We always knew that the oil would run our sooner or later; it’s a non-renewable source. But it was always assumed that it would be several generations from now ... At the beginning of the twenty-first century and we are already starting to see the signs of global oil production peak. Richard Heinberg, author The Party’s Over
A Dirty Fight: A giant oil corporation has been fined $8.6 billion for an environmental disaster that has been called The Amazon’s Chernobyl. But guess what? It may end up paying nothing. The Independent headline 16th February 2011
For as long as man has lived around the borders of the North Sea he has intermingled his respect for it with fear and hatred. Piper Alpha: Fire in the Night, BBC 2013
Machinery has bred machinery, platforms have grown up and out like junkyards on stilts. ibid.
Built in 1976 Piper Alpha with a crew of 226 men was producing around 300,000 barrels a day. ibid.
There was a lot of maintenance going on in the rig. ibid.
Between 20 and 30 of the 226 oil workers originally on board have managed to escape the platform. ibid.
00.00 hrs: Full structural collapse is underway. Over 80 men remain trapped. ibid.
In the Public Inquiry that followed, the rig’s operator Occidental was heavily criticized. However, no criminal charges were brought against the company. ibid.
The oil fires in Kuwait at the end of the Gulf War were not actually set alight by the retreating Iraqi troops; they were set alight by the American special forces. Ian R Crane, radio interview
The phrase ‘Peak Oil’ has been coined to bring attention to the belief that the world is at, or very close to, the point where reserves of global hydrocarbon resources commence the downward path, which will ultimately lead to the complete exhaustion of global oil & gas resources.
Whilst the theory of ‘Peak Oil’ is popularized by a sympathetic media, the oil industry continues to produce in excess of 90 million barrels each day whilst enjoying record levels of profitability, yet remains remarkably silent on the issue.
The mainstream media is also strangely silent on the existence of alternative theories to ‘Peak Oil’. Why is this? Does everyone in the Oil & Gas industry agree with the forecasts that the world is entering the last days of an oil-based economy? If not, what is the alternative viewpoint and why is it not given coverage by the mainstream media?
In addition, the proponents of ‘Peak Oil’ conveniently ignore rapidly advancing well construction, reservoir management and stimulation techniques, which enable more than twice as much oil to be extracted than when oil was first discovered in the late 19th Century. Not to mention the development of production from unconventional sources, such as the massive shale oil deposits beneath Colorado, Utah & Wyoming. Ian R Crane, Peak Oil: Myth or Reality? viz website
The Myth of Peak Oil: Peak Oil is a complete and utter myth. It’s brilliant. It’s so plausible it’s brilliant. And the vast majority of people who are aware of the term have bought into it. And the purpose is to subconsciously prepare you for the fact that you are going to be paying a pound a litre plus to fill up your car. Let me tell you that just eight years ago, in 1999, the price of a barrel of oil was nine dollars and eighty-one cents. Nothing has changed except the artificial pumping up of the price of a barrel of oil. Who’s making the profit? Look at the profitability of all the oil companies in the last couple of years. Dick Cheney is made out like a bandit because of the Halliburton stock price increasing by five-fold. But we’re heading for a crash. Ian R Crane, lecture Glastonbury 2007, ‘Fool Me Once’
You’re all being fed this bullshit that we’ve reached Peak Oil. That we’re running out of oil ... There is more oil on this planet than we know what to do with. One of the whole purposes of the Gulf Wars was to keep the Iraqi oil in the ground. ’Cause there is so much oil in Iraq that when Saddam was running the show there the concern that Saddam, because he had so much oil, would put it on the market, and keep the price suppressed. And the US needs a high price in oil because oil is still currently just about traded in US dollars. And they need other countries to have US dollars so that they can buy US goods – arms. The US only has one product that it manufactures today in any volume – arms. Military equipment. That’s why the US needs war. It needs war because that’s the only industry that it’s got. Ian R Crane, New World Order lecture, Liverpool 2008
The Kuwait oil fires were started by the US Special Forces. Why? Who do you think was going to get all the money for putting them out? $7 billion paid for by the Emir of Kuwait. How do I know this? Because I was in Iraq two days after the end of hostilities; I was driving around the oil fields in the south of the country with a military escort ... and there were bodies of Iraqi soldiers around many of the wells. I mean, it was very obvious; they’d been defending the oil wells. It was the American Special Forces that had started the fires. ibid.
