The “The End of Oil?” article describes weak oil demand in recent years although it should be stated that global oil consumption increased over 5 million barrels/day from 2015 to 2019. A major factor for weak oil demand growth in recent years is the increasing level of inequality in the U.S. and world. There is an increasing population that can’t afford to buy oil distillates, or the devices that use them. Oil distillates offer the ability to avoid manual physical effort which people tend to select when they can afford to.
“The End of Oil?” article emphasized the increase in global oil production in recent years. Most of that production increase was associated with unconventional oil resources such as shale oil in the U.S. and oil sands in Canada. The problem with those unconventional oil resources is that they are considerably more expensive to produce compared to conventional oil. Conventional oil production is declining over much of the globe which has forced oil companies to move to unconventional resources.
The author describes oil majors, like ExxonMobil and Chevron, as getting into the shale oil business in recent years. That is not a wise business decision but due to the lack of new conventional resources to exploit.
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