據油價網2021年4月14日報道，全球石油需求高峰已經到來又過去了嗎?這是一個非常難回答的問題。有一些專家毫不含糊地說，是的。他們聲稱，由于疫情對全球石油需求的毀滅性打擊，以及全球向清潔能源的不斷升級的轉型，石油需求峰值已經到來。

　　不管全球石油需求已經見頂或者在疫情期間已趨于穩定，不可否認的事實是在全球社會能夠完全脫碳——不管你問誰，這一目標還有很長的路要走——目前，世界在未來仍將燒掉更多的石油。

　　彭博市場本周報道稱，“預計未來幾十年，全球將消耗數千億桶石油。”“這給了像道達爾公司和荷蘭皇家殼牌公司這樣的石油巨頭，以及數百家仍在運營的小型勘探公司足夠的動力，繼續在世界前沿尋找下一個可以發揮鉆頭作用的地方。”實際上，法國超級石油巨頭道達爾公司預計不日將獲得一個數十億美元的新項目的批準，這個項目將鉆探烏干達和坦桑尼亞兩國尚未開發的油田。道達爾公司將在東非投資51億美元，包括沿烏干達艾伯特湖海岸線的油氣鉆探作業，以及建設一條1443公里(897英里)長的加熱管道，將開采出來的含蠟原油輸送到坦桑尼亞的坦加港，并從那里出口。

　　這對環保主義者和主張“把石油埋在地下”的人來說是一個令人震驚的消息。早在2015年，發表在《自然》雜志上的一項同行評議的實證研究發現，為了避免氣候變化的最壞影響，世界上至少80%的已知化石燃料儲量必須保持不開采。這一數字包括美國90%以上的煤炭和北極地區100%的石油和天然氣儲量。

　　到目前為止，這一立場仍相對屬于環保主義者的范疇。英國石油公司迄今是唯一一家已明確承認石油時代已經結束的石油巨頭，承認在不久的將來，石油需求增長將不再是常態。

　　彭博市場報道稱，“業內其他公司仍預計，在全球石油需求達到峰值之前，石油需求至少還會再增長10年左右。”“就連對前景不那么樂觀的英國石油公司也表明，全球石油使用量將會大幅增加。”根據英國石油公司“一切照舊”的模式，石油需求保持穩定，而減少石油行業碳排放的進展甚微或根本沒有，僅到2050年前，全球在未來30年內將消耗1.1萬億桶石油。

　　好消息是，在未來幾十年，所有這些化石燃料燃燒產生的部分碳排放可以被抵消或捕獲。通過公共和私營部門共同努力擴大碳捕獲計劃，從現在到實現100%可再生能源的長期目標，石油行業對全球碳足跡的貢獻可以在一定程度上減少。在這十年里，世界能源工業所發生的一切對世界生態的未來有著極其重要的意義。

　　李峻 編譯自 油價網

　　原文如下：

　　The World Still Needs Hundreds Of Billions Of Barrels Of Oil

　　Has peak oil demand already come and gone? That’s an exceptionally hard question to answer. There are some experts that say unequivocally, yes. They claim that peak oil is already upon us, thanks to the crushing blow that the Covid-19 pandemic dealt to global oil demand as well as the ever-escalating worldwide transition toward clean energy. But there are just as many who say that the world’s thirst for oil still has a long way to go before we hear its swan song.

　　Regardless of whether oil demand has peaked or plateaued during the pandemic, what is undeniably true is that the world is going to burn a whole lot more oil in the future before the global community is able to decarbonize entirely - a goal that is still a long, long way off, no matter who you ask.

　　“The world is expected to burn hundreds of billions of barrels of oil in the coming decades,” Bloomberg Markets reported this week. “That gives plenty of incentive for giants like Total or Royal Dutch Shell Plc, plus the hundreds of smaller explorers that remain in business, to keep searching the world’s frontiers for the next place to sink their drill bits.” Indeed, French supermajor Total SE is expected to get approval for a new multibillion-dollar project over the coming weekend that would drill into as yet untapped oil fields in Uganda and Tanzania. Total’s East African venture will cost around $5.1 billion and involve drilling along the shoreline of Lake Albert in Uganda, as well as constructing a 1,443-kilometer (897-mile) heated pipeline to deliver the extracted waxy crude to Tanzania’s port of Tanga, from where it will be exported.

　　This is an alarming bit of news for environmentalists and advocates of “keeping it in the ground.” Back in 2015, a peer-reviewed empirical study published in the journal Nature found that in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change, at least 80 percent of the known fossil fuel reserves in the world would have to remain unextracted. (That figure includes over 90 percent of U.S. coal and a full 100 percent of arctic oil and gas reserves).

　　So far, that stance has remained relatively relegated to environmentalist spheres. To date, BP Plc is the one and only oil major that has explicitly acknowledged the end of the oil era, conceding that demand growth will no longer be the norm in the very near future. “The rest of the industry still expects at least another decade or so of demand growth before the global need for oil maxes out,” Bloomberg Markets reports. “And even BP’s less bullish outlook shows a world where a lot more petroleum will be used.” According to BP’s “business as usual” model, in which oil demand stays steady and there is little or no progress to reduce the industry’s carbon emissions, an additional 1.1 trillion barrels of oil will have been consumed in the next 30 years, by just 2050.

　　The good news is that some of the carbon produced by the combustion of all those fossil fuels in the coming decades can be offset or captured. With concerted combined efforts from the public and private sectors to scale up carbon capture initiatives, the oil industry’s contribution to the global carbon footprint can be lessened to some degree in the time between now and the long-term goal of 100 percent renewable energy.