Jim Jubak weighs in on Peak Oil

Jubak, a respected stock analyst and economist who writes for MSN, has this to say about Peak Oil:

You can debate whether the world is running out of oil all you want. It is certain, however, that the world has run out of cheap oil.

Without offering predictions, it seems Jubak’s analysis lies closer to early peakers rather than the Daniel Yergins of the world. He noted the rates of decline in recent years in some major producing countries and major fields.

He partially notes the whys of this, focusing on Cantarell and lack of investment by the Mexican government. True as far as it goes, as with Venezuela and possibly partially true for Kuwait’s Burgan field.

But, in places like the UK (10 percent decline) and Norway (7 percent decline) lack of investment in marginal recovery isn’t the problem. The fact is that, even with high investment in two Western companies with state-of-the-art technology, business transparency, etc., oil fields are facing a major fall-off.