The price of oil has fallen too far in response to a decline in world demand for fuel, International Energy Agency (IEA) chief Nobuo Tanaka said.

"Sometimes the market is overshooting upwards and downwards, and this time this is definitely happening downwards," Tanaka, the IEA's executive director, told Reuters.

He did not say where oil prices should be.

The world's top oil exporter Saudi Arabia said on Saturday crude at $75 a barrel was "fair". Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi later said that oil at that level would encourage new output from marginal, higher cost-sources.

Tanaka also urged producing countries and international oil companies to pursue their planned projects to avoid a supply crunch in the mid-term when demand in recession-hit nations recovers.

Oil at current levels of about $46 a barrel should not deter Opec countries from developing new oilfields, Tanaka said.

Read more: Upstream Online

Opec is ready to cut production by a significant amount when it meets later this month in Algeria, prompted by high oil inventories, the group's secretary-general Abdullah al-Badri said today.

"We are all geared towards a cut in Algeria," Reuters quoted Badri telling a news conference in Tehran, two days after the Opec decided at a meeting in Cairo to delay a decision on a new supply reduction.
Badri said he believed an oil price of $75 per barrel would be "reasonable", echoing comments by Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude exporter.

Saudi Arabia on Saturday cited $75 a barrel as a "fair price" for oil in order to keep the more expensive new projects at the margins of world supply on track.

Read more: Upstream Online

US oil independence "is non-applicable" despite US President-elect Barrak Obama's assurances, said former Saudi Chief of Intelligence Prince Turki Al-Faisal Wednesday evening.

Al-Faisal said in statements to KUNA, during a seminar held on Saudi-US relations organized by the Arab contemporary studies center in Georgetown University, "Saudi should not be worried concerning Obama's attempts to launch oil independence, as oil remains the cheapest source of power, therefore it cannot be made indispensable." He added that the US call for independence in the field of energy was also on Bill Clinton's agenda, but the US continued to buy oil.

He noted that the US did not only import oil from the Middle East, but also from Canada and Mexico, therefore the issue was not limited to Saudi alone but to the US neighbors. The prince said that Saudi was near the end of the oil era, as it was investing in human resources through sending its students abroad to gain experiences and knowledge.

Read more: Kuwait News Agency

The World Energy Outlook 2008 (WEO2008) was released last week and it contains updated studies and forecast from the International Energy Agency (IEA). One of their conclusions is that six new Saudi-Arabias is required until 2030, corresponding to 64 million barrels per day, in order to meet demand and counter decline. Also they see increasing average decline rates of world oil production, mostly due to a switch to smaller fields as the old giants mature. This report signalize that IEA begin to see more and more challenges with future oil supply.

Some of the key graphs from WEO2008 can be found here:
http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/key_graphs_08/WEO_2008_Key_Graphs.pdf

Comments and discussions related to WEO2008 can be found here:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4763

French oil and gas giant Total is targeting nuclear energy to drive growth long after oil and gas output peak, a top executive said on Monday.

"In the future, energy demand will be constrained by tight supply," Arnaud Chaperon, Total's senior vice president for electricity and new energies, said in a presentation to a nuclear energy conference in Qatar.

"Oil and gas will still play a big role in the energy balance. But in the electrification of the world economy, nuclear will play a major role, together with the development of solar and other renewables ... That is why Total is very interested in developing nuclear and renewables."

Read more: Reuters

For the gas industry, peak gas output could come sooner than expected, "maybe not too different from peak oil," Shell executive vice president John Mills told delegates at the ADIPEC conference in Abu Dhabi on 5 November 2008.

"Globally, what people have woken up to is that there is a prospect for the gas industry that its supply-demand crunch could come earlier than anticipated," he said.

"The Middle East will still be increasing its gas exports right through that [peak in global gas supply], but the picture in North America and Europe will be quite different," he said.

Chris Ball of Occidental said "we are very optimistic that there are large reserves of gas out there, which if customers will accept the price, [can be developed]. Industry can be creative and innovative [to find solutions] but it will take money."

ADNOC's gas processing manager Ismail Al Ramahi said that 40% of global gas reserves were in the Middle East, but he said the distribution of the available gas to the market was concentrated in a few countries.

Dr Euan Mearns, editor of the Oil Drum, gave a presentation at the Royal Society of Chemists earlier this year. He discussed the global energy crisis and its role in for the pending collapse of global economy along with the need for energy efficiency Now his speech is available for further discussions the Oil Drum.

Read more: The Oil Drum

The risk to the UK from falling oil production in coming years is greater than the threat posed by terrorism, according to an industry taskforce report published today. The report, from Peak Oil Task Force, warns that the problem of declining availability of oil will hit the UK earlier than generally expected - possibly within the next five years and as early as 2011.

The main conclusions of the Taskforce are:

1. The effects of peak oil will be felt in the next five years - during the next term of government
2. The risks to UK society from peak oil are far greater than those that tend to occupy the Government’s risk-thinking, including terrorism
3. The UK Government needs to re-prioritise peak oil - as the impacts are more likely to arrive first – before climate change

Read more: The Guardian
Download the report from: Peak Oil Task Force

The presentations from the VII ASPO Conference in Barcelona can now be downloaded from: http://www.aspo-spain.org/aspo7/presentaciones.html.