Oil production growth among non-OPEC nations will increasingly come in the form of so-called non-conventional oils, such as heavy oil, oil sands and biofuels, rather than the typical crude oil, the IEA said in its Medium-Term Oil Market Report, published yesterday.
Conventional-Oil `Plateau'
``Our forecast suggests that the non-OPEC, conventional crude component of global production appears, for now, to have reached an effective plateau, rather than a peak,'' the IEA said. Peak oil is an ``emotive'' subject that raises ``intense debate,'' it added.
Hemming said the all-party parliamentary group will probably meet about once every two months and gather information from organizations including the IEA, U.K. government departments, energy companies such as Total SA and the Association for the Study of Peak Oil.
BP Plc's annual Statistical Review of World Energy, published June 12, shows there's enough proven oil reserves to last 40.5 years at current production rates, and enough natural gas and coal for 63.3 years and 147 years, respectively. The 2006 proven oil reserve estimate of 1.208 trillion barrels uses official data from world governments and doesn't include resources deemed to be only probable or possible.
`Exaggerated' Estimate
Overall world oil reserves, including the proven oil, new finds, oil sands, oil shale and improved oil-recovery methods, could be as high as 4.7 trillion barrels, Abdullah Jum'ah, the chief executive officer of Saudi Arabia's state-run oil company Saudi Aramco, said in September. Some analysts, such as Leo Drollas of the Centre for Global Energy Studies, dispute that figure as ``exaggerated.''
Peak oil studies often lead to analysts taking views on how much oil is left in the world's biggest resource holders in the Middle East. The BP statistical review lists Saudi Arabia as having 264 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, about 22 percent of the global tally.
Matthew Simmons, the chairman of investment bank Simmons & Co. and a leading proponent of those who say global production has already peaked, said Middle East oil reserves estimates are overstated, unreliable and not independently audited.
Hemming understands that view.
``I am someone that doesn't feel Saudi Arabia is as flush with oil as others say they are,'' Hemming said. ``What we can agree on is that the information is opaque.''
Analysts at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, the oil industry consultant led by Daniel Yergin, disagree with Simmons and say global production won't peak for at least another 25 years. CERA Research Director Peter Jackson said Nov. 14 the world probably has 3.7 trillion barrels of oil left.
