Just a test concept on a Saturday morning. Hit oilceo.blogspot.com for further explanation on method and any updates. I'll just call this Beta.
We'll start with some old concepts.
I notice this one is my most popular. It's like Stuart's best one. Mine's not as good. It's never developed the following. I miss Stuart. This one was based on his work.
It's not updated. It's too much work right now. But we can fill in the gaps from what I'm about to show you.
First we're going to move back to one that was my first and which I still follow, but have learned is not a popular format.
Let me warn you this one is crude. But look at it twice. The crudeness is in the presentation - not the data.
It's a good reminder why we need to update things.
Now for a Zoomed out View. This is how oil moves.
So here's the new stuff. I need to add events, but I also need to keep the font large enough so it works visually. Who's going to write history.
Oil CEO- Just an observation on the first chart. When the production wave crests(is it an average? I can't read the fine print but looks like EIA revised) the price tumbles disproportionately. If we are PO I would think that this historical trend would break eventually
Thanks for pointing that out. I've gotta change that. When I say EIA revised I mean the latest EIA numbers. But I've been doing this long enough to know that if you placed the new ones over the old ones - You can't tell the difference(on this chart, at least). That's why I'm so skeptical about any talk about revisions. It all evens out in the end.
The smooth lines are always averages. Click on the image itself if you want a bigger one.
In this case I used a 13-month centered moving average. Which was a new idea to me at the time. I prefer trailing moving averages(I refer to them as SMA or simply moving average in some of my charts). Somehow Stuart convinced me. I use a hybrid now, undectectable to the human eye.
The consistent problem with the first one, as with all graphs of its sort is that the relationship between the two scales is always a construct. It only exists in my head. This was how I decided to do it at the time. What makes reproducing it so difficult is that it replicates itself. Perhaps when I update it I'll always have to produce a new one and an unrevised(except for the data) version.
That's my last pure production. I can say that the updated version with two more months' data looks virtually the same.
The plateau continues. I'll say this only at this point. I've got another 18 months before I'll decide whether anything has been dropping. Or rising. Six months ago I would have told you the same thing. Maybe in another 6 months I'll make a decision.
Is that plateau for oil production or oil CONSUMPTION? Clearly it is both, assuming no major increase in storage inventory. But it matters which is the constraining factor. If it's supply constrained that suggests a possible peak. But it could be that the rapid price increase has virtually eliminated the global growth in demand. I've been seeing references to poor countries being priced out of the oil market, for example. That could apply also to the poor people in many not-poor countries. If that is true, possibly the current price declines may reflect a (possibly temporary) peak in global oil demand occuring just as non-OPEC supplies are increasing, thus causing OPEC to decide that a supply cut on their part is now needed to avoid further price declines. Sometimes what is said in public is actually what is happening.
Now listen. You're messing with me, who told you you could come in here and asking serious questions? Throw me an email at my address. This is gonna get ugly soon and I want to know where I can send a check. Don't worry about me I'm taken care of.
Bush seemed so happy standing among the nukes, knowing he has more than anybody else. And do the Chinese leaders really take baths in wood tubs (part of their energy saving strategy)?
We don't know. Nobody knows. Nobody. That's the key which these other ___ won't give you. Nobody knows. Not even the Saudis. That's why so many assholes make money on the deal. You're getting played. Nobody knows. And they will never leave character.
There are no answers to these questions.
The references you see are theories put forth by certain luminaries in the oil world.
Remember back when certain people told others they could
turn lead to gold
or that the earth was round
or that witches don't float
Which one of those three is right and how the fuck would you know?
See what I mean?
Back then turning lead to gold was where the focus was. I'm pretty sure it's the same today.
I'm pretty sure nobody has a really clear motive to prove that witches either sink or swim to save your life.
Why's that. Witches and You don't count. It's all about the...
Lead into gold - a few billion well spent tax dollars shows that turning lead into gold is not a money making venture, and that it is surprisingly more esoteric than any alchemist ever imagined. And if it hadn't been for that alchemy fantasy, I doubt anyone would ever have bothered doing it.
Earth is round - you just take a well in Alexandria and one in Cyrene, wait for noon, do some geometry. Of course, you do actually have to be mathematically literate.
Everyone knows by the time you find a witch, it is time to have a bit of righteous public entertainment ending in the just punishment of the evildoers. Historically, this has been a very reliable form of entertainment among people - though it only had a minor run in North America (sort of like how Americans just don't get soccer).
What is interesting is just how often people who could do 1. or 2. were considered wizards/witches.
