Guest post by Mike Jonas
On Dec 13, Willis Eschenbach posted a convincing (and eloquent as always) argument “The R/P Ratio” against Peak Oil being imminent. I would like to present a different view. In fact I draw the opposite inference from the same statistic.
From the BP data [1], Willis argued that the “R/P ratio” – the ratio of reserves R to production rate P – is higher than ever, and that therefore the world is even more able to continue producing oil at today’s rate than it was yesterday at yesterday’s lower rate.
My argument is that the high R/P ratio shows that it is getting very difficult to increase P in spite of a high R and a high oil price. This argument is based on two factors of which Willis took no account – the reliability of stated reserves and the quality of the oil.
Reliability
The first major hiatus in the oil world occurred in 1973, when OPEC caused the price of oil to quadruple. The second was the Iranian revolution in 1979. Their effects are clearly seen in the historical oil price:
Figure 1 – Historical Oil Price – click image to enlarge
Over the following years, 1980 to 1988, the world’s oil reserve increased by 331.5 billion barrels, of which 329.6 were OPEC.
Figure 2 – Historical Oil Reserve – click image to enlarge
What is thought to have happened is that certain OPEC countries artificially inflated their reserves so that they could sell more oil, because OPEC production quotas were based on official reserve figures [17][22]. It is quite possible that none of this reported increase in reserves actually exists. There has recently been supporting information from Wikileaks [2].
Questions about the reliability of reserve figures are not restricted to the reserves declared between 1980 and 1988. For example, the UAE’s official reserve has been stuck on exactly 97.8bn barrels since 1996 (and was at 98.1bn barrels from 1989 to 1995), in spite of total production of 15bn barrels over that period (21bn barrels 1989-2010) and no major discoveries [21]. That’s mathematically possible, but rather unlikely.
Some other countries have similar patterns – Iran reserve at 92.9bn barrels from 1986 to 1993 (9bn barrels produced), Iraq 100.0 from 1987 to 1995 (5 produced) and 115.0 from 2001 to 2010 (8 produced), Kuwait 96.5 from 1991 to 2002 (8 produced) and 101.5 from 2004 to 2010 (7 produced), Saudi Arabia in a tight range 260.1 to 264.6 from 1989 to 2010 and not falling more than 0.1 in any one year (75 produced).
It does appear likely that a significant proportion of stated reserves do not in fact exist.
Quality
After 1988, the next significant increases in world reserves occurred in 2002 and 2008-9.
Figure 3 – Annual change in reserves – click image to enlarge
In 2002, most of the 60.7 billion barrel increase was in Russia, Iran and Qatar, and I haven’t checked it. I have no reason to suppose that it was anything but a genuine increase in good quality oil. However, of the 123.0 billion barrels increase in 2008-9, 111.8 were in Venezuela. This is an ultra-heavy crude, difficult and expensive to produce at high production rates [3].
This is where the problem lies. Much of the easy oil has gone. We are into the difficult and expensive stuff. It is a major challenge to maintain high production rates. Heavy and unconventional oil are now dominant in world reserves [4] …
Figure 4 – Total World Oil Reserves by Type – click image to enlarge
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_World_Oil_Reserves.PNG]
… to the extent that actually being able to increase the total production rate may prove to be out of reach [8].
Global oil production has basically flatlined for the last 5 or 6 years …
Figure 5 – World Oil Production – click image to enlarge
… while the oil price has surged over the same period (Fig.1). I would argue that a high R/P ratio does not necessarily indicate an ability to increase production. Rather, a high R/P together with a high oil price would seem to indicate that it is difficult to increase production. Note that for 5 years now the price of oil has been higher (in 2010 dollar terms) than it was after the 1973 oil shock.
In Venezuela (heavy and very heavy oil), the production rate has declined nearly 30% from 1965 to 2010. In 2006, before the large 2008-9 increases in reserve, its R/P was already high at 85, but was still exactly what it had been in 1985. From 1985 to 1998, production did increase markedly, bringing R/P down to 60, but production has been in decline since.
