(c) oilandgaspeople.com
In Oil and Gas People today, Takayuki Nogami, a chief economist of the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation, predicted growing demand and the possibility of prices rising to $100 per barrel. This follows, the July 2017 comments from the Aramco chief describing the outlook for oil supplies as ‘increasingly worrying’, argued that the transition to alternative fuels will be ‘long and complex’ and that this will result in huge shortages. Discoveries are down 50% in the last four years.
Luckily for Scotland, there have been massive finds west of Shetland in the last few months. See:
Speaking about alternatives to oil, the Aramco chief said:
‘Looking at today’s energy mix, the expectations for alternatives are through the roof,” Nasser said. While acknowledging that electric vehicles are gaining in popularity, he said they currently make up less than two-tenths of one percent of the world’s 1.2 billion vehicles and were unlikely to account for more than 10 percent of the global fleet by 2030.’
As for shale oil, the chief echoed my earlier expressed confidence that:
‘Investments in smaller increments such as shale oil will just not cut it.’
Even these small increments from shale are far from secure with a world shortage of the essential fracking sand already with us. See:
Returning to Nogami, we see similar thoughts to those expressed by the Aramco chief:
‘Global demand for crude oil is likely to grow for at least the next 10 years. This is because economic growth in emerging economies including China and India will spur demand in sectors such as transportation and chemicals. Although some believe that the demand for oil will decrease due to the spread of electric vehicles, it will take a considerable amount of time to be fully implemented. One of the major challenges is the high costs of setting up necessary infrastructure such as charging stations.’
https://www.oilandgaspeople.com/news/15881/crude-oil-demand-will-grow-for-next-10-years/
As Scottish crude bursts through the $70pb figure, just over one year after the 2016 slump, to $27.67 (up 154%), it seems there is much revenue to be gathered from the oil producers and that it will last well into the period of independence.
Talking-up Scotland 
So what are we waiting for? This is the ideal opportunity to also fund the much needed investment in renewables for the long term.
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Exactly!
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$70 a barrel is fine with me.
The minute prices rice to $100 a barrel we will see US fracking being ramped up to the max. Costs in the US are between $40 and $90 a barrel I understand, so many wells will sit idle till the price rise high enough to be profitable.
However, the neo-cons in the US would love to attack Iran. This belligerence might actually explain some of the price increase. An attack on Iran is the last thing any sane person would want, but if it happens, I would expect Iran to retaliate against Saudi. The price after that would be anyones guess..
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Good points. I’m just thinking it would be nice to see how Douglas Fraser coped with $100pb.
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Here is the aforementioned Dougie’s most recent scrivening: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-42643050
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It’s a shame though that the sale of Brent Crude is mostly for the benefit of oil companies and their share holders.
The UK govt gives away our oil and is content to make do with taxing whatever profits the oil companies choose to report to HMRC.
Perhaps we would do well to look at other oil producing nations who pay the oil companies to extract the oil on their behalf and keep the lion’s share of the profits for the nation.
$billions or $trillions in revenue?
Just a thought.
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Agreed, Norway?
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