The International Energy Agency predicted that peak oil demand would be reached by 2030 and hailed the decline of crude as a “welcome sight.”
Oil producers have been accused of dialing back their climate pledges in recent months following record annual profits.
It’s been a war of words and numbers between two major players in the energy industry – the International Energy Agency and OPEC – as they spar over the future of something crucial to crude producers’ survival: peak oil demand.
Peak oil demand refers to the point in time when the highest level of global crude demand is reached, which will be immediately followed by a permanent decline. This would theoretically decrease the need for investments in crude oil projects and make them less economical as other energy sources take over.
For oil producing countries and companies, it’s existential.
That’s why when the chief of the IEA, an intergovernmental organization that advocates for oil-consuming countries, predicted that peak oil demand would be reached by 2030 and hailed the decline of crude as a “welcome sight,” OPEC was furious.
“Such narratives only set the global energy system up to fail spectacularly,” OPEC Secretary-General Haitham al-Ghais said in a Sept. 14 statement. “It would lead to energy chaos on a potentially unprecedented scale, with dire consequences for economies and billions of people across the world.” He accused the agency of fearmongering and risking the destabilization of the global economy.
More broadly, the spat reflects the ongoing clash between climate change concerns and the need for energy security. That juxtaposition was on full display at ADIPEC – the annual gathering whose name stood for Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition Conference until this year, when it was quietly changed to Abu Dhabi International Progressive Energy Conference. READ MORE...