It is possible that the major factor here was Hugo Chavez being elected president in 1998, so let’s look at all the countries with above average R/P –
| R/P | |
| Venezuela | 233.9 |
| Iraq | 128.0 |
| Kuwait | 110.8 |
| UAE | 94.0 |
| Iran | 88.4 |
| Libya | 76.6 |
| Saudi Arabia | 72.4 |
| Kazakhstan | 62.1 |
| (World average) | 46.1 |
– maybe Venezuela, Iraq, Iran and Libya have political reasons for relatively low production rates. The UAE, whose oil is chiefly in Abu Dhabi, does have difficulty increasing production [10]. Kuwait [11][12] and Saudi Arabia [13] do too.
For comparison, Canada’s Alberta Tar Sands, which began production in 1967, have an R/P of 662. It is hoped that it may in future come down to around 150 (reserve 174bn bbls, prodn 720k bpd, target 3m bpd [6]).
[bbl = barrel, bpd = barrels per day]
There is a clear tendency for high R/P to be associated with heavy and unconventional oil, that is, oil for which high production rates are very difficult.
The Future
The oil industry has been successful in maintaining reporting a world R/P of 40+ since 1988.
Figure 6 – World R/P – click image to enlarge
But in order for the rate of oil production to keep increasing, a lot has to go right. Things like:
· Major new conventional oil discoveries.
· Technological progress in heavy and unconventional oil production.
· Political stability in producing countries.
· Political stability in consuming countries.
· A high oil price.
· Increasing demand in spite of the high oil price.
· Oil remaining competitive with alternatives.
· Non-obstruction by governments (think “carbon” trading and taxes, USA offshore exploration ban)
More optimistic estimates of the Peak Oil date range from 2014 [7] to the IEA’s 2035 or later [5][5a]. But in the IEA presentation, note that although foil #8 “Oil production becomes less crude” …
Figure 7 IEA forecast – click image to enlarge
… shows production increasing to at least 2035 , there is enormous (heroic?) reliance on “fields yet to be developed or found” which are more than half of all oil production by 2035. Note also the relatively low contribution from “unconventional oil”, and the rapid decline of currently producing conventional fields.
There is another figure worth keeping an eye on for the next few years – Saudi Arabia’s production rate. The IEA presentation [5] expects Saudi Arabia to increase production by 50% between 2009 and 2035.
Figure 8 – IEA forecast by country – click image to enlarge
In mid 2008 Saudi Arabia announced that they would increase production by 500k bpd [14], but production fell 8% over the next two years. Perhaps this confirms that the producing Saudi fields are already in decline [15]. In June 2011, Saudi Arabia again stated that they would raise production [16]. It will be interesting to see if they are able to.
Saudi Arabia’s (2010) R/P is 72. They do have some as yet undeveloped fields, but none are anything like as large as the now-declining Ghawar [20].
Conclusion
The increasing world R/P, together with the high oil price, probably means that it is getting ever more difficult to increase production, rather than that Peak Oil is obviously many years away. I suspect that we are already at or close to Peak Oil, but it can only be identified in retrospect [see footnote 4].
It is, admittedly, still mathematically possible that Peak Oil is many years away. I would agree that “Peak Oil & Gas” and “Peak Energy”, as opposed to “Peak Oil”, are many years away – provided sanity returns to western governments.
Footnotes
1. All production and reserve amounts, associated amounts (eg. R/P), and graphs, are from or derived from the BP data [1] unless otherwise indicated. BP’s reserve data includes “gas condensate and natural gas liquids“, but does not include the Canadian oil sands.
2. Oil reserves are relative to economic and operating conditions, so they can increase without new discoveries.
3. Why did I quote the IEA 2010 report instead of the 2011 report? Because in 2011 the IEA lost its marbles and interlaced everything with the need to reduce CO2 emissions [18]. When the world wakes up to the fact that CO2 emissions are not dangerous, much of the 2011 report will be useless. FWIW, in the 2011 report oil production is still expected to increase by a similar amount by 2035, with OPEC increasing its share [19].
4. I understand “Peak Oil” to mean the point in time after which global oil production does not materially increase. The peak in oil production does not signify ‘running out of oil’ [9]. It doesn’t mean that oil production cannot physically be increased, simply that it does not increase. Peak Oil can therefore be influenced by factors such as price, changes in use and efficiency of use, and competition from alternatives. Basically, it is only possible to identify it in retrospect.
