Daniel Yergin
Daniel Yergin
Daniel Howard Yerginis a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author, speaker, and economic researcher. Yergin is the co-founder and chairman of the Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy research consultancy that is now part of IHS Inc. He is best known as author of The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power and The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World. He received his PhD from Cambridge University as a Marshall Scholar...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth6 February 1947
CountryUnited States of America
rising crude oil prices, low fuel inventories, strong summer driving season demand and an environmentally driven transition to new gasoline specifications are combining to keep upward pressure on pump prices.
I think we've seen a change in the mentality of the senior management of the oil industry over the last few months,
You'll have innovators and entrepreneurs and people trying ideas that may seem sensible today or may seem way out. But out of that whole soup will emerge some new ways of doing things.
There are ample supplies beneath the surface of the planet to have significant growth in oil supply for quite a number of years. The technology is there, the resources are there. But the real question is what happens above ground.
The president is stepping on the gas on these policies. He's increasing the focus, and that means increasing everything from research and development spending to regulatory reform.
People always underestimate the impact of technology. To give you an example: In the 1970s the frontier for offshore development was 200 meters, today it is 4,000 meters.
The starting point for energy security today as it has always been is diversification of supplies and sources.
The world has produced about 1 trillion barrels of oil since the start of the industry in the nineteenth century. Currently, it is thought that there are at least 5 trillion barrels of petroleum resources, of which 1.4 trillion is sufficiently developed and technically and economically accessible.
In the mid-1980s, operating problems took [nuclear] plants off-line so often that, on an annual basis, they operated at only about 55 percent of their rated total generating capacity. Today, as a result of several decades of experience and an intense focus on performance ... nuclear plants in the United States operate at over 90 percent of capacity. That improvement in operating efficiently is so significant in its impact that it can almost be seen as a new source in electric power itself.
According to one study by the United States Geological survey, 86 percent of oil reserves in the United States are the result not of what is estimated at the time of discovery but of the revisions and additions that come with further development.
The bulk of extra supplies that could be put into the market come from two places. One, they come from other Persian Gulf suppliers, of which Saudi Arabia is at the top of the list.
But that's not enough: To maintain energy security, one needs a supply system that provides a buffer against shocks. It needs large, flexible markets. And it's important to acknowledge the fact that the entire energy supply chain needs to be protected.
But eventually it's a question of access: Getting access to fields is on top of the oil companies' agenda. We see a substantial build-up of supply occurring over the coming years.
The Iranians know they hold high cards because of oil.