This week, Rystad Energy announced the eye-popping finding that the world’s estimate of oil supplies had suddenly shrunk by 292 billion barrels. Needless to say, the announcement caused eyes to pop, as did the headline’s statement heralding the early onset of “peak oil” demand. Hopefully, oil industry executives understand the nuances of the report, and do not overreact. Sadly, many others will.
This represents a typical case of complex news that will terrify the uninitiated who think that 292 billion is a lot of oil. As Saudi Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman would probably say, “292 billion barrels here, 292 billion barrels there, pretty soon you talking about real amounts of oil.” (That’s from an old Everett Dirksen joke about the U.S. budget deficit, originally ‘a billion dollars here…’.)
