How could it possibly make sense that an industry that extracted more than 100 million barrels per day of oil last year is moving toward its inevitable collapse?
Yet the traditionally cautious, conservative International Energy Agency projected last week that global oil demand will peak this decade. The IEA’s news generated the predictable pushback from the predictable sources. But we also saw at least one veteran analyst declaring that the industry as we know it has as little as five to 10 years left.
Whichever scenario you pick, oil production won’t disappear tomorrow. It might not completely disappear by 2050, the target date for bringing global climate pollution to net-zero.
But if you pay close attention the pace and direction of the energy transition—and contrast it with the over-the-top boosterism we’ve been hearing from fossil fuel executives—you get a picture of an industry at the top of a downward spiral, hoping desperately that the right words and the next lavish lobbying campaign will hold off the inevitable.
Read the rest of this analysis here.