Mike Jonas
Jan 2012
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Mike Jonas (MA Maths Oxford UK) retired some years ago after nearly 40 years in I.T.. He worked for BP in the 1960s and 70s, including 3 years in Abu Dhabi.
References
[1] BP Statistical Review of World Energy, Jun 2011.
[2] Time report “Have Saudis Overstated How Much Oil Is Left?” Feb 2011
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2048242,00.html
[3] Wikipedia “Oil reserves in Venezuela”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Venezuela
[4] Wikipedia “Oil Reserves”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves
[5] IEA “World Energy Outlook 2010” Presentation to the Press Nov 2010
http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/weo2010/weo2010_london_nov9.pdf
NB. See Footnote 3 above.
[5a] Gail Tverberg, Comment on IEA “World Energy Outlook 2010”, Nov 2010.
http://www.countercurrents.org/tverberg101110.htm
[6] Popular Mechanics “New Tech to Tap North America’s Vast Oil Reserves” Oct 2009
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/4212552
[7] msnbc.com “Peak oil production predicted for 2014” Dec 2010.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35838273/ns/business-oil_and_energy/ – .TumIeGAch0I
[8] AAAS Member Central “Peak Oil Production May Already Be Here” Mar 2011.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6024/1510.short
[9] Energy Bulletin “Peak Oil Primer”
http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php
[10] My comment on JudithCurry.com, re Zakum, Tupi and Peak Oil. Nov 2011.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/11/24/emails/ – comment-144017
[11] H. M. Shalaby “Refining of Kuwait’s Heavy Crude Oil: Material Challenges” Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research. Dec 2005
http://www.arabschool.org/pdf_notes/20_REFINING_OF_KUWAITS_HEAVY_CRUDE_OIL.pdf
[12] Bloomberg “Kuwait Reduces Its 2020 Heavy-Oil Production Target by More Than Half”. Oct 2010.
[13] WSJ “Facing Up to End of ‘Easy Oil’”. May 2011.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704436004576299421455133398.html
[14] The Independent “Saudi King: “We will pump more Oil”” June 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-king-we-will-pump-more-oil-847830.html
[15] Energy Security “New study raises doubts about Saudi oil reserves” March 2004
http://www.iags.org/n0331043.htm
[16] NY Times “Saudi Arabia, Defying OPEC, Will Raise Its Oil Output” June 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/business/energy-environment/11oil.html
[17] Telegraph article “Oil reserves ‘exaggerated by one third’” Dec 2011.
[18] IEA “World Energy Outlook 2011” Presentation to the press Nov 2011
http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/weo2011/homepage/WEO2011_Press_Launch_London.pdf
[19] IEA “World Energy Outlook 2011 Fact Sheet” (see “Global oil production”)
http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/weo2011/factsheets.pdf
[20] NY Times “Forecast of Rising Oil Demand Challenges Tired Saudi Fields” Feb 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/business/24OIL.html?pagewanted=all
[21] Gerald Butt “Oil and Gas in the UAE”
http://www.geopowers.com/energie/sites/default/files/images/PDF – VAE.pdf
[22] Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Hofstra University “Changes in Major Crude Oil Reserves, 2001-2006” http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch5en/appl5en/oilreserves.html
RobW says: “No where is there mention of oil-shale, curious since the US has it in spades.
Oil shale is the wave of the future. And always will be.
A few points in response to some of the comments made:
Technology may indeed be able to more than keep pace, but it has to compensate for existing fields’ decline rates before it can increase total production. There is a neat picture of this in http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8697 where the chart http://www.theoildrum.com/files/AK_ND_MT_production.png shows that “The Bakken boom has simply hidden a much more troubling trend; it has nearly perfectly balanced out the decline in North Slope output.“.
re the US’s oil shale. The N Dakota dept of mineral resources https://www.dmr.nd.gov/pipeline/assets/Video/11102011/NDPA%20Nat%20Gas%20Slides%2011-10-2011.pdf puts the start of the Bakken production decline as early as 2015, with production peaking below 1m bpd even if the oil price goes to $200 – and that’s with 33,000 new wells being drilled (2,650 to date).
