『Abstract
The IEA was established in 1974 with a mandate to promote energy
security amongst its members, namely the states of the OECD, and
to advise those members on sound energy policy. Its recent forecasts
of the medium and long term prospects for oil supply, however,
have wavered, alternating from optimistic to pessimistic and back
again. For policy-makers, such inconsistency is difficult to deal
with. Firstly we examine whether the changing outlooks seen in
IEA forecasts made between 2007 and 2010 truly reflect a demonstrable,
underlying change in the known facts, and we can find no such
factual changes reported by the IEA. Secondly we examine whether
the serious criticisms of the IEA's (2008) forecast made by other
analysts have yet been addressed, and we conclude that they have
not. Thirdly we consider the possible effects of the current economic
downturn upon the IEA's assumptions and upon future oil supply.
We conclude that all the forecasts made by the IEA appear to be
too optimistic throughout this period.
Keywords: Future oil supply; International Energy Agency; Peak
oil』
1. Introduction
2. Aim of this study
3. Depletion and decline
4. Demand and efficiency
5. Investment and supply
6. The Uppsala critique
6.1. Discovered, undeveloped “fallow fields”
6.2. Undiscovered yet-to-find fields
6.3. Discussion of Uppsala group conclusions
7. Effects of the global economy
8. Summary and conclusions
References