There has been a lot of talk recently about Peak Oil and what the world is going to look like when we finally run out of the stuff. Well, having just returned from a week in Dubai, the self-styled gateway to the Middle East, I have had a glimpse into one possible future and how we might be able to live when it finally hits the fan.

As Dubai’s oil reserves are expected to run out in about 2010, or shortly thereafter, there is a flurry of activity to reinvest the huge income from oil production into vast infrastructure projects. At last count there were about 5000 buildings under construction, utilising almost one quarter of the world’s cranes.

When they have finished, they will have the world’s tallest building; its final height is a closely held secret but it will be over 700 m and 160 storeys. For comparison, Petronas Towers, KL, are 452 m. It will be surrounded by 30,000 apartments, and a shopping mall the size of 50 international football fields which will take five days to walk around.

They will have the world’s longest driverless rail transport system (70 km; one million passengers per day), the world’s largest international airport (equal to London’s Heathrow and Chicago’s O’Hare combined), the world’s largest hotel (6,500 rooms), the world’s largest indoor ski resort (complete with on-slope ski lodges) and a 10 km long resort strip which will resemble Las Vegas without the casinos. Its 31 hotels will be modelled on ancient Egyptian palaces, Hollywood, London’s Houses of Parliament and even the moon.

For entertainment, there will be the world’s largest “Disneyland” and a zoo complete with a full-scale “Jurassic Park”. And they are just the more conservative projects I heard about! So, it looks like there is no need to worry about the future of fuel for your car. Everything could be right on your doorstep - or maybe that would be 2400 doorsteps if you lived at the top of the world’s tallest building.

But no matter where you are, you will always be able to get a good read from the world’s best petroleum newsletter……

Finding HMAS Sydney

Oil industry identities Ted Graham and Bob King are part of a non-profit group trying to raise funds from corporate and private businesses to finally locate World War II warship HMAS Sydney which has been lost at sea for 65 years. The group has raised about $2.2 million from government agencies but they are concerned that if more money isn’t raised from private sources, the project, estimated to cost about $4.5 million, could be in jeopardy and the Sydney lost forever.

International News

In this edition we look at Woodside’s global exploration plans for 2007, including the start of drilling of the frontier Pomboo-1 well offshore Kenya and some high impact wells off the North West Shelf, Gulf of Mexico and Libya.

BHP Billiton has paid $773 million for a stake in the Gulf of Mexico Genghis Khan field, with estimated gross hydrocarbon reserves of 65 – 170 MMboe, in water depths of about 1,311 m. Baraka Petroleum has signed a farmout agreement for its five blocks in Mali, West Africa, with subsidiaries of Italian and Algerian oil and gas companies Eni and Sonatrach.

Australian News

A new frontier area, recently opened up along the south coast of Western Australia has attracted the interest of United Kingdom based explorer Plectrum which outline their plans for the region (page 22). Beach Petroleum has joined an exclusive club of Australian petroleum companies with a market capitalisation of more than $1 billion following its recent $247 million rights issue. Expenditure on petroleum exploration rose by 21% in 2005-06, to around $1.26 billion, according to the latest minerals and energy report released by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics.

Technology Focus

A ‘dream team’ of top geophysicists, computer scientists and organisations has been assembled under the banner of the Kaleidoscope Project to create a major advance in computerised techniques for seismic imaging with one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. The project was launched by Spanish energy company Repsol YPF, in partnership with Houston based imaging company 3DGeo, the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre and Stanford University’s Stanford Exploration Project.

Adrian Williams