Phasing out fossil fuels is unrealistic as oil, natural gas, and coal will continue to play a crucial role in global energy supply and energy security, China’s special climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said this week in a speech obtained by Reuters.

The Worst Week of The Year So Far for Oil Prices

By Irina Slav - Mar 17, 2023

SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE)
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11-12 April 2022  09:00-17:30   Amstterdam, The Netherlands

• Big oil companies lost billions in 2020 because of the pandemic and face broad questions about how they will adapt to climate change and regulations.

  General Motors further raised the stakes for the industry last week when it said it aimed to do away with internal combustion engines and sell only electric cars by 2035.

  Clifford Krauss, “After a Bruising Year, the Oil Industry Confronts a Diminished Future”, The New York Time, 02/02/2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/business/energy-environment/exxon-mobil-bp-2020-loss.html

• Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, who took office in September, recently pledged to make the country carbon neutral by 2050, but over 75% of its electricity is still generated by coal, liquefied natural gas and oil.

      https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/11/13/business/fossil-fuels-electric-vehicles/

• “Goodbye combustion cars in Japan: in the middle of the next decade all electric".

      https://newsbeezer.com/perueng/goodbye-combustion-cars-in-japan-in-the-middle-of-the-next-decade-all-electric-present-hybrids-and-electric/

• “Denmark to end new oil and gas exploration in North Sea”. Denmark has brought an immediate end to new oil and gas exploration in the Danish North Sea as part of a plan to phase out fossil fuel extraction by 2050.

       https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/dec/04/denmark-to-end-new-oil-and-gas-exploration-in-north-sea

• Opec rejects projection that global demand for oil has peaked.

The world’s most powerful oil-producing nations have denied that oil demand may have already reached its peak and have claimed the world will continue to consume more fossil fuels for almost 20 years.

The research arm of the Vienna-based cartel said oil use would rise from just below 100m barrels a day last year to 109m barrels in 2045 after recovering from the severe slump in demand during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Oil will be needed for years to come, and even if demand plateaus in the long term, it will remain a key fixture in the energy mix,” the group’s report said. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/oct/08/opec-rejects-projection-that-global-demand-for-oil-has-peaked

1. M. Klare, End of the Petroleum Age? Foreign Policy In Focus, June 26, 2008.  https://fpif.org/end_of_the_petroleum_age/
2. N. Ahmed, The End of the Oil Age Is Upon Us, VICE, August 26, 2020. https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aze8j/the-end-of-the-oil-age-is-upon-us

3. R. Rapier, This Is What the End of The Oil Age Looks Like, FORBER, Apr 1, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2020/04/01/this-is-what-the-end-of-the-oil-age-looks-like/?sh=4196cb573dd3

4. M. Höök, Depletion and Decline Curve Analysis in Crude Oil Production, Licentiate thesis, May 2009, Department for Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University.
5. M. Savinar, The Oil Age is over, 2004. http://www.wermac.org/pdf/oilage4.pdf