Ron,

Mark us down for being in the tiny "Deffeyes" camp.  You can begin to imagine the crap that Hubbert got regarding his peak oil speech in 1956--14 years before the Lower 48 production peak.  

As I said before, if we were having this argument regarding the Lower 48 peak, it would be in 1971, the first year of the decline.  Texas was then in the process of showing something like a 7% increase in production over 1970 production.  So I'm sure that everyone in the anti-peak oil crowd was then saying that the C+C downturn had no meaning, and that production would soon resume a growth pattern.

Jeffrey Brown

I would never argue statistics with the master, Khebab.  I speak the truth here.  I quit doing HL work when I realized that Khebab is on a far higher plane, math wise, that I am.  

But a couple of points.  

I think that you agree that we are at, or within the margin of error, of the 50% of Qt mark for C+C and C+C+NGL's and probably for total liquids too.  Given this, it is interesting that world C+C production is trending down and total liquids production is basicaly flat.  (BTW, do you have a current C+C+NGL number versus 2005?)

Also, the two largest discrete producing regions in the world, to date, have been the Lower 48 and Russia.  The post-1970 cumulative Lower 48 production and the post-1984 cumulative Russian production were basically exactly what your HL model predicted they would be, using only Lower 48 data through 1970 and only Russian data through 1984 to generate the predicted cumulative production.

So, given all of the foregoing, the question is,what is the most likely scenario?  

IMO, the most likely scenario is that we are past peak C+C production and just before peak C+C+NGL production--especially given the near certain decline of the four current super giants.

Given this level of imprecision on determining URR, what is the resulting confidence interval for the date of peak production?

A copy of my statement that Khebab is responding too:

I wanted to present my own findings for the night, using data that I hope fits in with both Deffeyes AND Khebabs previous HL work.

I will start with Deffeyes:

First, I downloaded the world C+C figures from the EIA at http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table22.xls  This gave me figures for total C+C from the world from the years 1980 to 2004.  In order to include the data from 2005, I had to download http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/ipsr/t41c.xls and I copied the 2005 figure into the previous table for total world.

Next, I had to devise an estimate of total C+C production that would also satisfy the demand of Deffeyes for C+C production from 1985-2005 to max out at 2250 Gb.  This figure ended up being 460 Gb for cumulative C+C from 1850-1984.

Plugging in all of this data yielded:

Notice how nicely my HL fits in with Deffeyes own data.  The Qt is approximately 2251 Gb

Now I included the above 2 graphs to help demonstrate how future AND past production trends can influence Qt on a HL.    My 2006 figure was based on a C+C output of 73,500,000 bpd C+C, which was slightly lower then last years 73,554,000 bpd C+C.  As you can see, I am doing my best to be as transparent about my thought process as I can be.

I would like to note that from my 2002 graph to my 2006 graph, Qt increased by 229 Gb 'which is like adding another KSA' or a 4 year average of 57.25 Gb per year.  If current production trends are continued as Rembrant has maintained, this trend is likely to continue until 2010 for an Qt of approximately 2544 Gb, or 293 Gb more then Deffeyes predicted.  This figure does NOT include extraction increases on the downslope past 2012, and the likelihood of that NOT happening is remote at best.

Now on to Khebab's C+C + NGL.  I went directly to his source data at BP  This excel file allowed me to view C+C + NGL data for the entire world.

Now in order to devise an estimate of C+C + NGL that was in agreement with Khebabs 2235 Gb, I had to include cumulative production prior to 1965 of 157 Gb.

Plugging in all of this data yielded:

This is in good, although not perfect, agreement with Khebabs own HL charts found here.  Khebab, if my cumulative figure is incorrect, or my years that YOU used are wrong, PLEASE let me know so that I can fix this!  I did my best to count your 'dots', and I'm very tired :)

Now, I prefer to keep my charts consistent with what I have done in the past, so I continued to use Laherrere's 1985-2006 range.  My graphs noting this are as follows:

In order to get my 2006 data, I had to guesstimate the C+C + NGL production for this year based on the average difference between BPs C+C + NGL figures and the EIAs C+C for the last couple of years.  I came up with 80,000,000 bpd as opposed to last years 81,088,000 bpd.

Notice how different my HL are when using 1985-2005 as opposed to Khebabs 1983-2005: the change is a fairly significant 71 Gb.  Furthermore, as I noted above, total increase from 2002 to 2006 is a whopping 200 Gb, or again another KSA country.  Thats an annual increase of 50 Gb a year.  As I noted above, extrapolating for Rembrants own 2012 trend expectation, we come up with an additional 300 Gb.  This brings the total production rate up to 2646 Gb.

Now, an astute observer would note that this is a CLOSE figure to what I came up with using only C+C.  The explanation?  The most likely culprit is a statistical fluke, as my data is in close agreement with the 'litmus test' I was required to meet.  Another possibility is that I underestimated this years C+C + NGL production rate.  Yet another possibility is an imminent peak of world NG, so perhaps westexas is correct in regards to that after all :P  Time will tell of course.

In conclusion, I hope that these charts will help to silence my critics in regards to my total liquids HL, as I have clearly demonstrated that I was able to successfully produce a HL based not only on Deffeye's C+C data, but Khebab's C+C + NGL data.

I also want to point out that in both cases, the final Qt GREW after including the last 4 years data, data that westexas has in the past dismissed as nothing more then an anomaly.  This is a useful insight to combine with current HL models, and helps to accurately predict real world discoveries and ultimate extraction advances.

Seeing how I worked my way up from C+C to C+C + NGL, I think it is then only fair to also include my Total Liquids HL, which included C+C + NGL + Unconventional sources.

Obviously, the PO community cant champion the cause of only one HL chart 'C+C vs C+C + NGL', so I will state yet again that I believe it is time for the PO community to seriously use the total liquids HL in their own discussions.  I realize that its now nearly 3 in the morning where I live, so I will save this response and use it again in tomorrows drumbeat where we can hopefully pick up the debate where we left off 'after the horde of angry troll-preachers showed up'.

Good Night!!

I think we have now calculated that 4.1452353 Angels will fit on the head of a pin.

The figures you are calculating on are only accurate to 1% or less.

Hubbert had accurate figures for the US. We do not for the world - we have a set of lies and gesstimates.

Please remember this (sigh - I keep repeating this - no one listens).
 

Most under-rated Poster on TOD. JKISSING. Amazingly accurate. Totally nonchalant. Never gets sucked into anything. Unphased. Everything I wish I could be, but never attained. If you had been my father, we coulda made a good team. My Dad's one of the smartest guys around. If he was Dick Cheney, maybe we could save this planet. But he's not. So I have to try it on my own. First Pick? Yeah, I'll take JKISSING.

"October 30 - USA - Matt Simmons, long time oil industry insider and author of 'Twilight in the desert', observes at the ASPO conference that while several public bodies see oil supply at a plateau (or a 'bumpy' plateau) until some point in the band 2010 - 2015, there are so few oil rigs now left available in the world, and the existing rigs are so old and high maintainance, that not only is it physically impossible to keep supply growing, but also that "sustaining the base" production for the next 5 to10 years is "not impossible but extremely long odds". "

As West Texas has previously noted, there is a large sucking sound as SA absorbs all available rigs for (esp) offshore drilling.