Fuel Prices

[Gbird]

After watching a 4 corners (Australian news/documentry show) documentary on dwingling global fuel reserves there is speculation that in our lifetime the oil industry may dry up or become so expensive that it may become prohibitive to everyday use for the normal person - far sooner than originally expected.

The major airlines have already been stung by this unnerving trend towards increased fuel prices, Qantas Airlines last year lost AUD$1 Billion (yep you read correctly) profit primarily due to the increase in fuel costs after hedging.

Does anyone forsee implications for the rotary wing flying industy. Has there been any projections, predictions?. Worse case scenario - are we all going to be staring at grounded machines in 30 years time as we can't afford to run them?

Any thoughts?

Greg Bird

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

well I understand, that there is as much oil left in the ground ( oil sand extraction ) in the Canadian provences, to match all the oil that has been burned by mankind so far - so don't worry just yet !

[rotornut]

Check this out - lots of articles on the subject:

http://www.wtrg.com/index.html

[Gbird]

Ok thanks for the feedback. Must have been watching a somewhat pessemistic report, which did admitedly focus a lot on the state of the arab world and Saudi Arabia's government not disclosing how much oil they had left, which in turn caused this adverse speculation.

Cheers

Greg

[rotornut]

Gbird
There's a huge debate on the subject: the "peak oil" pessimists versus the"world is awash in oil" people. There are lots of arguments on both sides. One thing is certain - it only takes a minor blip in the system or an increase in international tensions to send the price of oil higher.