I do think that there is a level beyond money - for example, staying warm in the winter isn't really about money, it is about survival. It is just that many people in North America can't imagine what it is like to live without any fuel in the wintertime, regardless of how much money they have. Check out the mass migrations of Germans from East to West in the winter of 1944-45 to escape the Russians to get a feel for what I mean - even if you were rich/powerful enough to have a vehicle, and fuel, it just meant the strafing fighters found you worth their time. For most Europeans who were alive before 1940 or so, such a concern with heat and survival is not theoretical, along with the awareness of how unimportant money is compared to staying alive.
I think part of the general confusion here is the difference between money as a source/representation of human motivation/activity, and the fact that reality is not the same as human motivation/activity. Just like turning lead into gold, it is conceivable that the Texas oil fields could go back to producing what they did in the early 1970s. It is just up until now, no one has figured out a way to replace what has been burnt. This can be thought of as finite (really huge to beyond human comprehension) and conceivable not being equal to infinite (never ending). After all, a few billion atoms of gold from lead sounds huge - until you do the math.
Well said, Well said. Sadly, come crunch time, I must agree with your statement that the ignorant will probably do in the witches/wizards that offer the best chance for them to be lead out of the darkness. Such is life-- that is why Socrates gladly drank the hemlock. Can we possibly be better philosophers when our time has come?
Not that I like to make predictions but - 'Environmentalists talked about climate change - they are a curse upon us all in these hard times' is so much easier to accept than how we all create huge amounts of CO2 by flipping on the light switch before taking a hot shower to go to work and then shopping at a store, unwrapping and cooking the purchased food grown in various parts of the planet, and then putting the remainder in the trash and/or fridge. (and for the 3 or 4 of you who aren't living like this - just mumble 'Lord Jevon' to yourself as you sleep the sleep of the just).
Okay. Fine. It's production. They are the numbers that absolutely everybody uses. We can argue about them. But that probably wouldn't do us any good. There's probably fifty people who would be qualified to discuss the numbers with me. Prof. Goose wouldn't be in that crew. I doubt Stuart could make the cut. Even Simmons. There's no reason not to trust Simmons. He just isn't honest. He never comes clean about anything. I doubt Yergin would make the cut. But he's probably got at least four people who could. Esser is strong.
Lynch is strong. Pickens is peak oils' worst enemy. He just doesn't understand. Everybody forgot about Economides. And he outflanked everybody.
The great thing about oil smacking low is that it is knocking over false prophets like ... like ... like Hewlett Packard CEO's.
To think I lamented this storm a month ago. We may need another job. Kid, we're lucky we're still alive. Okay. Okay? That's all you've got to say? Okay. Okay.
Is that plateau for oil production or oil CONSUMPTION?
Yes, that is the big question. Generally speaking, if prices are high we would say it is supply limited. If prices are low then that points to a failure of demand. Despite the recent fallback, prices even today can still be considered high. If we truly had an oil glut then producers would be competing with each other to cut prices, and we'd see historically low prices of $10-20 per barrel. Since we're not, that points to supply limitations.
Having said that, we should keep in mind that market participants look to the future as well as the present in making their decisions. Producers may choose to produce below the maximum if they believe that we will have shortages in the future and their oil will be worth even more then. A production cutback in the face of high prices is therefore not necessarily evidence that we are at peak now, but it suggests that producers see a peak as a realistic possibility within their planning horizon, and that is affecting their decisions today.
Thanks for taking my question seriously. Another clue to whether it's supply or demand constrained may be the willingness of OPEC to attempt to reduce supply temporarily. If they thought the peak was really demand driven, they would know that cutting down supply temporarily in order to lift prices back into the $70 range would be futile because it would continue to reduce demand and therefore make any price increase they could achieve only temporary, requiring more cutbacks later to maintain the higher price and therefore ceding more of the oil market to non-OPEC countries. So their willingness to attempt a cutback to restore higher prices suggests that they think there has been either a TEMPORARY demand peak or a TEMPORARY supply spurt that can be corrected by their temporary cutback. Since demand destruction would not be likely to be a temporary phonemenon (unless it is weather-related), this suggests they don't see supply continuing to increase steadily among the non-OPEC producers, since that phenomenon would make their current proposed cutback feckless. Bottom line: it seems like OPEC believes that supplies are likely to be fairly well constrained going forward.
Thank you, that means a lot to me coming from you. But please take another look. I need criticism.
An addendum. On the one with the Lebanon conflict. The shooting started on July 12th. That is hugely important. It is a terrible omission. I was aware of the problem when I went to print. That's why I called it a Beta. There's one more Zoom out I have to do on this but I haven't decided on a time frame.
I had this girlfriend that confinced herself she had early-onset Alzheimers. She was no dummy - Harvard and MIT. I always told her she was full of shit. Problem is she made me paranoid. Maybe even convinced me.
I Love Jack Black. Funny as hell. But I can't tell any of his movies apart. Is that me? Or does this guy need to find a new routine if he wants to stay in Hollywood.
