|
World consumption has been on a steady rise for decades and
neared 94 million barrels a day in 2014. Estimates from the U.S. Energy
Information Administration sees the number increasing by another million barrels
a day by the end of next year:
BIG APPETITE: World consumption has been on a steady rise for decades and neared
94 million barrels a day in 2014.
“It’s mind-boggling,” Peter Tertzakian, the chief economist and managing
director of Canada’s ARC Financial Corporation told participants at the Platts
North American Crude Oil Summit last Thursday.
 To put that number in perspective, Tertzakian offered this nugget: “That’s the
equivalent of draining an Olympic-size swimming pool every 15 seconds.”
“You can say, pardon the pun, the world goes ’round on oil,” Tertzakian told
Watchdog.org.
[to top of second column] |
 “Because it’s very hard to beat,” Tertzakian said. “It’s got
tremendous energy density, tremendous power density, you’ve got the
ability to quickly rev up and rev down on your accelerator and power
out of the chemical energy very quickly. It’s easy to transport and
the infrastructure is there to transport it. It’s easy to store …
It’s also extremely cheap.”
It has drawbacks, too.
“It’s not good to be hostage to one commodity,” Terzakian said.
“With oil, if you have a price spike it affects everything and
there’s not a lot of alternatives, despite people talking about
electric cars and natural gas. (Renewables) will come but they’re
such a small fraction (of the energy portfolio). It’s going to take
a long time to migrate to another type of transportation-fuel
combo.”
For now, oil remains the world’s energy king.
“The global rate of consumption of oil is very staggering,” said
Terzakian, who has been in the energy business for 34 years. “It’s
phenomenal.”
[This
article courtesy of
Watchdog.]
Click here to respond to the editor about this article |
