Sea of Greed

The second page was a chart depicting total world oil supply over the years and dividing it into used-up and remaining amounts. The numbers went up continuously, with the estimated recoverable supply climbing each decade, even though nearly a trillion barrels of oil had been extracted from the earth since the 1850s.

Rudi looked through the numbers. “As I said, awash in oil.”

“Yes and no,” Hallsman said.

“I’m not sure where you get the no part,” Rudi said. “The amount of recoverable oil has gone up by thirty billion barrels in the last decade alone.”

“Most of that is a result of the fracking revolution,” Hallsman said. “But, at any rate, these numbers are estimates. At this point, they can only be described as deliberately fudged estimates.”

Rudi put the papers down. “What are you telling me?”

“About eighteen months ago, we noticed an odd pattern,” Hallsman said. “Fields around the world that had been producing successfully for years suddenly began to run dry. At first, it seemed irrelevant. There was so much oil around, the big companies just shuttered the dying wells and opened the spigots on other projects. Supply remained abundant. The price remained low.”

“At first,” Rudi said, repeating Hallsman’s words. “Am I to assume we’re no longer in that first phase?”

Hallsman continued without answering the question. “Initially, we thought it might be caused by bad drilling techniques or wasteful, inefficient recovery systems, but the occurrences were too widespread. Over the next year, we began getting reports of dying fields in Africa, the Middle East and Malaysia, as well as similar tales coming from Venezuela and Russia—”

The President broke in. “Central Intelligence confirmed that the Russians were having a horrible time keeping up production, drilling two wells for every one that went dry and still losing ground.”

“It’s the same in every country,” Hallsman said. “Fields that had been producing for years and were expected to have decades of life were slowing to a trickle or drying up completely in a matter of months. Even newly discovered fields are being affected.”

“Could it be a supplier’s trick?” Rudi asked. “A way to rattle the market and drive up the price? They’ve done that before. I recall hearing as a kid that there wouldn’t be any oil left by the year 2000. That didn’t turn out to be true.”

“Not by a long shot,” Sandecker said. “And a few years back, it was peak oil and a downhill slope for reserves that would never be reversed. That wasn’t true either.”

Rudi looked at Hallsman “But you think this is different.”

“For two reasons,” Hallsman said. “First, if someone is trying to convince the world that the oil is running out, they’re doing a lousy job of advertising it. Every nation dealing with these changes has gone to great lengths to pretend it’s business as usual and the oil is still flowing freely. The false numbers I gave you came directly from nations that have been hit hardest by this sudden change.”

“Can’t tell the world that the oil is running out when you’re too busy telling them you have plenty,” Sandecker added.

“Agreed,” Rudi said and then turned back to Hallsman. “You mentioned two reasons. What’s the second one?”

“Because the effects are now hitting home,” Hallsman said. “Six months ago, a large North Slope oil field in Alaska went into a rapid decline. From half a million barrels a day to a quarter of that in six weeks. It has continued dropping to less than a tenth of the normal production and is still falling. Randomly scattered fields in Texas, Oklahoma and California have gone through the same thing. And the offshore field that Alpha Star and the other platforms were attempting to revive crashed even more dramatically. In eight weeks it went from full production to nothing.”

Rudi nodded. He could see the connection.

“Taken individually, these things don’t add up to much,” Sandecker said. “But when you step back, you can see a different picture emerging. Oil fields going dormant all around the world, the corporations and companies who own them powerless to revive them and desperate to cover up the losses. And now a human element connected to the events. This is an act of war. A worldwide act. But by who and for what purpose, we don’t know.”

Rudi looked at the chart again. “What are the real numbers?”

Hallsman slid another paper toward him. It showed recoverable reserves down nearly fifty percent in the last eighteen months.

“Aside from those of us in this room,” the President said, “very few others know the full scope of what’s happening. And we’d like to keep it that way. That’s why we’re not launching a big public investigation and why you’ll need to be discreet in everything NUMA does. I don’t want other agencies involved. That leads to leaks, which leads to us losing control of the message, which leads to panic.”

“I understand that,” Rudi said, “but how is the price of oil not skyrocketing already?”