Since 2002, Guy Caruso has been head of the Energy Information Administration, the arm of the Department of Energy that tracks energy data. Caruso has over 30 years of experience in the energy sector and has held a number of positions within the Department of Energy. Before taking over the top job at the EIA, he was executive director of the strategic energy initiative project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He also has worked at the International Energy Agency and the United States Energy Association. Caruso spoke to ET’s managing editor, Robert Bryce, on September 27 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, during a meeting of the U.S. Association of Energy Economics.

ET: How do you explain the recent price declines in the oil market?

GC: I think it reflects the success of the industry in meeting what early this summer was thought to be a difficult supply situation. We had the issue of converting from MTBE to ethanol as the main additive for oxygenate. Second, we had the Tier 2 sulfur regulations. Third, we had uncertainty about whether we would have enough refining capacity given the decline in capacity due to Katrina. In retrospect, all of those things worked out. The industry met the challenges through a combination of adjustments [and] logistical work-arounds, plus the usual slug of imports that always responds to arbitrage opportunities. Supply clearly overwhelmed demand. This has been a market that has been led by the gasoline price demand, rather than crude. The fact that wholesale prices started declining and declined more steeply than crude is the key indicator.

ET: So crude initially drove product prices and now product prices are driving crude down?

GC: That’s what I think is happening now.

The next question is, how long will it last? We don’t know. But we are in the slow season for driving and gasoline demand; therefore, we think it could last a bit longer.

ET: How much of this is tied to the Jack discovery?

GC: I think it’s probably worth something. But it’s such a long-term play. The market reacts on the very short-term basis to news like that. This is a ten-year development process. So I don’t think that’s really having a big effect.

ET: Given the amount of investment in new production, is it possible we could have an oil price crash where prices could fall to $30 or $40?

GC: We don’t think so. And the main reason we don’t is that spare capacity, as we sit here in September of ’06, remains quite low – 1.5 to 2 million barrels a day, depending on whose numbers you believe. On an historical basis, when spare productive capacity is two million barrels a day or lower, it tends to mean a relatively tight crude market.

When might that turn around? It depends on two things: one, when new investment for productive capacity comes onstream relative to demand for crude oil. In our short-term outlook, we think it’s going to remain tight through ’07. And after ’07, it’s difficult to predict because we don’t know what world economic growth will be, and whether Chinese demand will be so robust.

ET: Given the fall in prices, do you expect the peak-oil debate to subside for a while?

GC: The peak-oil debate, the attention to it, does have some legitimacy. You asked about Jack. I think that has certainly given some ammunition to those who disagree with the peak-oil theory. My sense is that it may be the selection of who’s actually speaking at these conferences...Two weeks ago at the OPEC seminar [in Vienna], and then a week after that, in London at the Oil and Money conference, either people [were] tired of talking about it, and decided that this isn’t the relevant question, and they are focusing much more on the above-the-ground risks, or the thinking is shifting. I’m guessing it’s a combination of those two.

ET: Over the long term do you see OPEC’s market power increasing or decreasing?

ET: Can you discuss OPEC’s power in the downstream? Several OPEC countries are investing heavily in refining.

GC: Right now the current amount of refining capacity under ownership or joint venture with OPEC member countries is still small. We don’t see that changing much. As you say, their share of exports of refined products will change a bit. But it’s primarily a strategy by them to give themselves additional value added and to integrate up the value chain.

ET: The GAO did a report recently on Venezuela. What’s your view on the future of production in Venezuela, and how worried should the U.S. be over the increasingly bellicose rhetoric from Hugo Chávez?

GC: I think the rhetoric is largely a political issue that should be left to the State Department and others. What we primarily focus on is capacity. When he came into office, Venzuela’s productive capacity was over 3 million barrels per day. Right now we are carrying it at about 2.5. Venezuelan fields need at least $3 billion in upstream investment just to maintain their present capacity.

ET: To stay at 2.5 million barrels per day?

GC: Yes.

ET: Chávez is spending a lot of that potential investment money on social programs.

GC: It’s hard to tell where the money’s going. There’s not a lot of transparency. The thing [is,] we don’t have very good information. The only thing we know is that they are on a steady decline. Where the rhetoric comes into play is that it’s having an effect on companies’ willing[ness] to invest more. We don’t see a lot of companies pulling out – ExxonMobil pulled out of one project. The others are asking, “We have a chunk invested here, should we walk away?” It’s one thing to say you’ll stay, and steady as she goes. It’s another thing to say, “We’ll put in additional investments.”

ET: Let’s talk for a minute about Canada. Did the EIA ever do an official estimate of the tar-sands deposits?

GC: No. We haven’t actually made any independent assessments. Every year, we publish a table of oil and gas reserves in our annual international energy outlook. And we have just accepted the numbers that were published by the Oil and Gas Journal. That includes 170 billion barrels from the Canadian oil sands. We haven’t done any independent assessment. We certainly recognize that there’s an enormous amount of oil in place. And we have a long-term outlook that Canadian liquids from oil sands will go from about one million [barrels per day] in 2005 to about 3.5 million in 2030. And that’s strictly dependent on if the investments are made on a timely basis. There’s no question on the geological risk. The sands are there and they have recoverable oil within them.

ET: At the OPEC meeting earlier this month, you talked about energy interdependence. Rex Tillerson at ExxonMobil has talked about that same issue. Why is there so much political reluctance to accept energy interdependence?

ET: Is there anything that can be done to move the rhetoric back to reality and toward energy interdependence?

GC: I think keeping the facts and analysis as objective as possible, so we recognize what the costs are, is the best way to deal with it.

ET: And rely on markets?

GC: Yes.

ET: When I was in Riyadh, I interviewed Arne Walther at the International Energy Forum. How important is the emergence of the IEF as a multilateral forum for energy discussions?

GC: One of the most important things IEF is now coordinating is this Joint Oil Data Initiative, JODI. That’s part of this transparency, and having access to more timely oil market data will help in terms of short-term decision-making by investors and market participants. In the long run it’s always better to have people talking to each other.