U.S. military warns about massive oil shortage by 2015

The world will run out of oil surpluses by 2012, with severe shortages following as little as three years later, a U.S. military report has warned.

"By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day," reads the report from the U.S. Joint forces command.

"One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest."

The point at which oil consumption exceeds production is known as "peak oil," and is predicted to lead to widespread turmoil in the world's oil-dependent economies.

"Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions [and] push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse," the report reads.

Although new warnings continue to emerge that peak oil is imminent, the U.S. Department of Energy continues to insist that there is no need to fear oil shortage.

"It's surprising to see that the U.S. Army, unlike the U.S. Department of Energy, publicly warns of major oil shortages in the near-term," said post-graduate peak oil researcher Lionel Badal of Kings College London.

"The Energy Information Administration [EIA] has been saying for years that Peak Oil was 'decades away.' In light of the report from the US Joint Forces Command, is the EIA still confident of its previous highly optimistic conclusions?"

Recently, the Obama administration's top oil adviser admitted in an interview with a French paper that "a chance exists" of a liquid fuels production decline between 2011 and 2015.