Chapter 2 Media Article

Oil supply can outpace future demand, CERA says

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=e31364f2-f42a-4b91-940e-ef06ce096299&k=63352

"Updating and extending a study released last year, CERA now believes world supply can hit 110 million barrels a day in the next nine years up from 89 million barrels a day currently."

According to the article above, the Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) believe that the supply for oil can and will sustain future demands. Primarily because the labour force in the oil industry is currently growing, worldwide production rates will soar in the near-future years. According to CERA, this could increase by as much as 25% by 2015. Dan Yergin, the chairman of CERA, stated that the growth for oil supply is substantially large, despite stress of the industry. There are certain parts of the world where the increase of supply rate is specifically notable. For example, in Saudi Arabia, a boom in the overall work force and improved projects will increase the production of 10 million barrels to an estimated 12.5 million barrels of oil.

The relationship between oil's supply and demand has interested economists for years, mostly due to the fact that millions of people rely on oil daily for transportation. In the article, one of the main messages to the reader is that the supply for oil is still increasing and can sustain the world. This is a good thing in the sense that more and more people in the world today are purchasing automobiles and the fact that there will be enough gas to maintain them is good news for each individual. However, oil is a scarce resource and will eventually run out. Oil and gas companies should rethink their consumption rates because if all the resources are depleted too quickly, nature will not have the time to recover and recycle any by-products and immediate effects of oil products. There are currently several labs throughout the world working on better options to using gas, but again, if oil and gas sources are depleted too soon, there will be little to no time for research and development of these alternatives.

I personally find that the companies are choosing profit over world benefit, though they claim that they are simply just satisfying customer demands. If these companies were more environmentally friendly and involved, they would be more cautious in their usage and supply rate and should encourage options that wouldn't harm the environment as much. In the end, perhaps the fact that the supply for oil can outrun demand may not be the best thing afterall.