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Oil
The Oil Puzzle
Fact, Fiction, Forecast: 1985 – 2025
A Seminar of The Kenos Circle
Vienna, Austria, March 16 – 17, 2006
Will oil prices rise or fall over the next weeks, months, years, decades? This is the question haunting traders, central bankers, oil companies, and of course, Mr. and Mrs. Everyday Driver. But real "oil puzzle" is not supply, demand, and prices; rather, it is what people believe about supply, demand, and, thus, prices. As with just about everything else in life, there are not enough actual facts to go around. So individual assumptions, prejudices, hopes and fears have to be mixed with the limited facts available to create a belief in what is real about oil. These beliefs, in turn, are evaluated against risks of all types to give rise to investment of resources by governments, firms, and individuals that ultimately determines the character of human life. The Oil Puzzle Conference explores the three Big Questions underpinning the oil puzzle, together with the geopolitical, financial, environmental, and social risks associated with the possible answer to each question. Taken together, the issues considered show how to prepare yourself and your firm for the next few months, years, and decades.
These Big Questions are:
- "Peak Oil": Have global oil reserves "peaked?"
- Alternative Energy: Are there realistic alternatives to oil that will provide a significant supply of energy and be "online" within the next 20 years?
- Price Movements: Will the price of oil consistently exceed $70 per barrel over the next 1, 5, 10 and/or 20 years?
In order to see deeper into these questions, the meeting will present several quite different scenarios for the manner events may unfold between now and 2025. Some scenarios verge on the utopian, others paint a very bleak picture indeed. But all the scenarios to be presented have profound implications for the future of the oil industry. Tools from modern system theory, designed specifically to uncover the social, political, and economic consequences of these scenarios, will be presented in the form of examples taken from other fields, such as the world's catastrophe insurance industry. These examples will illustrate how the ideas of complexity science have been used to uncover the evolutionary development in a worldwide industry.
Of course, it's prudent to also consider the question: What if I'm wrong? What if I've bet on a particular world of 2025 and things turn out very differently? What if I'm creating a strategy for a world that winds up being a "path not taken"? Managing risk in an uncertain future is the second principal component of the conference.
Each Big Question carries with it risk of different sorts: Geopolitical, financial, environmental, social. Concepts and tools will be presented for different options available for risk management, how they work in the context of the oil industry, and the ways different players can employ them to cut their risk to acceptable levels.
In summary, the oil industry has no future; it has many possible futures, each depending on things unknown---and unknowable---at the present time. All players in this game need to take these uncertainties into account in the creation of strategies and actions to put into place now so as to cope with the world of 2025.
A wise man once said, "A reasonable probability is the only certainty." The Kenos seminar will provide participants with the information and tools to assess the probability of various futures, and enable them to take action today to prepare for a very uncertain 2025.
Taken together, the presentations and discussion at this seminar paint a picture of not only how the oil industry has evolved, but more importantly where it can possibly be going tomorrow, next month, next year, next decade. These are questions every player in the oil industry needs to come to terms with. This conference will supply the basis for answers.
Seminar Speakers
- Professor John Casti
- Dr. Michael Loescher
- Dr. Ugur Bilge
- Mr. Keith Fitz-Gerald
- Mr. Robert Prechter
- Dr. Michael Zillner
For further informations please contact us:
- Preliminary Program for the Seminar
- Download Conference Folder