You may want to do a bit of GOOGLing to get a slightly different perspective on this. There may not be a shortage in the areas but water levels in the lakes, rivers or aquifers of the areas may be droping.

Exactly.

Rockdoc, don't you know all those things are all interconnected. It is all a viscious cycle. Global warming is causing the Hurricanes and the global warming is being stocked by oil burning. The number of hurricanes will continue increasing until we cut back. Something has to give. Same thing with Iran, only slightly different connections. The higher oil goes the more likely Iran will be invaded by *cough US* which panics the Iranians into building nukes at same time give the US an excuse to invade. The theme continues in Nigeria where the higher oil prices go the more the Nigerian people think they are being robbed by imperialist Westerners. The rebellion kicks up prices which in turn fuels the momentum of the rebellion. It is all a viscious cycle connected to oil. There is no way oil is going down. People will kill for it and wars will be fought for it. No price is too high. I now see no limits to how high oil could go.

Well I guess you are a lot smarter than all those people currently trading oil .....as of February the number of shorts on oil futures exceeded the longs and the gap is widening. I would suggest you buy some August futures and put your money where your mouth is. You need to differentiate between what is going to happen in the next few months versus what will happen over the next decade.

As for the rest....there is some connection as you state between Nigerian unrest and oil price. But please don't mix up things that make some sense with your conspiracy babble about the US invading countries for oil....did they get any oil out of Iraq....Afghanistan.? simple answer no, indeed some European companies benefited but not US companies. Also your comment about global warming presupposes that CO2 emmissions are responsible...for which there is zero hard scientific evidence outside of poorly constrained models that require feedback mechanisms which are supposition at best.

Enventhough the dynamics of water as a resource are different since a good portion of the supply is self-replenishing, part of the equation includes 'fossil aquifers' which fall under the same laws as oil fields and are bound in fact to peak, quote:

Vast fossil aquifers under the Libyan and Saudi deserts are being applied to agriculture in a practice which is destined to be unsustainable because fossil aquifers are not replenished (24). This is also largely true of the great Ogalalla aquifer in the Prairie states of the USA. The draw-down rate far exceeds that of recharge in this predominantly fossil aquifer, and already some farmers in the south have had to abandon irrigation.

End quote. source

No way you can compare water shortage to oil, no way.
It's just hype. There are shortages in naturally desert areas like
New Mexico, etc,,,,, but the water could be diverted from the
great lakes or collected during the hurricane season, or in the worst
case just recycled from major cities from the northeast.... again an
energy intensive process.

If the price of water goes up, I'd bet it is mostly from the energy needed
for purification.

Again, if man continues to populate in arrid regions,,, you can always
claim there is a water shortage.

...at least that's what I gathered watching him on CNBC. It certainly didn't seem that he believed there would be any significant increase in worldwide production in the foreseeable future.

He said something to the effect: "World production is sitting at about 85MM Bbls/day, doesn't seem to be able to exceed that total, and yet demand continues to increase around the world, including the U.S. The only thing that is going to cool off demand at this point, is price.

With a reported income last year, via investments, that exceeded $1B, he probably knows something about the subject.

Yes, I saw that too. Basically he described Peak Oil without actually saying those words. He didn't touch on decline though.
What I liked the most was how he pointed out that prices would have to go high enough to deal with any demand above 85m barrels per day.
I think it was a very good interview.

I thought it was an excellent interview too, I just wish the interviewer would have quizzed him about the ability of world producers to keep pumping at these levels. It would have been interesting to hear his thoughts.

He did say that it was his opinion that crude oil, gasoline, and heating oil were all headed higher......even said that he believed that we'd see $75/bbl oil before $60/bbl oil but that natural gas would go lower.

Old Boony has been saying the current production is about the limit every year for the past 10 years, eventually he will be right.

I suppose you can back up that statement?

This is what CNBC said about him the other day, talking about the top performing hedge fund:

Bobcousins,

I've been following peak oil since 2004. During that time period, Pickens has consistently said world oil would peak at about 84 mbpd. When pressed last year how he arrived at this figure, he said there's a reason why world oil refinery capacity is 84 mbpd, implying the oil companies know this is maximum world production. In fact, Pickens seems to be correct in the world refinery capacity problem. I started a thread on the peak oil discussion forum on refinery issues, and there is a report on world oil refinery capacity put out by ICF that discusses at length the world refinery bottleneck. Suffice it to say, there is no information to the contrary that we are closely approaching world oil refinery capacity. Now, whether this means no significant refinery capacity is coming on line bc the major investors are peak oil advocates is open to debate. Pickes says its due to peak oil.

"Never again will we pump more than 82 million barrels." ~ T. Boone Pickens, 9th August 2004. On the Kudlow and Cramer Show, MSNBC. Monbiot

There was a graph on the oildrum that showed that oil production seems to be at a plataeu for a little bit now... even with the rise in prices...

Hi JD

As you can tell from my post, I was relying on memory as to what Pickens said. I said "about 84 mbpd." If he actually said 82, that seems close enough to 84 to me. Even if oil peaks at 90, its so close that many optimist like yourself would be shocked. So, anything under 90 is fairly pessimistic. We shall see. The fact that oil is on a plateau despite high oil prices, and has been for about a year now, and the fact we are operating close to world refinery capacity, lends credibility to Pickes statement. If you disagree, shed some light on this for us please.

If I were to have to choose between the "Pickens" and the "lynches", I would have to go with the Pickens right now. In 2004, I wasn't sure who to believe, but during that time, Pickens has been correct in his predictions and Lynch incorrect - at least predicting the price per barrel of oil. For example, in July 04, Lynch said oil would be at $35 per barrel by summer 05. Very wrong. Pickens said $50, very right. Last year Lynch said, that by 06 oil would drop under $40, not happening yet. So, if we choose a camp by the accuracy of predictions, the Pickens have the most points right now.

It would be false to imply that Pickens is a peak oil "doomer" end of the world kind of guy. If you follow Pickens closely, however, you will also note that he is not a doomsday pessimist, in fact, he believes that changes like hybrids will solve the problems caused by high energy.

My personal opinion is we will not see peak oil anytime soon, because a political/economic crisis will kill demand for oil before peak oil hits. It seems that peak oil will hit between 2012-1015 (SA analysis, PFC analysis, Task Force Unity analysis), but that all assumes demand growth for oil. If the US attacked Iran, the US has a financial crisis, bird flu etc. or a combination of all three happens, a depression would seem to kill demand for oil and all the current projections would be off. I think the above political economic problems are much more imminent before peak oil, however, lack of production capacity leading to current high fuel prices is exacerbating the imminent political/economic problems, making them far more likely.

Now, where do you stand?

I don't think you evaluate the two sides by the standard. Boone said we would never go beyond 82, and we did, therefore he was flat wrong. Lynch too was flat wrong about oil prices.

Personally, I don't understand the imperative to make predictions. What purpose do predictions serve? Can you explain it to me? Other than as a form of entertainment, why exactly do we, as ordinary people, need to concern ourselves with predictions?