One says supply and one says demand.

I'm no expert so I must assume you are correct.

The HL method allows us to estimate the area under the curve on a production versus time graph, which is total estimated recoverable reserves, or what Deffeyes calls Qt.   The assumption is that production peaks at about 50% of Qt, and historical records support this.  

IMO, for HL to really work we need a region with about two mbpd of production for about 20 years.

Unless one produces a field at a high enough rate to damage it, the production rate, within limits, tends not to have a major effect on cumulative production.  Therefore, a region, using a gross simplification, can be compared to a bottle full of water.  You can pour it out a a minimal rate all the way up to the maximum rate.  But the rate that you pour it out has no effect on the volume of water in the bottle.

The two largest discrete regions which have rolled over and gone downhill in the vicinity of 50% of Qt are the Lower 48 and Russia.  Russia had wildly inconsistent production data after the fall of the Soviet Union (in 1989), so Khebab and I just used Lower 48 production data through 1970 and Russian production data through 1984, to predict future production using HL

Using only production data through about 50% of Qt, the HL method was 99% accurate in predicting cumulative Lower 48 production through 2004 and the HL method was 95% accurate in predicting cumulative Russian production through 2004.  In other words, the water was poured out of the bottles at different rates, but the rates had no effect on the volume of water.

First, this suggests that Deffeyes' prediction that we have used 50% of total conventional oil reserves should be given a lot of credibility.

Second, this suggests that Russian oil production, and therefore its exports, and in fact the exports from the top four oil exporters, are going to be falling rapidly.  Thus, my focus on US imports year over year.  

Have we seen very sharp production declines?  Yes,.   Consider Cantarell (the second largest producing oil field in the world), where the remaining oil column is about 850', and it is falling at the rate of about 300' per year.