The process of fracking came about in the late 1940s ... You pump the water down the well under phenomenal pressure to fracture the rocks ... There's 5% of this chemical cocktail ... What they don’t know is where it’s going to go. Ian R Crane, interview Richplanet TV
64% of England is sitting over shale gas or coal-bed methane. ibid.
Right now we’ve got a major propaganda PR campaign being mounted by the government and the corporations. ibid.
4At the time the oil industry was in a bit of a recession. So this provided $7 billion’ worth of work for the US oil industry. It also meant that the Kuwaiti oil was kept off the market. And what a lot of people don’t realise is that the whole charade over Iraq for the last almost twenty years now has been about keeping Iraqi oil in the ground. All this myth that is put out about Peak Oil is for the gullible. Ian R Crane, interview Ross Hemsworth, Now That’s Weird!
Wishful thinking does not reverse oil depletions, oil decline. Rob Hopkins, Transition Towns, debate Ian R Crane, hosted Ross Hemsworth
During the past six years, the American Gulf War Veterans Association has received numerous reports from veterans stating that US forces – including Navy Seals, Marine Force Recon and Delta Force – were responsible for the setting of the oil well fires at the end of the Gulf War. truthseeking online article
A February 2007 report by the US Government Accountability Office states that the world oil production is expected to peak sometime in the next few decades. Mega Disasters: Oil Apocalypse, History 2007
Hubbard’s prediction proved correct: after 1970 US production peaked and began to fall back. Today the US produces only 8.3 million barrels of oil each day yet consumes more than 20 million barrels. ibid.
There was a second part to Hubbard’s prediction: he calculated that world oil production would peak during the early part of the twentieth century. ibid.
There was a definite hiatus in the industry. Everybody thought that they had reached the peak. Bill Mackie, author The Oilmen
4Peak oil as a topic of severity to the twenty-first century will very quickly overwhelm global warming as the thing we are focusing on. Matthew Simmons, Chairman Simmons & Co International
Oil companies are making record $100 billion annual profits not because the oil is scarce ... but because we believe it is. Jerome Corsi, ‘Black Gold Stranglehold, The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil’ (co-author Craig R Smith)
An inventor in Greece came up with a really intriguing way to get rid of oil slicks using magnetism. Dara O’Briain’s Science Club 6/6, BBC 2013
This is another idea about trying to do oil slicks but … you made the oil magnetic. ibid.
A mile beneath the waves millions of gallons of oil pour into the Gulf of Mexico. It was the world’s deepest blow-out. Over eighty-seven days a team of engineers and scientists worked to create five very different plans to contain BP’s well. Horizon: Deepwater Disaster: The Untold Story, BBC 2010
On board was a crew of 126. Most were saved. 11 people died. ibid.
In 1979 a well belonging to the Mexican government blew out unleashing one of the worst spills in history. ibid.
By the end of the crisis BP would use nearly two million gallons of dispersants; nearly half that amount was underwater. ibid.
BP’s battle with the well had gripped the world. ibid.
One year after the world's worst oil spill and BP is in trouble again: in Libya where their $900 million deal with Gaddafi is in jeopardy. And in Russia where its massive Arctic adventure hangs in the balance. Greg Palast, Dispatches: BP: In Deep Water, Channel 4 2011
In April 2010 BP’s Deepwater Horizon Macondo well blew out. ibid.
I wanted to find out if the largest oil spill in history really was history. ibid.
Clean up theatre: superficial and cosmetic. ibid.
This is all that remains of Louisiana’s wetlands. ibid.