The Silly Peak Oil Debate Rages On

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

“What the Outlook underscores is that the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas bears no relation to fact,” said OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais

Analysts and professionals in the global energy space have long debated the prospects for reaching peak demand for crude oil. It is an issue that has long sparked debate, some of which becomes emotional among highly invested stakeholders on one side or the other.

In recent years, such stakeholders risk developing cases of whiplash when considering the competing perspectives about this “peak oil” matter published by OPEC and the International Energy Agency (IEA).

IEA has spent the last 12 months predicting an earlier advent of the peak oil phenomenon than pretty much any other experts envision, saying it will come about sometime in this decade, no later than 2030. Not surprisingly, the agency’s analysts doubled down on that projection in its most recent monthly Oil Market Report.

In a section titled “When the Music Stops,” the IEA focused on short-term factors like slowing demand growth in China, where oil consumption has declined year-over-year for the past four months. Noting that Chinese demand growth has slowed to an estimated 180,000 barrels per day (bpd) across 2024, the agency leaned on that data point as a reason to lower its estimated global demand growth to 800,000 bpd.

The same section also pointed to the isolated slowing of U.S. gasoline-deliveries growth in June — a factoid that could simply be statistical noise — as support for its annual growth forecast. But a slowdown in crude demand growth is no surprise, given that economic growth has been slowing throughout 2024. This direct cause-and-effect phenomenon has been a consistent aspect of oil markets across history. It is also a short-term factor whose impact will ultimately be diminished by subsequent events.

In contrast, OPEC’s projections over the past year regarding near-term global demand growth and the anticipated peak in oil demand have reached diametrically opposite conclusions. Last summer, the cartel projected global growth in crude demand for 2024 would be a robust 2.25 million bpd. Slowing economic growth has led OPEC’s analysts to lower that initial prediction over the past two months, but only to 2.1 million bpd — more than double that of both IEA and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Where the concept of peak oil demand is concerned, OPEC has held to an even more oil-bullish stance, stating its projections do not see that threshold being reached anytime during its projection timeframe through 2050. In its annual Global Outlook published last week, OPEC sees oil demand growing by that year to 120 million bpd, a rise of 18 million bpd from current levels.

“What the Outlook underscores is that the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas bears no relation to fact,” said OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais in the forward to the report.

Al Ghais also pointed out the fact that: “Over the past year, there has been further recognition that the world can only phase in new energy sources at scale when they are genuinely ready, economically competitive, acceptable to consumers and with the right infrastructure in place.” This undeniable reality means that projections of oil demand in the transportation sector being crushed by alternatives like EVs and hydrogen cars are almost certainly overly optimistic. The rapidly faltering market demand for EVs strongly supports that likelihood.

Al Ghais also contends that a “realistic view of demand growth expectations necessitates adequate investments in oil and gas, today, tomorrow, and for many decades into the future.” That contention stands in contrast to the IEA report released in May, 2021, in which IEA Director Fatih Birol urged an immediate halt in all new investments in the finding and development of new oil resources in order to fight climate change. By August of that year, Biral was comically urging oil companies to increase their oil production in order to help re-balance an undersupplied global market.

Episodes like that have led many to question whether IEA bases its projections related to oil markets on data or on wishful thinking. The validity of such questions was only reinforced when Birol announced early this year that the agency’s mission was being expanded into outright advocacy for promoting the energy transition.

So, who is right? We’ll find out in 2030, but the smart money is on the group with billions riding on the answer.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

Related Topics:#DailyCaller #DavidBlackmon #InternationalEnergyAgency #OPEC PeakDemandForCrudeOil PeakOil

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Trump urges Putin, Zelenskyy to make a ‘deal’

Published on October 19, 2025

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From The Center Square

By Sarah Roderick-Fitch

President Donald Trump hosted President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday afternoon, in hopes of inching Ukraine and Russia closer to peace.

Trump told the media Friday evening that the two had a “very good meeting, a very cordial meeting.”

However, the president said that he has told both Eastern European leaders to stop the war and “go by the battle line wherever it is or else it gets too complicated.”