In an attempt to retain my sanity. It's all about Borat. Check my comments on TOD for a reference to Borat. If Leanan or Super-G hasn't deleted it I mentioned Borat before the movie existed. So that's either premonition or I'm delusional.
I don't bike. I got too many bad mememories as a kid biking to either mass at 5:30 am, or to work, or whatever.Those frickin' thingsall killya. It's either cars or walking for me. I'm sorry, the best thing in life is walking. Sex is messy. (Don't tell them Hilton Girls that. They're pretty clean, believe me). I'm sorry the rest of you didn't have the chance to discover that(the walking). I'm also sorry you didn't get a chance to discover LSD and Henry Miller. But what can I do? I should be satisfied with you people at least figuring out football(Cheers!) and Seinfeld(Hurray! Do you finally understand they never made an episode that wasn't funny?) That might be a clue.
For anybody that wants to dis me. For anybody thinks I'm full of shit - I just saw an ad. They were trying to convince people that they didn't have to eat less to lose weight. You've seen it. Watch it again. Then Try to say I'm fucking with you. Yeah right fella.
I beg your pardon. Was just at the Henry Miller library two weeks ago. I kid you not. Bought a Thoreau book, the one I made my quote from recently. Caretaker there (Swedish native) looked like he's all set up for PO with his bus and gardens in the back. International ping pong tournament will be there next year, he told us, as we stood next to the outdoor ping pong table. Wrote down a quote from an engraved rock there by Lucy Christopher, "I saw the window in the wall. The wall was never there at all." (Bet you like that one, too, Jack?) Lucy has passed away.
I get the "rare form" deal every other day. It only means something when you or SAT says it.
I'm trying to watch ABC Evening news. They got college football on. OK, tis the season. When I hear college Football the only thing I know is Nebraska. So I was brainwashed. Oh, scratch that...Thank God for NBC.
Every other day? OMFG. I had a girlfriend who did that. She died. For four and a half minutes. They got the paddles on her and brought her back. Luck.
Check the Cat Power regimen. She's got it going where she can be crazy and keep it under control. Sort of.
I didn't miss LSD. You're thinking of someone else.
2 more things. Try younger women. I don't believe the pedophile routine you did the other night. Young women (not girls) smell and feel clean, not messy. Though you may feel dirty. (You dirty old man.) I've encountered only one woman of a certain age who could be unmessy. (How bad is messy?)
And Seroquel. Know when.
That was good. I almost forgot that episode. Youtube is great, isn't it? I didn't realize Metallica uses the song to open their concerts.
I was actually one of the back-up bag-pipers on the flat-bed. A lot of people are unaware of that. Did you catch the black helicopter circling above right towards the end?
They're all in print, available though your favorite online bookseller or from Tufte's own publishing company, Graphics Press http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/
Tufte has cornered the niche (?) of practical information design in the social and political sciences, and to a lesser extent the physical sciences. He used to be prof. of Social Science at Yale, but retired some years ago and now makes a living by publishing and consulting. You should try to catch his 1-day seminar if you live in the US and he comes to your city.
In recent years he has started to come across as being a bit intellectually arrogant. I think he is increasingly frustrated by the world's refusal to embrace his ideas, but his books are still worth reading. If you are going to buy just one, it should be "Visual Display", which is now in its second edition. His critiques of NASA's root-cause analyses of the two Shuttle accidents are available as pamphlets from Graphics Press (also in the books), and are a good introduction to his way of thinking.
Oil CEO - if you feel your graphs could be improved (and they're not perfect, though they could be a lot worse), read "Visual Display" for ideas. My own advice would be to lose the color-gradient background - what information does it convey? And find a way to make the dates on the axes a bit less random. I realize you're probably constrained by time, convenience and cost to use Excel, but even the bastard offspring of Micros~1 can produce good results with a bit of coaxing.
Your last paragraph is the best because that is where you tear into me. I'm aware of these things. I wanted feedback. The color gradient thing is problematic for me. I need it to put the focus of my own eye on the graph. A white background distracts me. That's a personal problem. I realize that. The Dates are horrible. I've tried so many hacks around what I'm given, I can't tell you. Paris is gonna throw me some bucks for a new laptop soon. Maybe she'll send me Boone Pickens' rejects with the killer chart skills. God knows they did him right.
I tought myself C++. Why am I afraid of Excel? Yeah, you're coaxing me. Cuz I'm getting to old for this shit. But the truth always stays the same. If you wannit done right, you gotta do it yourself. Thanks again for slapping me in the head. The plucky underdog. rarely posts. always hits hard. always a friend.
