I really only read the first 1/2 of this book, which provided a nice history of Saudi Arabia
& the oil industry their over the last several decades. The later parts of the book provided
the "details" showing the probable decline in the capacity of Saudi oil. It's easy to portray
the "end is near" as an answer, just as it's easy to portray "we're at least 50 years away" if
you believe the Saudi claims of oil reserves.
A couple observations:
1) The author more than once said he felt the Saudi's varied their output to meet changing
world demand and we should all be happy for it. He essentially "looked the other way" to
the charges the Saudi's were manipulating the market to keep energy alternatives at bay. I
personally suspect the latter is mostly true. Looking at the last few decades of history, it's
hard (for me) to see another answer.
2) The Saudi's refuse to report their technical information on the productivity of their oil
fields, and the various technologies they employ to continue pulling oil from the earth.
That said, WHY would you assume any particular scenario as being the "truth". At one
end of the spectrum, they could be running scared because they know their reserves are
running low, so they hide this fact with "fake" reserves. At the other end, they could be
sending selective "signals" (via technical reports that reveal technologies they are (or may
be) using to extract the current volume of oil, without acknowledging the ACTUAL
volume & processes.
In the end, I was disappointed. I wasn't really interested in reading the detailed info in the
second part of the book -- from what was stated in the first part, it was likely to be of
suspect accuracy anyway. Admittedly, I may have missed some pertinent info.
All in all I'd call this an unverifiable "wake-up" call.