“The meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine was very interesting, and cordial, but I told him, as I likewise strongly suggested to President Putin, that it is time to stop the killing, and make a DEAL! Enough blood has been shed, with property lines being defined by War and Guts,” the president posted to Truth Social Friday evening. “They should stop where they are. Let both claim Victory, let History decide!”

The president pleaded with the leaders to stop shooting, “no more Death, no more vas and unsustainable sums of money spent.”

The meeting comes a day after Trump had a “lengthy” and “productive” conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, during which the two agreed to meet in Hungary.

One of the topics of interest during the bilateral meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy is Ukraine’s desire to purchase U.S. Tomahawk missiles.

During a news conference between the two leaders, they both emphasized their desire to reach a peace agreement. However, Zelenskyy underscored the need for more weapons, including the Tomahawks.

Zelenskyy suggested a trade between Ukrainian drones for U.S. Tomahawk missiles, which the president suggested he would be open to the exchange. However, the president appears to be reluctant to sell Tomahawks, potentially leaving the U.S. short in case they are needed.

The president indicated that the threat of Tomahawks may be bringing Putin to the table; however, he noted that the Russian president wants to end the war, acknowledging that “bad things can happen” with the missiles.

Overall, the president appears confident that he can solve the war. “I am the mediator president,” Trump told the media.

Trump addressed concerns that Putin is trying to buy more time in wanting to meet, which he acknowledged.

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Trump Blocks UN’s Back Door Carbon Tax

Published on October 19, 2025

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

Has the time come for America to seriously reassess its participation in and support for the United Nations (U.N.)?

It’s a question that some prominent people are asking this week after the increasingly woke and essentially useless globalist body attempted to sneak a global carbon tax in through the back door while no one was looking.

Except someone was looking, as it turns out. Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who chairs the powerful Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and is part of the majority on both the Senate Judiciary and Senate Foreign Relations Committees, said in an X post Thursday evening that this latest bit of anti-American action “warrants our withdrawal from the UN.”

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in his own X post on the matter on Wednesday that the Trump administration “will not allow the UN to tax American citizens and companies. Under the leadership of POTUS (President Donald Trump), the U.S. will be a hard NO. We call on other nations to stand alongside the United States in defense of our citizens and sovereignty.”

On Friday afternoon, Mr. Rubio took to X again to announce the news that efforts by himself and others in the Trump administration succeeded in killing an effort to move the tax forward during a meeting in London. However, the proposal is not fully dead – a final vote on it was simply delayed for a year.

The issue at hand stems from an attempt by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) – an agency of the U.N. – to impose net-zero rules on fuels used for seaborne shipping operations. The Trump administration estimates the imposition of the new requirements will increase the cost of shipping goods by about 10%, thus creating yet another round of inflation hitting the poorest citizens the hardest thanks to the globalist obsession with the amount of plant food – carbon dioxide – in the atmosphere.

Known as the IMO Net-Zero Framework, the proposal claims it would effectively “zero out” emissions from the shipping industry by 2050.

The potential implications if the U.N. ultimately succeeds in implementing its own global carbon tax are obvious. If this unelected, unaccountable globalist body can levy a carbon tax on Americans, a concept that America’s own elected officials have steadfastly rejected across the terms of the last five U.S. presidents, what would then prevent it from imposing other kinds of taxes on the world to support its ideological goals?

President Trump’s opposition to exactly this kind of international intrusion into America’s domestic policy choices is the reason why he has twice won the presidency, each time de-committing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords.

It has become increasingly obvious in recent years that the central goal of the global climate alarm movement is to dramatically raise the cost of all kinds of energy in order to force the masses to live smaller, more restricted lives and make their behavior easier for authoritarian governments to control. This camel’s nose under the tent move by the U.N. to sneak a global carbon tax into reality is just the latest in a long parade of examples that serve as proof points for that thesis.

At some point, U.S. officials must seriously reassess the value proposition in continuing to spend billions of dollars each year supporting and hosting a globalist organization whose every action seems designed to inflict damage on our country and its people. Now would be a good time to do that, in fact.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.