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| A Crude Awakening | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical Poster | |
| Directed by | Basil Gelpke Ray McCormack |
| Produced by | Basil Gelpke Ray McCormack |
| Edited by | Georgia Wyss |
| Music by | Philip Glass Daniel Schnyder |
| Distributed by | Lava Productions AG |
Release date |
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Running time | 94 minutes |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Language | English |
A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash is a 2006 documentary film about peak oil, produced and directed by Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack. [1] [2]
A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash explores key historical events, data and predictions regarding the global peak in petroleum production through interviews with petroleum geologists, former OPEC officials, energy analysts, politicians, and political analysts. The film contains contemporary footage interspersed with news and commercial footage from the growth heyday of petroleum production. The documentary focuses on information and testimony that supports the projection of a near-term oil production peak.
The documentary examines our dependence on oil, showing how oil is essential for almost every aspect of our modern lifestyle, from driving to work to clothing to medicine and clean tap water. A Crude Awakening asks the tough question, “What happens when we run out of cheap oil?” Through expert interviews and archival footage, the film spells out in startling detail the challenges we would face in dealing with the possibility of a world without cheap oil—a world in which it may ultimately take more energy to drill for oil than we can extract from the oil the wells produce.
Interviews include energy investment banking CEO Matthew Simmons, petroleum geologist Dr. Colin Campbell, former OPEC Secretary-General Fadhil Chalabi, former U.S. Representative Roscoe Bartlett, among many others. [3]
The interviewees provided the results of their analysis of current levels of proven reserves, the limited opportunities for significant oil discoveries, and the dire economic consequences of a global oil production peak. Their overall conclusions were that a global peak was imminent (if not already occurring), more wars would be fought to control access to oil resources, and economies most dependent on oil (or relying on trade with oil-dependent nations) would suffer dire consequences rivaling the Great Depression, without the benefit of cheap oil to enable a recovery.
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name petroleum covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that consist of refined crude oil.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is an organization enabling the co-operation of leading oil-producing countries in order to collectively influence the global oil market and maximize profit. It was founded on 14 September 1960 in Baghdad by the first five members. The 13 member countries account for an estimated 30 percent of global oil production.
Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global oil production is reached, after which production will begin an irreversible decline. It is related to the distinct concept of oil depletion; while global petroleum reserves are finite, the limiting factor is not whether the oil exists but whether it can be extracted economically at a given price. A secular decline in oil extraction could be caused both by depletion of accessible reserves and by reductions in demand that reduce the price relative to the cost of extraction, as might be induced to reduce carbon emissions or from demand destruction triggered by persistently high oil prices.
Petroleum politics have been an increasingly important aspect of diplomacy since the rise of the petroleum industry in the Middle East in the early 20th century. As competition continues for a vital resource, the strategic calculations of major and minor countries alike place prominent emphasis on the pumping, refining, transport, sale and use of petroleum products.
Colin J. Campbell was a British petroleum geologist who predicted that oil production would peak by 2007. He claimed the consequences of this are uncertain but drastic, due to the world's dependency on fossil fuels for the vast majority of its energy. His theories have received wide attention but are disputed and have not significantly changed governmental energy policies at this time. To deal with declining global oil production, he proposed the Rimini protocol.
From the mid-1980s to September 2003, the inflation-adjusted price of a barrel of crude oil on NYMEX was generally under US$25/barrel in 2008 dollars. During 2003, the price rose above $30, reached $60 by 11 August 2005, and peaked at $147.30 in July 2008. Commentators attributed these price increases to many factors, including Middle East tension, soaring demand from China, the falling value of the U.S. dollar, reports showing a decline in petroleum reserves, worries over peak oil, and financial speculation.
The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, by Richard Heinberg, is an introduction to the concept of peak oil and petroleum depletion.
The Hirsch report, the commonly referred to name for the report Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management, was created by request for the US Department of Energy and published in February 2005. Some information was updated in 2007. It examined the time frame for the occurrence of peak oil, the necessary mitigating actions, and the likely impacts based on the timeliness of those actions.
The price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC Reference Basket, Tapis crude, Bonny Light, Urals oil, Isthmus, and Western Canadian Select (WCS). Oil prices are determined by global supply and demand, rather than any country's domestic production level.
