Daniel Yergin Quotations

The starting point for energy security today as it has always been is diversification of supplies and sources.

But that's not enough: To maintain energy security, one needs a supply system that provides a buffer against shocks. It needs large, flexible markets. And it's important to acknowledge the fact that the entire energy supply chain needs to be protected.

People always underestimate the impact of technology. To give you an example: In the 1970s the frontier for offshore development was 200 meters, today it is 4,000 meters.

So the major obstacle to the development of new supplies is not geology but what happens above ground: international affairs, politics, investment and technology.

We are living in a new age of energy supply anxiety.

We are living in a different world now. You can see it everywhere in international relations: It was noteworthy that, after his visit to Washington, the Chinese president's next stop was Saudi Arabia.

I think the producers, for the most part, don't want to see prices skyrocket because that will only create problems for them down the road and would also be a, you know, would be a very serious shock for a world economy that can't afford serious shocks right now.

The bulk of extra supplies that could be put into the market come from two places. One, they come from other Persian Gulf suppliers, of which Saudi Arabia is at the top of the list.

But eventually it's a question of access: Getting access to fields is on top of the oil companies' agenda. We see a substantial build-up of supply occurring over the coming years.

First, we have to find a common vocabulary for energy security. This notion has a radically different meaning for different people. For Americans it is a geopolitical question. For the Europeans right now it is very much focused on the dependence on imported natural gas.

In a couple of years, the Chinese will be seen as regular participants in international industry. Their companies have to report to shareholders as well as to the Chinese authorities. They need to make money, they have to be efficient.

Cycles of shortage and surplus characterize the entire history of oil.

It's extraordinary how inventive one can be with ethanol right now.

The North Sea was supposed to run out in the 1980s. Then in the 1990s. And now production is still on-line.

We experienced similar fears in the 1880s, at the end of World War I and II. And we ran out in the 1970s.

But the key thing is that Iraq, while it's got very large oil reserves, has marginalized itself as an oil exporter and these days its exports are only about one tenth that of neighboring Saudi Arabia.

The other are the strategic, so-called strategic stocks that the United States and the other Western industrial countries have, which could put in as much as four million barrels a day of oil into the market pretty quickly.

The Russians are turning east to the Chinese - to the Europeans' surprise. It always seemed to me that the relationship between Russia and China would shift from being based in Marx and Lenin to being based in oil and gas.

This has a lot to do with the unrest in Nigeria, but also with the production loss after the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, the decline in Iraq since the 2003 war, and the decline in Venezuelan output since 2002.

A premium in the oil price of somewhere between 10 to 15 dollars a barrel reflects this heightened anxiety.

Clearly, the Chinese need the resources, but I don't think they want to clash with the industrial world which happens to be the market for their goods.

We're expecting another 20 cents more than where we are,

We have high crude prices. We have low inventories. We have strong demand. All of that would be a recipe for a taut market even with refineries (running at full capacity).

If they don't ease more oil into the market over the next six weeks, we could see prices spike a good deal higher than they are now.

Fourteen months ago, oil seemed to be in a bull market ? then Asia collapsed, ... This is basically a gross domestic product crisis driven by Asia, so the real prospects are whether you think Asia by the year 2000 will start showing signs of recovery.

If a war started, the oil price probably would go up, as you said, maybe $5, $6 a barrel until you saw other oil from the extra supplies that are available elsewhere coming into the world, into the market.

I think we've seen a change in the mentality of the senior management of the oil industry over the last few months,

rising crude oil prices, low fuel inventories, strong summer driving season demand and an environmentally driven transition to new gasoline specifications are combining to keep upward pressure on pump prices.

Particularly the East Coast could soon be teetering on the edge of shortage.

You'll have innovators and entrepreneurs and people trying ideas that may seem sensible today or may seem way out. But out of that whole soup will emerge some new ways of doing things.

When you adjust it for inflation, a year ago we were looking at gasoline prices that were cheaper than they had been during the Great Depression. So it was an extraordinary bargain.

The world has produced about 1 trillion barrels of oil since the start of the industry in the nineteenth century. Currently, it is thought that there are at least 5 trillion barrels of petroleum resources, of which 1.4 trillion is sufficiently developed and technically and economically accessible.

