<DrumBeat: September 14, 2006The Oil DrumDrumBeat: September 15, 2006>

139 comments on Peak Update

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jim burke on September 14, 2006 - 11:16am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
One thing to remember from US peak in 1970, is that there was a (brief) spike in production that went well above any of the curves, before rapidly falling back into line with the predictions posed by the various curves.

If the same happens with global production, we may well see a similar fall in production of 5% or whatever, before continuing with the predicted plateau and decline.

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kjmclark on September 14, 2006 - 1:47pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Robert Hirsch wrote an article about this last year, between the two "Hirsch" reports.  You can read the article at World Oil.com. It's titled "Shaping the peak of world oil production" with byline, "The bell curve has a sharp crest, and you can't see it coming."

In the article, Hirsch looked for large oil regions that had definitely peaked and looked at the characteristics.  He settled on

  • Texas
  • All of North America
  • Britain
  • Norway

And concluded:
  • In all cases, it was not obvious that production was about to peak a year prior to the event
  • The peaks were sharp, not gently varying bell curves and not flat topped, as some forecasters have hoped
  • Post-peak production declines were much greater than our 2% benchmark in some cases
  • Pre-peaks occurred in three cases.
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BobCousins on September 14, 2006 - 6:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I like the way Hirsch carefully chooses the range of the Y axis to make the peaks look sharp. It's a very useful technique that I first learned in "How to Lie With Statistics" by Darrel Huff.

I note that a few posters here also use the same technique, to  .. "enhance" the point they are trying to make.

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Khebab on September 14, 2006 - 8:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I agree with you. Some people also manipulate the aspect ratio to make curves look flat.
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Oil CEO on September 15, 2006 - 2:33am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I'm just posting this here because I didn't want to forget, I knew it would appear as close to the top of the list as was practically possible, and I didn't want to be too intrusive.

Plus, I totally agree with your point, Khebab.

Does anybody know how to either post a single PDF page from a PDF file?

Or...even better... copy or cut a section of a PDF page ("crop") and turn cropped section into a JPEG, GIF, or something else "html" compatible as image?

Or...for the Grand-Prize...take data in a table which appears on a PDF page and export it into an excel spreadsheet?

Major points will be awarded.

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Jack on September 15, 2006 - 3:51am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Does this work?


1)Click on camera icon on toolbar to the right of the "select text" icon in Adobe.
2)In PDF draw line around the image
3)It should say "Saved to clipboard". If not, then copy image
4)Paste into another program (Word seems to work)
5)Save word document as html.
6)Go to place you saved the document and look for html file and image


1)Follow steps 1-3 above
2)Paste into Excel

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Oil CEO on September 15, 2006 - 4:16am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You better believe it works. I could never figure that out. I never knew what the camera icon was. It doesn't look like a camera to me unless you know it is supposed to be a camera. It worked in both Word and Excel. Although I used the "Select Table" tool for Excel. Thanks buddy, you just made my week and saved me probably at least 1000 hours off the rest of my life.

Major points awarded.

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Jack on September 15, 2006 - 5:10am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I sort of learned that from the Excel Bible, which noted that you can't save Excel directly as jpgs and suggested a similar methodology. How are you saving Excel charts and tables in html compatible format?

Sometimes I want to save a chart in Excel as an image and have to paste them first into Word or Powerpoint, which gives the image options under "paste special", then back into Excel. Any better ways to do it?

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Oil CEO on September 15, 2006 - 5:23am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
That's exactly how I do it. I haven't figured a better way. It is a wicked pain. I just had never been able to do it with PDF.

With tables I use an option that ends up being PNG I think it is, it gives better large image quality than JPEG. Other times I use bitmap option. But mostly it is the Windows enhanced metafile, I think. I never use the paste as excel object option, it always screws things up. I always post into Word with images and then access image in separate folder like you laid out.

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pomona96 on September 15, 2006 - 4:19am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hi Oil Ceo

I have found another way in which PDF files can be made into other formats in the following sequence, and it allows latitude in editing pictures and text.

  1.  Copy a PDF excerpt (or page) to a clipoard, thence paste onto Microsoft Power Point slide.  With the resulting power point master adjust size, also add features text, etc as you may wish.  

  2.  Then save the power point in other available "save as" formats that include JPEG, TIFF, GIF, and other options,  The power point slides and figures can easily be saved in all those formats, This is a really handy feature of power point

I have prepared several power point technical symposium presentatons then saved as JPEG to send the presentation around as a normal illustrated email.   This approach using power points as an intermediate step also preserves fidelity reasonably for editing and anntating digital photos of all sorts for emailing.    
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Oil CEO on September 15, 2006 - 4:25am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Wow! Thanks for that. I never thought I'd get two complete workable answers so fast. You guys are great.

Major points also awarded.

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Dragonfly41 on September 15, 2006 - 7:04am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Another fast way is to copy anything on your computer screen is to use shift/Print Screen buttons.  This copies your entire screen.  Then use a program like Irfanview (free download on the internet) to paste into.

Once loaded in Irfanview, you can crop any section of your screen shot and save it as a jpg or gif file.  Irfanview also allows for easy resizing and basic color corrections.

I use this all the time at work for documentation purposes.