Crude (2007) is a 90-minute-long feature documentary made by Australian filmmaker Dr Richard Smith attempting to explain the links between formation, extraction and refining as well the link between geology and economy. The film features interviews with oil industry professionals and geologists about the future of oil production and exploration. The interviewed include Dr. Jeremy Leggett, a geologist formerly working with oil exploration for BP and Shell; Dr. Colin Campbell, a retired British petroleum geologist who predicted that oil production would peak by 2007; Lord Ronald Oxburgh, former chairman of Shell; Professor Wallace S. Broecker at Columbia University; and journalist Sonia Shah.
Peak oil is the point at which oil production, sometimes including unconventional oil sources, hits its maximum<citation required>. Predicting the timing of peak oil involves estimation of future production from existing oil fields as well as future discoveries. The most influential production model is Hubbert peak theory, first proposed in the 1950s. The effect of peak oil on the world economy remains controversial.
The Japan Crude Cocktail (JCC) is the informal nickname given to the pricing index of Crude Oil used in most East Asian countries. The JCC is the average price of customs-cleared crude oil imports into Japan and is published by the Petroleum Association of Japan. The official name of the JCC is the Japan Customs-cleared Crude Oil Price. The valuation of the JCC closely reflects the market state of supply and demand. Clear fluctuations in JCC pricing can be linked to distinct events such as the 2007-08 Global Financial Crisis and the 2011 Fukushima Disaster.
Petroleum has been a major industry in the United States since shortly after the oil discovery in the Oil Creek area of Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859. The industry includes exploration, production, processing (refining), transportation, and marketing of natural gas and petroleum products. In 2018, the U.S. became the world's largest crude oil producer, producing 15% of global crude oil, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia. The leading oil-producing area in the United States in 2019 was Texas, followed by the offshore federal zone of the Gulf of Mexico, North Dakota and New Mexico. In 2020, the top five U.S. oil-producing states were Texas (43%), North Dakota (10.4%), New Mexico (9.2%), Oklahoma (4.1%), and Colorado (4.0%).
The proven oil reserves in Saudi Arabia are reportedly the second largest in the world, estimated in 2017 to be 268 billion barrels, including 2.5 Gbbl in the Saudi–Kuwaiti neutral zone. This would correspond to more than 50 years of production at current rates. In the oil industry, an oil barrel is defined as 42 US gallons, which is about 159 litres, or 35 imperial gallons. The oil reserves are predominantly found in the Eastern Province. These reserves were apparently the largest in the world until Venezuela announced they had increased their proven reserves to 297 Gbbl in January 2011. The Saudi reserves are about one-fifth of the world's total conventional oil reserves. A large fraction of these reserves comes from a small number of very large oil fields, and past production amounts to 40% of the stated reserves. Other sources state that Saudi Arabia has about 297.7 billion barrels.
There have been widely varying estimates of proven oil reserves in Russia. Most estimates included only Western Siberian reserves, which have been exploited since the 1970s and supply two-thirds of Russian oil. However, there are potentially huge reserves elsewhere. In 2005, the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources estimated that another 4.7 billion barrels of oil exist in Eastern Siberia. In July 2013, the Russian Natural Resources Ministry made official estimates of reserves available for the first time. According to Russian Natural Resources Minister Sergey Donskoy, as of 1 January 2012, recoverable reserves of oil in Russia under category ABC1 were 17.8 billion tons and category C2 reserves were 10.9 billion tons.
The 1970s energy crisis occurred when the Western world, particularly the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, faced substantial petroleum shortages as well as elevated prices. The two worst crises of this period were the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis, when, respectively, the Yom Kippur War and the Iranian Revolution triggered interruptions in Middle Eastern oil exports.
Fadhil Jafar al-Chalabi (1929–2019) was an Iraqi economist, and was Acting Secretary General of OPEC from 1983 to 1988. He was a second cousin of the politician Ahmed Chalabi.
The 2010s oil glut was a significant surplus of crude oil that started in 2014–2015 and accelerated in 2016, with multiple causes. They include general oversupply as unconventional US and Canadian tight oil production reached critical volumes, geopolitical rivalries among oil-producing nations, falling demand across commodities markets due to the deceleration of the Chinese economy, and possible restraint of long-term demand as environmental policy promotes fuel efficiency and steers an increasing share of energy consumption away from fossil fuels.
On 8 March 2020, Saudi Arabia initiated a price war on oil with Russia, which facilitated a 65% quarterly fall in the price of oil. The price war was triggered by a break-up in dialogue between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia over proposed oil-production cuts in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Russia walked out of the agreement, leading to the fall of the OPEC+ alliance.
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