It’s interesting to note in the light of George Monbiot’s polemic that the Observer ‘Energy’ special report, headlined with ‘Earth at the tipping point’ was sponsored by Shell advertising, with www.shellspringboard.org offering funding to small businesses for ‘ideas that combat climate change’. Monbiot’s line “BP and Shell are to Exxon what New Labour is to the old Tories” is apposite. Interesting to see also, two pages before the Monbiot piece “Oil Price likely to fall, says [BP CEO] Browne”

“It is very likely that, in the medium term, prices will stand at about $40 on average. In the very long run, even $25 to $30 are possible,” he said in an interview with the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel.

Lord Browne accepted that it was unlikely prices would fall sharply in the short term but dismissed notions that the price could only go up as scarcity increased. Large oilfields were still being found, he said, and regions such as west Africa had more hydrocarbons that could be tapped.

He also noted that Canada’s oil sands could also be exploited profitably. Even though they were expensive to bring out of the ground, production costs remained well below world selling prices for crude.”

What are we to make of such optimism - perhaps little given BP’s role in maintaining the fiction of global oil abundance through the Statistical Review. “Chaos ahead, says Brown” would be unlikely to calm investors. But this is hardly ‘Beyond Petroleum’ is it?

And more to the point perhaps someone should tell Brown that the economic viability of tar sand production lies in $50 a barrel and up range, which is why Chavez is pushing OPEC to set this as a minimum barrell price should prices start falling. You can’t have it both ways, you’ve either got $25 a barrel crude or you’ve viable tar sand production and an investment climate open to deep sea exploration.