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Oil CEO on September 15, 2006 - 7:08am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Very Good. Quick and Dirty, I like that. I'm gonna play with this one. Thanks.
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dipchip on September 15, 2006 - 8:24am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Thanks guys, I just saved all your Inst. into my Adobe Folder
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bjj on September 15, 2006 - 8:20am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I found a handy free utility, Pixie, for grabbing screen color values.  Very useful when making CSS style sheets.

Sorry, non-oil issue.  But totally and way cool nonetheless.

Ed

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Oil CEO on September 15, 2006 - 8:25am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I take full credit for taking it off-topic. My apologies to Khebab for posting the question. I didn't expect to get this many responses - and so quick. You guys are great. I just wanted to pull some Iraq numbers off a PDF. You and Dragonfly get full points as well.
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Dragonfly41 on September 15, 2006 - 10:34am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Glad to help.  Keep plugging the numbers and displaying the stats. Onward TOD soldiers.
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Leanan on September 15, 2006 - 11:05am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
There's a cool Firefox extension that does that.  I don't know how I lived without it.
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AlanfromBigEasy on September 15, 2006 - 11:52am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Details Please ? :-)
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Leanan on September 15, 2006 - 12:27pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
IIRC, it's called "Colorzilla."  

Can't check right now, because I don't have it installed on this computer.

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BobCousins on September 15, 2006 - 10:35am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
So that makes it OK then ;)
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kjmclark on September 18, 2006 - 11:09am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
That's a quibble. It certainly would have been better to be consistent, but correcting the Y-axis doesn't really change the point. The X-axes were consistent, so I distorted the Y-axes of the other graphs to match the right, percentage of maximum, axis on the Texas graph.

Texas

North America

UK

Norway

Sorry, but cutting and pasting changed the backgrounds from beige to black for some reason. Copy and paste these side-by-side into your favorite image editor to verify for yourself that the percentage ticks on the right axis line up.

The point is the same. None of them have smooth logistic curve shapes. I suspect we know why: when production levels out, a producer increases the drilling rate to increase production. This attempt to increase production at peak succeeds temporarily, but at the cost of damaging the field and increasing the initial decline rate.

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ThatsItImout on September 15, 2006 - 1:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I respect Hirsch's work greatly, but I have read that particular report and found that sentence absolutely comical the first time I read it...

""The bell curve has a sharp crest, and you can't see it coming."

Would you define a "bell curve" with a "sharp crest" as being a bell curve? ( :-)

And if "you can't see it coming.", why waste time looking?

This stuff sounds like routine written by Stephen Wright! :-)

Roger Conner  known to you as ThatsItImout

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Oil CEO on September 15, 2006 - 1:45am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Good points. What happens when you put instant coffee in the microwave?
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ThatsItImout on September 15, 2006 - 2:40am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

....I have a buddy who invented powdered water....now he don't know what to add to it...:-)  Stephen Wright

ThatsItImout

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Oil CEO on September 15, 2006 - 2:52am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Whatever happened to Stephen Wright?
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Dragonfly41 on September 15, 2006 - 7:06am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
One of my favorite comedians.  "I once had a dog named Stay.  He would always get confused when I'd say...come here, Stay...come here, Stay..."
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bruce from chicago on September 15, 2006 - 7:43am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Check out this collection of Wright jokes that has been on the web for years. Some repeats.

http://gdl.msu.edu/~vanhoose/humor/0087.html

http://gdl.msu.edu/~vanhoose/humor/0049.html

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Oil CEO on September 15, 2006 - 7:58am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Oh my God. Thank you. I guess Roger made up for his brevity today by starting this.
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bjj on September 15, 2006 - 8:12am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

One night I came home drunk and accidently used my car key to unlock my house.

It started right up.

So I took it for a drive....

Why am I not surprised to find Steven Wright fans here?

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Oil CEO on September 15, 2006 - 8:20am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I'm guessing you're one. If not, you should read some more of these. Some of them should appear in the top-right corner spot. We need some more variety. I haven't heard him in about 15 years. The car/house one was the one I was trying to remember. That probably doesn't surprise you. I'm psyched Bruce found these. Wright's a One-Trick-Pony. He's just superb at it.
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bjj on September 15, 2006 - 8:26am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Didn't need any external reference material.  ;)  Steve's the bomb.  Isn't the pony named Nikki?


I had a switch in my house that didn't do anything.  So every time I walked by I'd flick it on and off a few times for fun.

Until I got a call from some lady in Germany.

She told me to knock it off.
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Donal on September 16, 2006 - 3:57pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
My favorite:

I used to have a job at a place that made fire hydrants, but I couldn't park anywhere near the place.
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Halfin on September 14, 2006 - 2:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Keep in mind too that the EIA has been consistently lower this year than the IEA estimates. The new IEA number came out Tuesday: 85.5 MB/day for July. (http://omrpublic.iea.org/currentissues/full.pdf Table 3)

Take a look at Stuart's August 3 graph here:

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/3/31559/92662

The new 85.5 IEA number is literally off the top of the chart. The EIA however is still at 84.3, right about where it's been the past couple of months.

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Khebab on September 14, 2006 - 2:36pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You're talking about the all liquids numbers and I'm talking about crude + NGL only (excluding refinery gains).
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JCK on September 14, 2006 - 2:37pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hi Halfin,

If you look at the highlights from the IEA September newsletter, it states that August production fell by 400,000 bpd to 85.8.  Thus, their most current July number has been revised upward to 86.2.

See http://omrpublic.iea.org/

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