Lifespan oil fields estimated to last for 115 yrs

Kuwait’s confirmed oil reserves are 101.5 billion barrels, the book said, citing the British Petroleum (BP) figures in 2005. Now that Kuwait’s daily oil output is 2.415 million barrels according to February 2007 statistics, the lifespan of oil fields is 42029 days or 115 years, the book said. It pointed out that the continuing development of oil technologies could lead to more oil explorations and extractions, thus prolonging the lifespan of oil fields. On the future of oil prices, the book stressed that oil producing and consuming countries should work together in order to fend off a looming oil price war and concomitant negative ramifications on the global economy.

OOSTED

Oil prices should be boosted gradually so that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) may not lose its markets, which could resort to other different kinds of energy, it urged. The book, in its second edition, is meant to disseminate the culture of oil and provide readers with adequate and reliable oil information, the KOC said. It handles oil industry and activities in the State of Kuwait, including prospecting, exploration, production, refining and exporting.

The company has handed out copies of the book to different public libraries and state and private organizations in Kuwait. Meanwhile, OPEC president Chakib Khelil warned Sunday that oil prices will continue to rise because of the falling dollar, in an interview in the Algeria-News. “The price of oil will rise again in the coming weeks. We have to follow the evolution of the dollar, because a one percent fall in the dollar means four dollars more on the price of oil,” Khelil, who is Algeria’s minister of energy and mines, told the independent daily.

“As producer countries we think that the current supply is sufficient, that this balance in supply is in everybody’s interests and that it shouldn’t be disturbed, because the current rise in oil prices is in nobody’s interest,” the head of the OPEC stressed. He also commented on the geopolitical effects on the price of oil, notably the crisis between Iran and the West over its nuclear program and rejected the theory that oil cartel members were against boosting production to put a downward pressure on prices.

“I believe that 60% of the rise is due to the fall in the exchange rate of the dollar and to geopolitical problems, and 40% to the intrusion of bioethanol on the market,” he said. OPEC President Chakib Khelil ruled out on Sunday an eventual oil price fall in view of strong Chinese and Indian demand, adding geopolitics and a weak dollar were behind the current spike, Algeria’s APS news agency reported. “Steadily rising oil prices are due to phenomena that have nothing to do with supply and demand,” Khelil, also Algerian Energy and Mines Minister, was quoted by the state news agency as saying in a briefing for diplomats.

SURGE

“He explained that the ‘surge’ in oil prices is ‘linked to the August-September 2007 crisis in the United States, where the US central bank took steps to bring down interest rates to activate the US economy but these led to a devaluation of the dollar’,” APS said. “The minister also attributed the rise in oil prices to geopolitical problems, excluding a possible decline in prices in the future, given that strong demand exists from mainly China and India”, APS reported.

Oil has gained about 50% this year, driven partly by the tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, plus expectations that global oil supplies will not cope in the long term with strong demand growth from newly industrializing China and India. Investment flows into oil have contributed to the price surge, encouraged by commodities’ strong returns this year versus a feeble showing from equities. US crude oil hit an all-time high of $145.85 hit on Thursday. The price spike has caused fuel protests worldwide and has begun to dampen demand in consuming nations, including the United States, the world’s biggest energy consumer.

PREDICTED

German insurance giant Allianz expects the oil price to hit $200 a barrel in the next two years, according to a press report to be published Monday. “I cannot imagine that post-2010 we will have an oil price of below $200 a barrel in the long term,” Allianz board member Joachim Faber told Monday’s edition of Der Tagesspiegel newspaper. In May, US investment bank Goldman Sachs’s star analyst Arjun Murti also predicted that the oil price could strike $200 within the next two years. “The possibility of $150-200 per barrel seems increasingly likely over the next six to 24 months,” he said in a research note. On Thursday, the oil price soared to new records on the back of a weak dollar and supply concerns, reaching $146.69 a barrel in London and $145.85 in New York. (Arab Times)