I haven’t heard anything about major Antarctica discoveries. One obstacle to be overcome would be the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty (1991) http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/about_antarctica/geopolitical/treaty/update_1991.php Article 7 “Any activity relating to mineral resources, other than scientific research, shall be prohibited.‘. OK, treaties can be torn up, but there could be a lot of heat generated…
“Peak Oil” does not mean “running out of oil”, just that for whatever reasons the production rate doesn’t increase. That includes political reasons and competition from other energy sources, including gas. Already, in the BP figures, oil consumption has exceeded oil production by more than 2m bpd since 2001 (5m bpd in 2010), thanks to “consumption of non-petroleum additives” – presumably mainly politically-driven subsidised biofuels. In spite of that, the oil price has risen. A rising oil price can increase reserves but can also increase the attractiveness of alternatives and hence reduce demand. And production is driven by demand.
Right now the oil companies are falling over themselves shipping drilling equipment to Brazil-
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-19/brazil-oil-fields-may-hold-more-than-twice-estimated-reserves.html
and those who do not understand how technology advances will always be on the ‘end is nigh’ side of the argument.
A lot of folks can’t understand how we
came to have an oil shortage here in our country.
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Well, there’s a very simple answer.
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Nobody bothered to check the oil.
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We just didn’t know we were getting low.
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The reason for that is purely geographical.
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Our OIL is located in:
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ALASKA
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California
~~~
Coastal Florida
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Coastal Louisiana
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Coastal Alabama
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Coastal Mississippi
~~~~
Coastal Texas
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North Dakota
~~~
Wyoming
~~~
Colorado
~~~
Kansas
~~~
Oklahoma
~~~
Pennsylvania
~~~
And
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Texas
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Our dipsticks are located in DC
~~~
Each time the price of WTI has risen over the past 30 years that I have been in the business, the industry moves to sell more oil, increases production and the natural result is an over-supply that kills the price of WTI.
Watching the effect of the new technologies (horizontal wells and multi-stage fracing) I am again struck by how the industry is again quickly ramping production from “new” sources. Of course, the sources aren’t new. Here in Alberta, we knew about the Cardium, Montney and Viking formations for decades but simply couldn’t produce them with any volume that approached profitable until the advent of the new technologies. The Cardium alone is over 10 billion barrels of WTI-quality oil. Alberta is drilling-up a storm bringing this previously uneconomical resource to the market.
There are similar formations, numbering in the dozens, all around the world and at $100/bbl, you can be assured that the effort to bring all these previously marginal fields into rapid production is well underway. Will the result be another over-supply situation that again crashes the price of NYMEX crude? I have begun to believe so simply because the technology is so incredibly efficient.
When Alberta can drill 50 wells a day that will produce 200-300 bbls/day each after spending a generation drilling wells that averaged 25 – 30 bbls/day, you have to know that if this is replicated on dozens of fields worldwide, the R/P ratio will nose-dive along with the price of oil.
MikeN says:
January 3, 2012 at 11:26 pm
I have a dispute with regards to the ‘high’ oil price.
Oil has gone from $0.22 to $1.30 a liter in Vancouver (6x), while gold has gone from $150 to $1500 (10x). At the same time cars and houses have gone up by a similar amount. What hasn’t gone up to the same degree is wages. So while the price of oil remains much the same in real terms, most households have two parents working, while a generation ago it only took one parent working to support the family.
I found this on the web:
’64 Impala v8 – base price 2850 – loaded $3828
2011 Impala LT – $25,605 (6.7x)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, $3,828 in 1964 is equivalent to $26,932 (7x) in 2010 dollars.
The “harder to produce oil” mantra is funny considering that nowadays, most of the job in the “hardest” places is done by pressing buttons, moving joysticks and checking control screens.
The oil industry is a very dangerous and difficult industry. Recently there was a well reported incident in the Gulf of Mexico that demonstrates the difficult conditions. I think it was a bit more than pushing joysticks to remedy the situation.
Also there are quite a few posts confusing gas and oil. Mike mentions we are probably at or near peak oil but peak gas and energy are definitely off in the future.
Peak oil is a worry, but not for the reasons that we won’t have enough. As the price of oil increases, it becomes more economical to burn fuels other than oil. Sooner of later it becomes cheaper to burn corn, wheat, the amazon, whatever is available. The very foolish notion that we can prevent this by slapping a tax on fossil fuels will only drive the price higher, making the conversion of food and timber to fuel all the more attractive. Quite litterally, the oil we leave in the ground has to be replaced by something, which in the end will be the food off the tables of the poorest people on the planet. The one least able to compete in a global market.
