“BP has made its largest oil and gas discovery in 25 years offshore Brazil,” reports Reuters. BP plans “to create a major new output hub at the Bumerangue discovery in Brazil, which a BP spokesperson said was probably the company’s biggest since Shah Deniz in 1999, a gas and condensate field in the Azeri part of the Caspian Sea. Shah Deniz, with around 1 trillion cubic metres of gas and 2 billion barrels of condensate initially in place, produced 28 billion standard cubic metres of gas last year, according to BP. It gave no reserve estimate for the Brazilian block….BP, which forecast its oil and gas production at 2.3 million to 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2030, said this was its 10th discovery this year, following findings in Trinidad, Egypt, Brazil and others.”
Progressive eggheads used to promote the concept of “peak oil”: the idea that oil production had already peaked and would soon run out, leading to ever higher oil prices as oil grew scarce. They predicted the scarcity would get even worse as humanity multiplied in number, resulting in more motorists competing for ever dwindling supplies of oil. They noted that the number of cars had risen from 50 million in 1950 to 500 million by 1990. Today, there are 1.5 billion cars in the world.
But oil production hadn’t peaked. Oil production is at an all-time high. As the population of the world more than tripled, and cars multiplied 30-fold, oil became more affordable — although gas prices vary enormously from country, mainly due to different countries taxing gasoline very differently (and in some cases, subsidizing it).
Gas prices vary enormously from country to country, noted Gale Pooley back in March:
The average price of gasoline around the world is U.S. $5.03 per gallon. However, there is substantial difference in these prices among countries due to the various taxes and subsidies for gasoline. All countries have access to the same petroleum prices of international markets but then decide to impose different taxes. As a result, the retail price of gasoline is significantly different.
The money price of 16 selected countries ranges from $2.26 in Russia [and $3.82 in the U.S.] to $8.55 in Denmark.
Global oil production has risen, reaching an all-time high in 2024, the most recent year for which data is available. Oil production has also risen in the United States due to fracking, debunking false predictions made 20 years ago that the U.S. had reached “peak oil.” Oil has become the most productive U.S. industry, says Bloomberg News.
