The founder of Virgin, Sir Richard Branson and other leading business men will this week warn Ministers that the world is running out of oil, reports The Guardian. He says the world will face an oil crisis within five years and it could prove worse and more serious than the credit crisis.
Branson says the Government needs to act now to prepare for the challenge ahead. He’s joined in the warning by the chief executive of Scottish and Southern Energy and the chief executive of Stagecoach.
Government ministers have failed to take seriously, warnings that there is set to be an oil shortage. They have tended to believe the reports from oil companies such as BP and ExxonMobil and Saudi Arabia, that there’s nothing to worry about. Meanwhile, there are allegations at the International Energy Agency that the threat of an oil shortage has been played down to avoid panicking the stock markets.
An independent oil consultant who prepared the “peak oil” report for Branson et al said the recession had slowed down the crisis. Chris Skrebowski said that we would only see problems once demand started to rise again and excess oil stocks from Opec were used up. This would happen by around 2012-2013 and then we would see spiking oil prices by around 2014-2015, which would affect economic growth.
He believes the UK is particularly at risk because the country has gone from being a net exporter of oil, gas and coal, to being an importer. The UK will become more and more vulnerable to competition for energy supplies.
However, Saudi Arabia still insists the concerns over peak oil are exaggerated and the chief executive of BP has also played down concerns over falling supplies.
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Source: The Guardian.co.uk (08.02.10)
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