The worth of the subject is that “It is an endless article”. This should be continued.
The reason is there are many active variables in the nature of subject that must always be monitored.
Very interesting. Oil reserves cannot be counted unless it is legal to extract. Much Alaskan oil comes under this category. There must be oil under Arctic waters where we have to await technology to enable extraction below moving ice but that will come.
Well, on the positive side, there will be less poor people. Every negative has its positive
Very good and enjoyable article.
The articulated thesis seemed plausible, but I was left hunting for one obvious chart that would disambiguate and crush Willis’ argument without a lot of words — A chart of cost per barrel over time. Everything else is just hand waving.
You have not considered the advancement of technology to process poorer quality oil at a cheaper price. Technology is dynamic, not static, as proven in the horizontal drilling and fracking of known and unknown reserves like the Bakken Oil Shale. Furthermore, what is the reliability of the data of stated reserves. There are too many unknowns to the Theory of Peak Oil.
Production/refining of oil aims to meet demand at a profitable price. Level of reserves depends on how much exploration for new reserves is carried out which depends on the rate of return for that oil. The balance of the 2 may be through keeping the ratio of reserves to production to about 40 to create a stable scenario with 40 years known capacity.
How much excess refining capacity exists, how much is opening and closing and what proportion of exploration capacity is being utilised?
To me that ratio simply says there are 40 years of reserves at today’s production rate and conveys little else except comfort.
With technological improvements and the rising price of oil, I do not see Peak Oil happening any time soon.
Nice article, though and always good to see another stand point.
I think that Mike Jonas has put in some very good analysis.
Nevertheless, I think the big hole in Mike’s arguments is that even if peak oil is true, it’s kinda irrelevant. When one resource becomes scarce and expensive, human ingenuity replaces it with another resource (viz transition from wood/peat/charcoal to coal).
But I’m glad that WUWT presents different sides to the argument, and that most comments are civil and thoughtful. That’s how all blogs should work.
Unfortunately Mike’s analysis ignores the most important factor in improving reserves which is technological changes which dramatically increase recoverability. Reserves does not just mean oil in place but recoverable oil and the last 3 decades have seen the amount of oil that can be recovered from reservoirs increase from around 20% (or sometimes less) up to 60-70%. Rotary steerable assemblies allowing for long extended reach drilling, underbalanced drilling to prevent reservoir damage during the drilling phase and enhanced recovery techniques have all made huge differences to the reserve figures. This is one reason why the Peak Oil ideas are so misguided. Of course it is a finite resource but we are certainly not yet at the stage where we have any clear idea of what the limits are on either the reserves available or how much of them we will be able to extract.
We should get the whole WUWT community and redirect any PO articles comments to hysteria central – http://www.peakoil.com
When are the WUWT reader surveys happening ? How many of us believe the POisNOW hype?
I was a peaker from about 2006 – 2008, but after a while I saw it to be a doom and hype crowd just like the AGW gang. Both religions are quietly sponsored by big oil. There have been POers for over a century. They’ve never been right yet.
There’s only ever 20-30 years worth of old in ‘proven’ reserves at current comsumption rate because that how far oil companys bother to look ahead. POers misinterpret this as ‘ there’s only 20-30 years supply at current rate left in the world ‘. So for them PO is now … always.
The talk of ‘expensive oil’ and ‘all easy oil is gone’ is nonsense. Even if oil was 100 times harder ( EROEI ) to get out the ground, it would still be economic to recover it. Oil is still ridiculously cheap in real terms.
RobW says:
January 3, 2012 at 9:15 pm
No where is there mention of oil-shale, curious since the US has it in spades.
==========================
Nor should there be any mention of oil-shale. US oil shale reserves are almost entirely in the Eocene Green River formation in the central Rockies, and nobody has any idea how to extract the hydrocarbons at any reasonable cost. The “Oil” is present as a wax like substance called Kerogen that is dispersed in the interstices of fairly hard rock.
