Elaine Meinel Supkis
Mexico's greatest oil field has suddenly started to decline and this decline is much steeper than anticipated. Like so many people plagued by pumping oil, few of the citizens of this country have seen much benefit from all that black gold. And Putin is visiting Saudi Arabia and succeeded in making deals that will terrify Europe.
This is very dire news for the gas guzzlers of this planet: the USA.
By Marla Dickerson, Times Staff Writer
February 8, 2007MEXICO CITY — Production at Mexico's largest oil field is slipping faster than projected and officials see few options for quickly replacing the main source of the nation's oil riches.
The struggles of the world's No. 5 oil producer have implications for an already tight global petroleum market and for the United States, the chief buyer of Mexico's heavy crude. It's also a threat to Mexico's social stability.
Production at Cantarell, the world's second-largest oil complex, which provides about 60% of Mexico's crude, averaged 1.78 million barrels a day in 2006. That's a 13% drop from 2005, said Jesus Reyes Heroles, director of Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, in a news conference Wednesday.
The decline was more than twice as great as the company's published predictions, and the slide will almost surely continue in 2007. Reyes said he expected average daily production at Cantarell to fall to 1.5 million barrels a day this year, a 15% decline. He estimated that within five years the aging field would pump about 700,000 barrels daily, less than half of December's production of 1.439 million barrels a day.
The USA depends on Canada and Mexico to literally fuel our cars and feed our energy needs. Oil and natural gas, both are our lifelines and if either country fails to feed our maws, this is a disaster. For transportation costs are low due to proximity and our political domination of both nations is near total due to the same proximity.
Indeed, throughout our history, we have taken from Mexico whatever we wanted and this includes not only half of the USA but also the cheap labor that comforts our lives and makes profits for citizens. A series of treaties and agreements have been inked linking these three nations ever closer. The number one item for ourselves is the energy situation: we reached our own Hubbert Oil Peak in 1973. We refused to change our lifestyles and instead, have embarked on a self-generated program to use as much oil as possible. The feeling was, our great power and our powerful military and our limitless ability to use the national credit card meant we could do as we pleased.
This is ending now. The profit margin for bringing in oil from distant lands isn't enough for the big oil companies to bring all our oil from distant lands. Once the squeeze begins, the prices here will rise endlessly due to distance plus dangers. For the oil we need from distant lands all involve lots of military spending which we cannot afford except if we sell our future to the Chinese.
As I keep explaining, the Chinese are buying our future and have accumulated a trillion dollars of debts so they can overturn the status quo wherein the USA's 6% of the population of the earth consumes 24% of earth's resources. They intend to switch this from China being 20% of the earth's population using only 6% of the resources to China's 20% using at least 20% of the resources only I expect them to want to make that around 35%.
Scared yet? Is Europe planning to cut back an extra 20% to accommodate China? Who else is going to cut back? Africa?
This explains the unreasoning fury of the European imperialists and the American consumerists! Everyone is furious about the Chinese making business deals with Africa! They get virtually none of the earth's resources for themselves as it is today! The USA sucks it all down.
The Chinese are offering Africa a deal wherein they get more than 2% of the world's resources. Ouch. I see a lot of future pain.
And South and Central America? Even now, we can defy the people there. Note how Bush aided the ruling elites of Mexico to snatch an election from the popular mayor of Mexico City? Now the goons are killing any leftists and of course there is general mayhem as the techie-richie-rich boy ruler sits on his throne surrounded by foreign body guards just like the one in Afghanistan and Nigeria and Egypt...etc.
When the oil revenues begin to fail, the whole mess in Mexico will explode in ways we will not like since it will directly impact us on nearly all levels. A death march indeed.
SAUDI ARABIA, QATAR, JORDAN. 11-13 Feb 2007. President Vladimir Putin visits the leaders of the three Middle East countries in February and the much-heralded trip is likely to be regarded with suspicion in Western countries with close ties to the region and/or worries about energy prices. The Kremlin has said the talks will be aimed at arms and energy deals. There has been speculation that Putin will wade into the Palestinian-Israeli issue with his hosts, and might supply Jordan with the technology it wants to become a nuclear power.The Kremlin has eyes on expanding its arms market in the region, regarded as the traditional preserve of military products exporters in the United States and several European countries. Russia recently delivered weapons to Syria and Iran over objections from Washington. The United States has imposed sanctions against Russian arms exporters, which Putin described in a press conference in the Kremlin on Feb 1 as a sign of unscrupulous rivalry.
The Kremlin sees potential gas deals from the visit. Russia, Qatar and Iran have the world's largest reserves of natural gas. In a national address on Thursday Putin said Russia will consider Iran's proposal to set up an organization similar to OPEC to ensure reliable and uninterrupted gas deliveries to consumers. And Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei spoke recently in favor of setting up "a cooperation organization in the gas sector similar to OPEC." Putin described a "gas OPEC" as an interesting idea, but stressed it won't be a cartel.
