Posted by Euan Mearns on July 3, 2008 - 11:04pm in The Oil Drum: Europe
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: berr, coal price, gas price, oil prices, original, uk government [list all tags]
This BERR report (small pdf) published in May 2008 provides 4 alternative price scenarios for oil, natural gas and coal. The high scenario is shown below.
BERR are inviting comments and suggestions.
emissionsprojections@berr.gsi.gov.uk
Upstreamonline is a good source of oil and natural gas prices.
On 3rd July:
Brent is trading at $144 per barrel
Tapis is trading at $153 per barrel
UK day ahead natural gas is trading at 62p / therm
Some comments:
LOL.
Actually, I think they are wasting our taxes - 'fiddling while Rome burns'.
We are half-way through 2008 and the average price, to date, for Brent must be ~$115 already above the high-high prediction for 2010.
To be in error by such a wide margin in two months is pathetic - I am easily able to predict the actual price within ~$10 in that timeframe (the average moves even less), oil is trading in an escalating range, look at the graph on the Upstream site Euan links to, join all the high points with a curved line and join all the low points with a curved line and extrapolate both two or three months.
In reality nobody knows the future and predictions such as these are of no use to anybody. Best for BERR just to admit it and sack everybody involved and use the money saved to insulate poor housing stock.
What truly amazes me about the assumptions behind the predictions is that no allowance is made for reducing CO2 - all we see is IEA predicted growth despite the Government signing us up to binding severe CO2 reductions.
Quoted market prices for calendar year 2009 as of 13:30 on 3rd July:
Brent $147.95 per barrel (175% x "high scenario 2010", 138% x "high high 2010")
ARA Coal (API2)$205.50 per mt (360% x high scenario 2010, 178% x "high high 2010")
UK nat gas 101.00 pence/therm (187% x high scenario 2010, 151% x "high high 2010")
My only suggestion to BERR is that if they intend to publish the report for mass market consumption, they should do so in a joint venture with Andrex so that the report will at least have some utility.
<>This clearly illustrates some of the dire consequences of the unbalances between energy supplies and demand, predictability completely vanishes.Institutional forecasts are used by many public and private sectors for their long? term planning. With the kind of input now provided by many institutions expect to see some astonishing results.
The world we are headed for will be defined by a completely, and as of now poorly understood, new set of rules.
<In their high-high scenario they say :
"In the high-high price scenario, strong oil demand, a lack of investment and a fast decline in spare capacity is assumed to drive prices upwards until the point of demand destruction—when alternative energy sources become competitive and oil consumption declines. The oil price is then assumed to remain around this point in the long-term."
We can see in the high-high scenario the price stabilising in 2015 at 150 $
So they assume two things
-alternative energy will succesfully replace oil since the price of oil will not rise further when they will be used.
-They will be used on a large scale (to replace oil) at 150$ for some mysterious reason
Well we will soon see if their previsons are correct, maybe in a few days..........
