Why Even Saudi Aramco Is Now Talking About ‘Peak Oil’: QuickTake - Bloomberg:
The world is turning its back on oil. But how quickly? Technological advances in renewable energy and electric cars, accelerated by the threat of climate change, could mean the world’s thirst for petroleum tops out sooner than companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. or Saudi Arabia’s Aramco are banking on. “Peak oil” once signified the concern that supplies would someday run dry; today it means something very different.
1. Why is oil’s future in doubt?
About 60% of oil is used in transportation, which is also where the biggest technical developments are occurring. The rapid rise of electric carmakers such as Tesla Inc. and China’s BYD could be turbocharged by advances in related fields such as self-driving vehicles and ride-hailing apps, which make it possible for people to switch from owning cars to relying on rides from more efficient fleets. The culmination of these trends could transform how people travel and prompt more revisions to forecasts for when oil consumption will peak. Even Aramco, which used to downplay the prospect of peak oil demand, cited it as a risk factor in the prospectus for its 2019 initial public offering.
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