A new WikiLeaks cable shows that the Kingdom could be out of oil by next year.
WikiLeaks: Saudis running out of oil - Yahoo! News

In other news, it was announced today that a new drilling technique has opened up some vast oil reserves here in the Western US.
New drilling method opens vast oil fields in US - Yahoo! News

If true, it could get very interesting.

Heard about this, but that's not exactly what they are saying.... or meant. The Yahoo article is a bit misleading.

What was said is that they over-estimated the amount they CAN produce per day to overcome cutbacks in production by other OPEC countries. In recent years, when other countries cut back on production, S.A. would increase production to maintain quantities and therefore prices (to some extent.)

I don't think one could say, nor did they mean, that they were going to run out of oil by next year. S.A. still has MASSIVE deposits of oil, and it could be that all that is needed is more construction of wells or processing plants to make up for the discrepancy.

At any rate.... your OTHER link was very interesting and could render the situation irrelevant anyway.

I DO think, though, that with increased demand around the world, it is imperative that we begin to produce more oil ourselves.... FOR ourselves! Something in that second article really bothered me. They said that this new process might only represent 2 or 3 percent(?) of WORLD oil consumption and therefore might have little affect on prices. :hellno:

Well.... if it could produce nearly HALF of what WE need..... why don't we keep it for ourselves and let OTHERS pay higher prices??? We are not part of, nor bound by the agreements of the oil cartel OPEC!

Good "find" on that second article. I'll have to look into it more. I do worry somewhat about the environmental impact. Not necessarily on drinking water or such, but on underground EROSION! But, what do I know?

A few years ago I remember hearing an interview of the then CEO of BP Oil. He stated that the Gulf of Mexico had the largest oil reserves in the world. It is unfortunate that Obama has stopped them from producing or drilling in the area. That may be one reason we are seeing higher oil prices. We have plenty of oil in this country. We will need to shut the environmentalists down to get it out of the ground, but it is there. We need to start producing more of our own oil and push forward with alternative fuel sources. Competition and alternative fuels will push prices down.

Not really Hobo. The man quoted states that he believes the deposits aren't as MASSIVE as thought all along. What he said was that SA would actually cut production, not increase it which means the price at the pump just went up.As for OPEC, totally agree, F them.

We have never really had a national policy to get us away from our dependency on foreign oil. Carter make a lot of noise about putting a policy together. It never happened. There are only a couple of things that will change the cycle. We either start drilling in the U.S. or put a genuine effort into developing alternative sources of energy to compete with and eliminate our dependency on foreign oil and break the back of OPEC. We have seen trillions of our dollars being sucked out like a vacuum cleaner to these greedy oil dictators.

I read about 10 articles on this tonight. Yahoo was the ONLY one that actually used the words "run out of oil." YOU titled this thread "nearly out of oil?" Neither is actually true.

As I stated, the problem is not being able to reach the production level needed to maintain current oil prices by next year when world demand reaches what is known as peak oil.

Prices could go up, if demand doesn't come down (which it will) because they cannot produce the amount needed to supply the demand by themselves.

It's convoluted, and I can't explain the whole concept. Here is my bibliography starting with the ORIGINAL "Guardian.co.uk" article that yahoo is quoting:

WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices | Business | The Guardian

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Saudi_Arabia/Oil.html

Peak Oil in 2012? Saudi Arabia's Oil Overestimated by 40%, Wikileaks Reveals // Current

WikiLeaks cable: Saudi oil estimates may have been exaggerated - CNN.com

Slippery Slope - Forbes.com

PEAK OIL: WHY THE PENTAGON IS PESSIMISTIC « The Burning Platform

The CNN link is the story as I heard it on CNN on my XM radio. As I said.... EVEN if the overestimated reserves and production capacity are true, they are NOT going to run out of oil by next year.

Keep in mind, also... that these cables were from 2007... just BEFORE prices went thru the roof. They came back DOWN again, didn't they? They are up again NOW, but that is mostly due to this cold winter.

The future indeed is bleak if we don't reduce oil consumption here and elsewhere (including S.A.) MANY things can and are being done to address the problem.

But, S.A. is no where NEAR running out of oil! World oil consumption is about 85 million bbls/day. 1000 days from now (about 3 years) we'll have used 85 BILLION barrels. Even at the reduced estimate, S.A. alone has over 20 more years of "currently proved" oil reserves..... if they don't develop any further fields. And S.A. produces only about 5 percent of total world production. (IIRC from my reading.)

Chill out. Be concerned.... and support Obama's policies of renewable energy and stuff.... but, don't panic.

Remember, these wikileaks cables are from YEARS ago. Don't you think the government(s) of the world aren't working on this?

Hobo, re-read the title of the thread. I did not make a statement so how is the title not true? I posed a question.

Prices have been going up since Summer, not due to this cold Winter. Mine jumped up to $3 and has held steady since early October at that number. Guess you missed the train though on fuel prices. Demand no longer matters as far as fuel prices go like we were always taught in school. Demand went down 2 years ago, prices went up, demand went up this year, prices went up. If OPEC cuts production, prices go up, if they increase production it usually can go either direction. It makes zero sense for how we were all taught supply and demand.

We have not been in a true market economy in some time when it comes to oil prices. Once OPEC nationalized the oil fields, from mostly U.S. oil companies, they began to raise prices. Since the U.S. was importing ever higher amounts of crude, all the OPEC member needed to do was hold fast. They essentially had a monopoly. That would not be legal in this country, but we are primarly talking about a monopoly of oil producing nations. In recent years much of the huge spikes have come from oil speculators, such as Pilot and other oil companies buying oil futures. I believe that is what pushed Flying J over the edge. They speculated that oil futures would continue to rise. When the price dropped they were left holding the bag. There are a lot of other major speculators who are also driving prices skiward. It has little to do with supply and demand. On the other hand, for years Saudi Arabia has been able to somewhat control Middle Eastern oil by either increasing or decreasing oil production. Since they were the largest producer in the region they could control prices by controling their own production.