Dr Robert Hirsch, past chairman of the Board on Energy and Environmental Systems at The National Academies and lead author of the “The Hirsch Report” — formally known as Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management — sponsored by the Department of Energy, has written an editorial about the biggest oil problem.

Find the article from here: http://thehill.com/op-eds/the-biggest-oil-problem-2008-10-07.html

BP's chief economist, Christof Rühl, recently made a appearence in an interview at EurActive. He was asked about peak oil and commented it in the following way:

Question: But isn't the result the same in terms of economic impact, whether it is peak oil or severely restricted access?

"No, the result is not the same. Because this situation will react to prices and other fuels becoming available, and it will react to low prices and to these barriers coming down again. Physical peak oil, which I have no reason to accept as a valid statement either on theoretical, scientific or ideological grounds, would be insensitive to prices. In fact the whole hypothesis of peak oil - which is that there is a certain amount of oil in the ground, consumed at a certain rate, and then it's finished - does not react to anything.

Russia's oil production fell for the ninth straight month in September as producers struggled with rising costs and maturing fields, bringing the world's second- biggest crude exporter closer to its first annual drop in output since 1998.

Mature fields in the key producing regions and new developments occurs in remote areas. In July, parliament approved tax breaks championed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to spur investment in national oil production.

Total exports fell 10 percent year-on-year to 5.14 million barrels a day. Exports via OAO Transneft, the country's crude oil pipeline operator, slid 9.1 percent to 4.13 million barrels a day from last year.

Read more: Bloomberg News

In the first installment in a three-day series on Hawai'i's energy future the topic of peak oil was discussed in Honolulu Advertiser. Few places in the world are more dependent on oil than Hawaii. Over 90% of their electricity is generated from oil-fired power plants, something that is becoming a burden with the high oil prices.

The article discussed the need for new energy sources and also takes up the importance of Energy-Return-on-Energy-Investment (ERoEI). The final conclusion is that: "Preparing for disruptions in the oil supply and retooling for life with far less oil is a sensible path for any state or country, but critical for Hawai'i. The cost of such preparation is far less than the cost of doing nothing and being left high and dry when supply disruption hits."

Read the article here: Are we running on empty?

New oil sands mine projects need crude prices to remain over $100 a barrel to turn a decent profit, analysts at UBS Securities said following Petro-Canada's announcement last week that costs for its planned Fort Hills project had soared by more than half.

Inflation has been the oil sands' hobgoblin, with the costs of some projects doubling as the price of steel and other materials has skyrocketed and companies find it difficult to find skilled labour pool in remote northern Alberta.

Where oil prices of $75 a barrel had been adequate to ensure a good profit, UBS-analyst Andrew Potter said $100 a barrel is now likely needed to produce a 10% return. Others estimates are even higher, with William Lacey, an analyst with FirstEnergy Capital, forecasting that the Fort Hills project will need crude at $115 a barrel.

Read more: Upstream Online

The speaker program for the ASPO 7 conference has now been finalized. Among the speakers are Colin Campbell, Kjell Aleklett, Jean Laherrere, Chris Skrebrowski and many more.

The theme of the conference is below ground and above ground. Sessions will treat everything from geology, dynamics, geopolitics and much more.

Please visit the conference website for more information and registration.

Humans live in and from the biosphere. But in the first decade of the 21st Century, 85 percent of the primary energy consumed by the 6.7 billion humans comes from the lithosphere.
About 40 percent of this energy is oil. Another 40 percent comes from natural gas and coal, and 6 percent more is from uranium.

This represents close to 10 billion tons of oil equivalent, extracted every year from below ground.

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The crisis hitting global markets could make it more difficult for Brazil oil giant Petrobras to fund its ambitious plans to tap vast pre-salt oil reserves, the company's president Jose Sergio Gabrielli has said.

The company needs to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming years to tap the oil, which lies up to seven kilometres below a thick layer of salt, Reuters reported.

The financial crisis could squeeze funding sources for Petrobras and its suppliers of crucial equipment, such as the deep-sea oil rigs that can cost more than $500 million each to build.

Petrobras has leased about 80% of the world's deepest-drilling offshore rigs and plans to double its rigs in deep and ultra-deepwater to 63 by 2017. Twenty-eight of the new rigs are to be built in Brazil.

The crisis has "consequences that are not yet fully realised in financing this market," Gabrielli added.

Read more: Upstream Online

Crude tumbled over 4% to a seven-month low today as it fell for a second day after Lehman Brothers' collapse made investors ditch crude for safe-haven assets and on fears the credit crisis will hurt the real economy.

Reports that Hurricane Ike caused minor damage to US crude platforms and refineries also weighed on prices, adding to the previous session's more than $5 fall and almost 37% decline from its peak above $147 in mid-July.

One should however keep in mind that oil price and actual oil production do not need to follow eachother. Since 2005 the world oil production has been virtually flat, despite huge changes in the oil price. Peak Oil and Peak Oil Price is two very different things.