There are small amounts of less intractable oil shales elsewhere in the country that may well be a useful reserve. But not enough to make much difference.
Today, and for the foreseeable future, it’d be far simpler and cheaper to make oil via proven Coal to Oil (CTL) technologies than to get the “oil” out of the Green River rocks.
Alan Clark ‘ “Will the result be another over-supply situation that again crashes the price of NYMEX crude?”
Well, it might. But everyone here pointing out that there are vast quantities of oil just waiting to be produced, and that the technology is going to deliver it, needs to check the numbers carefully.
The world in 2010 used 31.9bn bbls of oil. N Dakota’s Bakken production reached a record in 2011 of nearly 500k bpd. That sounds very impressive, and no doubt it will increase by a decent factor in future, but it’s only 0.6% of global oil consumption. To put it a bit more in perspective: Saudi Arabia did manage to produce more oil in 2010 than in 2009, but 2010 production was still 559,000bpd below their 2003-2009 average and 1.1m bpd below their 2005 peak. So the mammoth efforts on N Dakota’s Bakken are struggling just to compensate for production lost from Saudi Arabia.
The oil companies piling into Brazil (Sera comment http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/03/peak-oil-the-rp-ratio-re-visited/#comment-852542) are chasing a possible 123bn bbls of reserves, although the figure stands now at 16bn. But it is going to take many years to develop those fields, and 123bn bbls is only 4 years’ world supply. By the time they reach peak production it is quite possible that they will be able to do no more than compensate for other fields’ declines over the intervening years.
Maybe the world really can increase oil production for many more years, but IMHO when you look at the numbers and add in things like political factors it is looking ever less likely. I would be very happy to be proved wrong.
Mike Jonas is spot on and Peak oil most probably did happen in july 2008. Though it is an understandable reaction to hide one’s head down the (tar)sand there would be a lot to gain from a more widespread understanding of Peak Oil. The future estimate from IEA is, as Mike Jonas explains, no more than wishful thinking. For a more realistic perspective read this presentation by Dr Höök from a conference in Spain 2011. The title of the presentation is “Peak Oil: Fact or Fiction?”:
http://www.tsl.uu.se/uhdsg/Personal/Mikael/Barcelona2011_05_05.pdf
For a more in depth view dr Höök has published +20 peer review papers on the subject and you will find them (among others) here:
http://www.fysast.uu.se/ges/en/publications/peer-reviewed-articles
Thanks for writing that Mike. As far as I can see, it is pretty much 100% correct, but as you can see, there are a lot of folks around here who have not done their homework and who prefer wishful thinking to data as a basis for discussion.
One additional point is that the current oil production plateau well might be demand driven. There is little point in producing additional oil if it does not have customers or if the additional oil will drive prices down and result in lower profits. Economics is not remotely up to computing the optimum supply and price levels, so we are left with petroleum prices being set by a market that appears to be anything but efficient. The only other approach to computing peak oil is Hubbert. But Hubbert’s math depends on accurate estimates of reserves. And we probably do not have accurate oil reserve numbers.
I myself can’t distinguish between an oil production plateau driven by demand destruction (lousy economies, fuel switching) and peak oil. I don’t think anyone can. I have come to the conclusion that I will find out about peak oil when I start seeing “No Gas” signs at gas stations regularly and with no natural disaster to blame. I’m guessing that the EIA is more correct than most folks think. Oil production might not peak until the 2030s. But I also suspect that future demand from developing countries is widely and substantially underestimated so it’s quite likely that more oil production may not mean lower prices.
Dennis Ray Wingo says:
January 3, 2012 at 9:17 pm
I hear very strong and persistent rumors that a new field the size of Saudi Arabia’s Gawar field has been found off the coast of Antarctica. It extends up into the territorial waters of New Zealand. Nothing about it in the news but the pros are talking a lot about it.
—
Can you link to any information on this at all? I’m afraid I think you’ve just made it all up, there’s no drilling in Antarctica so how can it have been discovered?
JamesD says:
January 3, 2012 at 10:03 pm
The only limit to production CURRENTLY is political roadblocks….
—-
I think you’ll find cost is also a major reason, sure you can drill more wells or build pipelines etc but that all costs money. The more money you spend to extract the same amount of oil at a faster rate, the less economical it’ll be.