I just made my first post at Graphoilogy:

The Hubbert Parabola

In that post I experiment with 50 different regions of the world. For each one I do two plots:

"In the first one we will place all the data points (Q(t),P(t)) until year 2005 (both measured in
Giga-barrels) and then find the parabola that passes through the origin that better approximates
the data points (by the least squares fitting method). The intersection of this parabola with the
x-axis will give us the estimated URR. In the second plot we want to show how this estimated URR
has changed through time. For this plot, we define the function URR(t) as the estimated URR by the
prior method if we had used the data points up until year t, and discarding later years. In the
second plot we place points at (Q(t),URR(t)). Clearly Q(t)<URR(t) (just note that with a very
strange data set this could be false). So all points in the second plot should be above the URR=Q
line. The dashed line URR=2Q has an interesting property. If point (Q(t),URR(t)) lies above this
line, then according to the logistic model t is before the peak year (as calculated at year t),
i.e. Q(t)<URR(t)/2. If (Q(t),URR(t)) lies below the dashed line then we are after peak year."

Just a couple of plots here:

Have you tried this for the globe?


Doesn't this curve suggest global URR of 1650 Gb?

How is that credible? It's at least 20% beneath even Deffeyes lowball number.

In the second plot you see that the estimated URR has increased a lot in recent years, and it will continue to do so for some time. Only when we see that the points stabilize at an estimated URR value we can have some confidence. Like in the US case.

The parabola method is not good at all at predicting URR before peak year. And we are not past peak year.

The strength of the method IMO is at predicting URR after peak year, and many areas of the world are in this situation. If you go to Graphoilogy you will see that there are 20 countries where the estimated URR has stabilized. There are 21 bad cases like the world case, and there are 9 where it is too early to say.

I don't really see what we learn from this afterall then???
Well, for each region I have made two plots. The first one gives you an estimated URR and the second one gives a rough idea of how reliable it is. For the world case the second plot tells you that URR=1663GB is very unreliable. So that's what we learn. It is important to know when you shouldn't trust your forecasts and when you should.

Of the four plots I have posted, the estimated US URR has stabilized for years, maybe increasing slightly. This tells you that the estimate is quite robust. Mexico has just stabilized at peak year. South Arabia is a very bad case, the estimate is highly unreliable. UK has stabilized recently.

My next project will be to compare HL with this method. I think that we rely to much in the HL, and it is important to have an alternative to compare.

The US chart seems to show the estimate settles down when you are near the top which sort of makes sense. I think the noise in the UK (was it the platform fire?)and Saudi  kind of ruins it in those cases. What about the world?
Does it mean that Saudi and UK peaked at the beginning of the 80s ?
Saudi Arabia and the UK passed the dashed line at the beginning of the 80s. With the data points up
until then, this model predicted that they had already peaked. But that was a false
"impression" because both started to increase production and then the estimated URR started to
climb.

To say it in another way, this model was "tricked" and thought both countries had peaked,
but they hadn't.

Are Deffeyes-type HL plots available for all these countries?

thanks,
Asebius

Not yet, but I will get to it.
very interesting set of graphs on Graphology, roberto...i'm more interested in the parabola graphs...a country by country glimpse of production in comparison to the past. it is clear that there are a limited number of countries holding up production, and not in apparent decline...KSA,FSA, Canada, Quatar,Nigeria,Algeria ,and the biggies, KSA and FSA, suspect candidates for inclusion in this fraternity.