The crux of the issue is that if oil was plentiful in areas in which we are being told by the government and the oil companies that it is not, then we have clear evidence that artificial scarcity is being simulated in order to drive forward a myriad of other agendas. And we have concrete examples of where this has happened
Three separate internal confidential memos from Mobil, Chevron and Texaco have been obtained by The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.
These memos outline a deliberate agenda to gouge prices and create artificial scarcity by limiting capacities of and outright closing oil refineries. This was a nationwide lobbying effort led by the American Petroleum Institute to encourage refineries to do this.
An internal Chevron memo states; "A senior energy analyst at the recent API convention warned that if the US petroleum industry doesn't reduce its refining capacity it will never see any substantial increase in refinery margins."
The Memos make clear that blockages in refining capacity and opening new refineries did not come from environmental organizations, as the oil industry claimed, but via a deliberate policy of limitation and price gouging at the behest of the oil industry itself.
The mystery of Eugene Island 330 and self-renewing oil supplies
Eugene Island is an oil field in the gulf of Mexico, 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana. It was discovered in 1973 and began producing 15,000 barrels of oil a day which then slowed to about 4,000 barrels in 1989.
But then for no logical reason whatsoever, production spiked back up to 13,000 barrels a day.
What the researchers found when they analyzed the oil field with time lapse 3-D seismic imaging is that there was an unexplained deep fault in the bottom corner of the computer scan, which showed oil gushing in from a previously unknown deep source and migrating up through the rock to replenish the existing supply.
Furthermore, the analysis of the oil now being produced at Eugene Island shows that its age is geologically different from the oil produced there after the refinery first opened. Suggesting strongly that it is now emerging from a different, unexplained source.
The last estimates of probable reserves shot up from 60 million barrels to 400 million barrels.
Both the scientists and geologists from the big oil companies have seen the evidence and admitted that the Eugene Island oil field is refilling itself.
This completely contradicts peak oil theory and with technology improving at an accelerating pace it seems obvious that there are more Eugene Islands out there waiting to be discovered. So the scientific community needs to embrace these possibilities and lobby for funding into finding more of these deep source replenishing oilfields.
The existence of self-renewing oil fields shatters the peak oil myth. If oil is a naturally replenishing inorganic substance then how can it possibly run out?
The future of oil
This year in particular we have seen a strong hike in oil prices and are being told to simply get used to it because this is the way it is going to be. In the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita gas prices have shot up amid claims of vast energy shortages. Americans are being asked to turn off lights, change thermostat settings, drive slower, insulate homes and take other steps. Meanwhile the oil companies continue to make record profits.
Flying in the face of the so called peak oil crisis are the facts. If we are running out of oil so quickly then why are reserves being continually increased and production skyrocketing?
In the 1980s OPEC decided to switch to a quota production system based on the size of reserves. The larger the reserves a country said it had the more it could pump.
Earlier this year Saudi Arabia reportedly increased its crude reserves by around 200 billion barrels. Saudi oil Is secure and plentiful, say officials.
“These huge reserves enable the Kingdom to remain a major oil producer for between 70 and 100 years, even if it raises its production capacity to 15 million barrels per day, which may well happen during the next 15 years,”
Is this the normal course of behavior if we are currently at the peak for oil production? The answer is no, it's the normal course of action for increasing production.
There have also been reports that Russia has vastly increased its reserves even beyond those of Saudi Arabia. Why would they do this if they believed there would be no more oil to get hold of? It seems clear that Russia is ready for unlimited future production of oil.
There is a clear contradiction between the peak oil theory and the continual increase in oil reserves and production.
New untapped oil sources are being discovered everywhere on earth. The notion that there are somehow only a few sources that the West is trying to monopolize is a complete myth, promulgated by those raking in the massive profits. After all how do you make huge profits from something available in abundance?
A Wall Street Journal article by Peter Huber and Mark Mills describes how the price of oil remains high because the cost of oil remains so low. We are not dependent on the middle east for oil because the world's supplies are diminishing, it is because it is more profitable to tap middle east supplies. Thus the myth of peak oil is needed in order to silence the call for tapping the planet's other plentiful reserves.
Richard Branson has even stated his intention to set up his own refinery because the price of oil is artificially being kept high whilst new sources are not being explored and new refineries not being built.
"Opec is effectively an illegal cartel that can meet happily, nobody takes them to court," Branson has said. "They collude to keep prices high."
So if more refineries were built and different resources tapped, the oil prices would come down and the illegal cartel OPEC would see profits diminish. It is no wonder then that the argument for peak oil is so appealing to OPEC. If no one invests to build refineries because they don't believe there is enough oil, then who benefits? OPEC and the oil elites of course.
It seems that every time there is some kind of energy crisis, OPEC INCREASES production. The remarkable thing about this is that they always state that they are doing it to ease prices, yet prices always shoot up because they promulgate the myth that they are putting some of their last reserves into the market. Analysts seem confused and always state that they don't believe upping production will cut prices.
