Peeking at Saudi Arabia: “Twilight in the Desert”

Abstract

Keynote speakers at the world’s first-ever Peak Oil conference held in Uppsala, Sweden (May 22–23, 2002) were Ali Samsam Bakhtiari from Iran and Matt Simmons from the United States. The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, ASPO, was interested to hear Dr. Bakhtiari speak because, in 2001, he had published a critical review of OPEC’s future production capacity which concluded that, “Relying on OPEC to provide the oil required for increasing world demand over the next two decades doesn’t seem justified…” [1]. In 2002 Matt Simmons led Simmons and Company International, a world leading investment bank serving the energy industry. At that time he was particularly interested in conventional natural gas production in the United States. Later (and partly inspired by his attendance at the conference) he became increasingly interested in future global oil production.