Key observation:
Extrapolating from year to date 2007 data, it appears likely that the top five will show an average aggregate net export decline of about one mbpd per year in both 2006 and 2007, putting them on track to go from about 23 mbpd in net exports in 2005 to close to zero in the 2030 time frame.Smaller oil exporters like Angola can and will increase their net exports, but smaller exporters, just like smaller oil fields, tend to have sharper production peaks and more rapid net export declines than do the larger net exporters. And offsetting many of the gains by some smaller exporters will be sharp declines in net exports from other smaller exporters like Mexico, the #2 source of imported crude oil into the US, which will probably approach zero net oil exports by 2014.
Declining net oil exports will inevitably result, absent a severe decline in demand in importing countries, in continued rapid increases in oil prices, as oil importing countries furiously bid against each other for declining oil exports.
In simplest terms, we are concerned that the very lifeblood of the world industrial economy—net oil export capacity—is draining away in front of our very eyes, and we believe that it is imperative that major oil importing countries like the United States launch an emergency Electrification of Transportation program--electric light rail and streetcars--combined with a crash wind power program.
As Alan Drake has pointed out, the United States--with roughly 1/3rd its current population, 1/25th of its current inflation adjusted GDP and with primitive Technology --built subways in its largest cities and streetcars in 500 cities, towns and villages in just 20 years (1897-1916), which does not even take into account numerous interurban systems.
If we could do it in 1908 with mules, manual labor and with minimal fossil fuel input, why can't we do it 2008?
What happens to Wahhabism when it’s source of cash is strangled? Will this lead to a decline in the export of radical islam from Saudi Arabia?
Does anyone think this decline has something to do with the nationalization of the oil companies in many countries?
The higher the price goes up, the more likely it is for a government to want to take over the company.
Also the more likely that the oil company that had invested in the venture will have to recover their loses through higher prices.