Woe, woe and thrice woe

Just when the financial world is giving us severe grief, it looks like we are going to get bitten by Peak Oil, after all.

The International Energy Agency is shortly to publish its annual World Energy Outlook (12 Nov) but the FT has a sneak preview.

Basically:

1. without investment, the natural annual rate of output decline is 9.1%

2. even with investment, natural annual rate of output decline is 6.4%

3. the level of requisite investment is $360bn each year until 2030.

Great. Just when the money’s run out, though

The decline will not necessarily be felt in the next few years because demand is slowing down, but with the expected slowdown in investment the eventual effect will be magnified, oil executives say.

As a further indicator of how the world is changing, consider, too, that the share of rich countries in global demand will drop from last year’s 59% to less than half of the total in 2030. Whatever world is around in 2030 – 2050 it does not seem that the rich West will be the ones to inherit it.