The Rise of the State: Profitable Investing and Geopolitics in the 21st Century

5. A New Oil Age

Few would debate the idea that global oil production will eventually peak. The only question is timing, and there’s no way to know for sure when the actual peak will be attained. But data showing alarming declines from maturing fields outside OPEC coupled with production patterns from giant fields cast serious doubt on rose-tinted forecasts for global oil production capacity. The evidence strongly suggests that the world will never see more than 100 million barrels a day of oil production, as the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and other forecasters have suggested.

The most basic law of economics is that supply must equal demand, and price is the factor that balances the equation. A far more likely scenario is that with ...