Simulated Oil Crisis Raises Eyebrows
Posted by Big Gav
I feel unclean linking to them, but Fox has the only report I can find on the results of the recent oil crisis simulation.
A group of former officials from both parties and the intelligence community gathered in Washington Thursday to demonstrate how the world is flirting with disaster on energy. The message in the exercise: If consumers don't like spending $2 per gallon for gasoline, they will probably like $5 per gallon even less.
In a sobering reminder of the need for a long-term energy strategy, a nonpartisan group forming the National Commission on Energy Policy held a simulated National Security Council meeting to grapple with a frightening sequence of events.
In this exercise, Nigeria (search), the fifth-largest oil supplier to the United States, suffers violent political unrest in December 2005 and U.S. oil companies evacuate, pulling 600,000 barrels a day off the global market. "As many of you know, this unrest in Nigeria could have a significant impact on the supply and price of oil," said former CIA Director Robert Gates, one of the participants in the simulation.
At about the same time, a very hard winter prompts a large increase in demand. "The cold weather, that could add another 700,000 barrels a day to daily oil demand worldwide," said former Royal Dutch/Shell Group official David Frowd, another participant.
With those two events, the world suddenly develops a 2 million barrel per day shortfall. In the scenario, President Bush's advisers consider releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve but decide the 90-day supply should be saved in case things get worse.
Technorati tags: peak oil
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