The barking dogs in Europe, excited by the idea they have the bloated American military to hide behind, have been trying to strong-arm Putin. He keeps retaliating and one would think, after he has swatted all of them on the noses repeatedly with his rolled up Pravda, they would figure out who is the master here.
But no. The USA this week has parked a bunch of hostile missiles right on Russia's borders and now the barking of the European dog chorus has risen to a howling anvillian (I made up this word, a reference to Wagner and Verdi who used anvils in some interesting operas) din.
'We'll buy our gas and oil from Saudi Arabia,' chortled the Europeans who then trotted off to Saudi Arabia only the Chinese wizard, Hu, had just passed through and had a very interesting conversation with the king there.
I asked my Watchers what they overheard. Being vultures, they love to hang out where death is near. The king of Saudi Arabia is terrified of dying. He can see bin Laden's gaunt face with those glowing, eerie eyes. 'You are doooomed,' this specter hisses, a bitter smile creasing the space between the beard and mustache.
Hu gave the king a hint about what is going to happen next. Being really a dragon, he hauled out pictures of the huge sack of IOUs in the form of dollars he has hoarded. 'We have a trillion of these. If we dump them into the financial currents of the world's banking system, America will collapse,' Hu said, a bitter smile creasing his shaven face.
'We pet the Americans regularly, they can't see our intentions and they stupidly put missiles around Russia this week so Putin has asked us to help him form an alliance with your majesty. He needs you and you will certainly need him,' Hu said as part of his brain remembered the disgusting diplomatic visit he had with Bush just last year.
The fat king wrung his bejeweled hands. 'Tell me what to do, dear dragon,' he squeaked.
The dragon explained how the Prince of Russia would come and bring a series of treaties and business deals. They were to coordinate the sale of all energy products to the allies of the USA. In turn, China will protect the king from Iran's angry Shi'ites and Putin will arm the king with many great weapons. The dragon and the prince have already armed the Iranians with enough weapons they can take down the American navy.
But the Persian cat of Iran will hold its fire and even make a deal with the King if the King were allied with China and Russia. Seeing the logic of this, the King this very afternoon, signed all the documents the Prince of Russia set before him.
And so it goes: we don't have a trillion $ in FOREX funding. We have nothing except a yawning trade and budget deficits which require much of the world's available financing to keep it in balance.
This is destroying all other nation's ability to raise funds themselves and is destroying America too. Not that the people running the joint care.
But the king is scared and he sees clearly how and why we will be defeated. He feels love for the Dragon and the Prince because neither of them care if the Zionist dream turns into dust! They want to make deals. Deals that benefit their own people. And so does the king!
And so the Watchers will now return to Iraq to feast on the dead there. Every death there brings the USA closer to its own destruction. And the inability to even discuss stopping these wars from INCREASING much less, pulling out before it is too late, guarantees fat vultures in the Afterlife as well as here on earth.
Oh, a side note: another helicopter was shot down in Iraq. The USA claims they have proof the Persian cat is responsible for bombing us there. We want a wider war. Another reason why Putin is suddenly very popular in Riyadh.
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It looks like Putin has decided to castle on the Queen's side. A risky move sometimes, but it can often take your opponent by surprise and leave him staring down the barrells of two unimpeded rooks soon enough.
The first thought I had when I saw the words Russia, Quatar, and Iran together was "gas cartel", and sure enough, there it was at the end of the paragraph.
Putin is a vicious dictator who has engaged in all manner of atrocities, but I genuinely believe that he does care about his country. Mother Russia comes first, and those Russian dictators who forget it usually end up dead.
This is why tribes can stand the test of time, even against great odds, but melting pots like empires always die.
Posted by: DeVaul | February 11, 2007 at 11:02 PM
Cantarell - Much worse than this posting shows. The following quotes are from this article: http://www.energybulletin.net/18505.html
Quotes follow:
"Unfortunately, the era of low-hanging fruit … has really run its course," said Herbert, co-head of research at Simmons & Co. International, a Houston-based energy investment bank. He put the odds of finding another field the size of Cantarell in Mexico or anywhere else at "slim and none."
Exceeded in size only by Saudi Arabia's leviathan Ghawar field, Cantarell is a prolific giant that is past its prime. Monthly production peaked in late 2004 at just over 2.1 million barrels a day and has fallen more than 15% since then. Experts agree it has nowhere to go but down.
- snip -
Leaked internal reports of Pemex's own worst-case scenarios published in Mexican newspapers show production plummeting to about 520,000 barrels a day by the end of 2008 — a 71% free-fall from May levels in less than three years.
Posted by: anon | February 11, 2007 at 11:27 PM
Most likely true. The geology of gas and oil is very twisted: the temperatures in the earth must be just right, the places where the rotting lifeforms turned to mush must be perfect. Since many of them are sea creature sites, this means they get sealed by salt.
We know a great deal about oil and geology yet understand so little.
All I really can say is, this stuff is very limited, very dangerous to tap and has side effects we are barely aware of so far.
Posted by: Elaine Meinel Supkis | February 12, 2007 at 01:36 PM
I can be more aggressive about it.
Posted by: spokane physician | February 28, 2011 at 01:37 AM