The European Union could run out of oil by 2030, according to a new study by French think tank The Shift Project.
Two factors increase the risk concerning future EU supplies, according to The Shift project.
“Firstly, the extreme volatility of crude oil prices observed during the last decade, which makes investing in oil projects more complex and more risky,” they pointed out.
“Secondly, the strong growth in demand expected from Asia and Africa, while the production of both continents should decline” according to Rystad Energy and the International Energy Agency.
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The coronavirus crisis has also impacted The Shift Project’s predictions, with Rystad expecting “global oil demand to catch up [to] its pre-crisis levels in the autumn” and noting “the loss of future production capacity due to reductions in investment resulting from the crisis.”
What’s more, if climate policies reducing oil consumption fail, “humanity risks being overtaken by increasingly strong constraints on access to crude oil. Consumption drops by 0.5% per year. That’s not fast enough: it should be around 5%,” said think tank’s director Mathieu Auzanneau.
Another reason the EU’s oil supply will become scarce is a decline in production in the east. “The production of Russia and that of all the countries of the former USSR, which supply more than 40% of oil to the EU, seem to have entered a systemic decline in 2019,” Auzanneau said. “Africa’s oil production appears to be on the decline at least until 2030,” he added.
Supply will decrease, and other countries are developing strategies to secure theirs, according to Auzanneau.
The Brussels Times