By John W. Warnock
Leader Post
In early April, the international price for WTI crude rose to $110 per barrel. The price of gasoline was $1.23 for a litre. Both have since risen even higher. Oil corporations are reporting record profits. Land sales for exploration and development rights for oil are at an all-time high in Saskatchewan.
What’s happening?
At a recent conference in Washington sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, experts argued that the world production of conventional crude oil peaked in May 2005 at 74 million barrels a day. The gap to the current production level of 88 million barrels a day is now being filled by much more expensive and difficult to access non-conventional sources.
Of the remaining oil reserves, 77 per cent are controlled by producing countries with state-owned national oil companies (NOCs) where the privately owned international oil companies (IOCs) are excluded. Another 11 per cent of reserves are in countries with NOCs where the private companies have some access through production sharing agreements. Russia has six per cent of the remaining reserves and is re-establishing state-ownership and control.
Only seven per cent of the remaining world reserves of crude oil are in countries like Canada, where the IOCs have full access to the resource.
