What they said on hot energy topics

LONDON (Reuters) - The following are comments on a number of key energy issues from speakers at the Reuters Global Energy Summit in London:

PEAK OIL

(Peak oil: the concept that global oil production is near a peak after which it will decline sharply.)

- Benoit de Vitry, head of commodities, emerging markets and head of global markets - trading Europe at Barclays Capital: "We're not worried about supply. I'm not worried about running out of oil or copper or anything .... but the pace of supply will be outpaced by demand."

- Nobuo Tanaka, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency: "I am always asking my staff is there peak oil coming. Before 2030, we don't think we need to worry. We have abundant resources under ground, so the issue is over ground."

"I'm not siding with peak oil."

- Lars Josefsson, President and Chief Executive of Vattenfall VATN.UL, Sweden's state-owned utility: "I would not get into the religious debate about peak oil, but I think the world will have big difficulties in significantly increasing its oil production."

"Global investment levels are too low .... Oil will come from places more difficult, more distant, more costly and on top of that oil is in areas that don't have stability."

- Ayman Asfari, chief executive of Petrofac (PFC.L), UK-based oil services company: "With oil you have this finite resource. It's like hiding 100 Easter eggs and you find the first 50 with 5 or 10 percent of the effort and for the last 10 it requires 90 percent of the effort."

"The effort is translated into a lot more cost."

"So when you talk about peak oil theory - we have probably hit peak oil in terms of onshore and shallow offshore, but the deep offshore is growing and the non-conventional is growing."

Yves-Louis Darricarrere, head of exploration and production at Total (TOTF.PA): "We say more plateau than peak."

- Helge Lund, chief executive of Norway's StatoilHydro (STL.OL): "When we look at oil and gas, both conventional and unconventional, it's harder to talk about peak oil. It's more about prices and the technology to develop new resources."

- Bill Gammell, chief executive of Cairn Energy (CNE.L) told the Reuters Global Energy Summit that oil's spurt to a record about $135 last month from around $100 at the start of 2008 may have been influenced by a growing feeling that oil supplies might be peaking.

"The move from $100 to $130 was actually a period when people started to look and wonder more a bit about the peak oil theory," he said.

THE ENERGY PRICE OUTLOOK

- Nobuo Tanaka, IEA Executive Director: "I think oil prices may not easily go back to the level of two, three years ago, probably that is very unlikely."

"In a sense, we are in a third energy crisis as your prime minister said," Tanaka said referring to a comment by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

"Our response should be an energy revolution. We have to change dramatically the demand side by efficiency and new technologies."

- Kevin McCullough, chief operating officer of RWE Innogy, renewable energy arm of German utility RWE (RWEG.DE): "High prices, I think, are here to stay."

"A liter of diesel was 132 pence in the UK this morning. The reality is biting already, but I see no fewer cars on the M1 (one of Britain's main motorways) yet. There has to be so much pain to change human nature."

- Lars Josefsson, president and CEO of Vattenfall: "I think oil is at a very high level and is going to stay on a very high level and I think that's good. That will increase the substitution activity.

"We will never run out of oil but oil will be less important."

"We would anticipate very robust prices," said Yves-Louis Darricarrere, head of exploration and production at Total.

"We can, of course, have short term variations, but we have a structural trend of increased prices."

- Hans-Bernd Menzel, Chief Executive of European energy exchange EEX: "The price in the market is the effect of the offer and the demand."

"If someone wants lower prices for a certain product you increase the offer (supply) or reduce demand or do both."

- Peter Terium, Chief Executive of German utility RWE's (RWEG.DE) supply and trading business: "We are in a high price environment, but I don't see an end to it."

"All the trends I can read say we are going into an even higher price environment."

"There is an ongoing war for resources. There is a desperate need for new investment in power plants in Europe."

"Adding all of that up, as optimistic as I normally am, I don't see any relief for the consumer."

CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE (CCS)

(The process for capturing and storing carbon, blamed for global warming)

- "We think this technology is the litmus test," the IEA's Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka.

- "It's a litmus test of the political will," Lars Josefsson, president and chief executive of Swedish state-owned utility Vattenfall.

"I don't know of any more important technological development in the short term."

- Ayman Asfari, chief executive of Petrofac: "Ultimately there's going to be a price for carbon. You are not going to be able to develop some projects without the capacity to separate and store the carbon.

I think it will be a booming area."

- Peter Terium, chief executive of RWE Supply & Trading said projects to capture and store carbon could be viable with carbon prices of less than 100 euros.

But prices would need to be more than current levels of around 26 euros for carbon.

"It depends on the size of the plant and the technology you use. I think we can get significantly below 100 without being able to put a number on it," he said.

- Andrei Marcu, chief executive of environmental exchange BlueNext: "The question you want to ask is when does the carbon market itself become an agency of change."

"For the carbon price for CCS, I have heard different numbers. I have heard numbers from 70 to 100. Can you go to 100 euros a tonne, especially in a situation where you don't have universal coverage?"

"It's not that the carbon market can't do it, but it's because we have a timeframe ... Most changes in history have been done because we went from one form of energy to another. But this time we have a schedule."

- Helge Lund, chief executive of StatoilHydro: "I am convinced that the most effective way of tackling the climate issue is to establish a common price for CO2 emissions and the market will find the most efficient solution quickly."

(Jane Merriman and Barbara Lewis)