In the mid-1980s, operating problems took [nuclear] plants off-line so often that, on an annual basis, they operated at only about 55 percent of their rated total generating capacity. Today, as a result of several decades of experience and an intense focus on performance ... nuclear plants in the United States operate at over 90 percent of capacity. That improvement in operating efficiently is so significant in its impact that it can almost be seen as a new source in electric power itself.

According to one study by the United States Geological survey, 86 percent of oil reserves in the United States are the result not of what is estimated at the time of discovery but of the revisions and additions that come with further development.

We experienced similiar fears in the 1880s, at the end of World War I and II. And we ran out in the 1970s.

The Iranians know they hold high cards because of oil.

Even Silicon Valley investors have put well over a $1 billion in new energy technologies.

An important United Nations environmental conference went past 6:00 in the evening when the interpreters' contracted working conditions said they could leave. They left, abandoning the delegates unable to talk to each other in their native languages. The French head of the committee, who had insisted on speaking only in French throughout the week suddenly demonstrated the ability to speak excellent English with English-speaking delegates.

In a world of increasing interdependence, energy security will depend much on how countries manage their relations with one another. That is why energy security will be one of the main challenges of foreign policy in the years ahead. Oil and gas have always been political commodities.

To meet the energy challenge requires the most important energy of all - human creativity. That's the real prize.

There are ample supplies beneath the surface of the planet to have significant growth in oil supply for quite a number of years. The technology is there, the resources are there. But the real question is what happens above ground.

The president is stepping on the gas on these policies. He's increasing the focus, and that means increasing everything from research and development spending to regulatory reform.

But look at Angola: The Chinese spent a lot of money to get in there, but they are among many other companies. It is a much bigger game.

Within four or five years the US might be getting 10 percent of its gasoline from ethanol - that would be like creating a new Indonesia.

Even Silicon Valley investors have put well over a $1 billion in new energy technologies.

Ethanol is mandating additional diversity to the pool of motor fuels. The definition of oil is being widened.

Depending on what we learn in the next few days this may be the biggest oil-supply shock since the 1970s. We are now in the days of reckoning.

Depending on what we learn in the next few days, this may be the biggest oil-supply shock since the 1970s. We are now in the days of reckoning.

This is a summit with Yeltsin in a post-Yeltsin era. There's the complexity of dealing with a leader that may pass from the scene quickly, even though he doesn't intend to.

This is not the first time that the world has 'run out of oil. It's more like the fifth. Cycles of shortage and surplus characterize the entire history of the oil industry.

This is the fifth time that we're supposedly running out of oil,

This further underlines the need for greater diversity of supply and more storage capacity for natural gas.

This further underlies the need for greater diversity of supply and more storage capacity for natural gas. Gas-importing countries will recognize the need to build in buffers.

A lot of consumers, particularly in New York and other places, are already seeing $3 a gallon. I think the question is will most consumers be seeing $3.50 and $4? At this point it's a real possibility.

The world oil market is in the grip of a slow-motion supply shock, in which a $70 to $75 barrel price reflects an aggregate disruption of over 2 million barrels a day.

The world oil market is in the grip of a slow motion supply shock.

If the next weeks reveal that the losses are as large as some fear, this would constitute one of the biggest energy shocks since the 1970s, perhaps even the biggest.

In real terms, consumers today are paying considerably less for gasoline than they did during World War I.

He's wonderful at stirring up an argument and slinging around rhetoric. ... For some of these people, it seems to be a theological issue. For us, it's an analytic issue.

This has been pointed out ... even in thrillers.

This is a long-lead-time business; the investment horizon is five, 10 or 20 years. There's no switch to pull.

All the tensions and stress in the world's oil markets are flowing into the gasoline pump. The crude oil market is very tight, and a market that's this tight is vulnerable to politics, to hurricanes, to strikes and to emotions, and that's what we're seeing.

A more relevant description would be a plateau in production capacity that might be reached in the fourth or fifth decade of this century.

The last time before this time was in the 1970s, when people thought we were going to fall off the oil mountain and live in an age of permanent shortage. Since then, world supplies have increased 60 percent. I don't see why we're at the end of technology now, or why it would be finished now.