I've done dynamic plots on web pages in Perl using Image::Magick. Nothing fancy, but it sure beats re-doing it by hand each time you get another data point.
We'll start with some old concepts.
I notice this one is my most popular. It's like Stuart's best one. Mine's not as good. It's never developed the following. I miss Stuart. This one was based on his work.
It's not updated. It's too much work right now. But we can fill in the gaps from what I'm about to show you.
First we're going to move back to one that was my first and which I still follow, but have learned is not a popular format.
Let me warn you this one is crude. But look at it twice. The crudeness is in the presentation - not the data.
It's a good reminder why we need to update things.
Now for a Zoomed out View. This is how oil moves.
So here's the new stuff. I need to add events, but I also need to keep the font large enough so it works visually. Who's going to write history.
Price Zoom Out 2
Price Zoom In 1
The smooth lines are always averages. Click on the image itself if you want a bigger one.
In this case I used a 13-month centered moving average. Which was a new idea to me at the time. I prefer trailing moving averages(I refer to them as SMA or simply moving average in some of my charts). Somehow Stuart convinced me. I use a hybrid now, undectectable to the human eye.
That's my last pure production. I can say that the updated version with two more months' data looks virtually the same.
The plateau continues. I'll say this only at this point. I've got another 18 months before I'll decide whether anything has been dropping. Or rising. Six months ago I would have told you the same thing. Maybe in another 6 months I'll make a decision.
This is LOL funny-- you gotta see it
http://www.endofworld.net/
There are no answers to these questions.
The references you see are theories put forth by certain luminaries in the oil world.
Remember back when certain people told others they could
turn lead to gold
or that the earth was round
or that witches don't float
Which one of those three is right and how the fuck would you know?
See what I mean?
Back then turning lead to gold was where the focus was. I'm pretty sure it's the same today.
I'm pretty sure nobody has a really clear motive to prove that witches either sink or swim to save your life.
Why's that. Witches and You don't count. It's all about the...
- Lead into gold - a few billion well spent tax dollars shows that turning lead into gold is not a money making venture, and that it is surprisingly more esoteric than any alchemist ever imagined. And if it hadn't been for that alchemy fantasy, I doubt anyone would ever have bothered doing it.
- Earth is round - you just take a well in Alexandria and one in Cyrene, wait for noon, do some geometry. Of course, you do actually have to be mathematically literate.
- Everyone knows by the time you find a witch, it is time to have a bit of righteous public entertainment ending in the just punishment of the evildoers. Historically, this has been a very reliable form of entertainment among people - though it only had a minor run in North America (sort of like how Americans just don't get soccer).
What is interesting is just how often people who could do 1. or 2. were considered wizards/witches.I do think that there is a level beyond money - for example, staying warm in the winter isn't really about money, it is about survival. It is just that many people in North America can't imagine what it is like to live without any fuel in the wintertime, regardless of how much money they have. Check out the mass migrations of Germans from East to West in the winter of 1944-45 to escape the Russians to get a feel for what I mean - even if you were rich/powerful enough to have a vehicle, and fuel, it just meant the strafing fighters found you worth their time. For most Europeans who were alive before 1940 or so, such a concern with heat and survival is not theoretical, along with the awareness of how unimportant money is compared to staying alive.
I think part of the general confusion here is the difference between money as a source/representation of human motivation/activity, and the fact that reality is not the same as human motivation/activity. Just like turning lead into gold, it is conceivable that the Texas oil fields could go back to producing what they did in the early 1970s. It is just up until now, no one has figured out a way to replace what has been burnt. This can be thought of as finite (really huge to beyond human comprehension) and conceivable not being equal to infinite (never ending). After all, a few billion atoms of gold from lead sounds huge - until you do the math.
Well said, Well said. Sadly, come crunch time, I must agree with your statement that the ignorant will probably do in the witches/wizards that offer the best chance for them to be lead out of the darkness. Such is life-- that is why Socrates gladly drank the hemlock. Can we possibly be better philosophers when our time has come?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Lynch is strong. Pickens is peak oils' worst enemy. He just doesn't understand. Everybody forgot about Economides. And he outflanked everybody.
The great thing about oil smacking low is that it is knocking over false prophets like ... like ... like Hewlett Packard CEO's.
To think I lamented this storm a month ago. We may need another job. Kid, we're lucky we're still alive. Okay. Okay? That's all you've got to say? Okay. Okay.
Yes, that is the big question. Generally speaking, if prices are high we would say it is supply limited. If prices are low then that points to a failure of demand. Despite the recent fallback, prices even today can still be considered high. If we truly had an oil glut then producers would be competing with each other to cut prices, and we'd see historically low prices of $10-20 per barrel. Since we're not, that points to supply limitations.
Having said that, we should keep in mind that market participants look to the future as well as the present in making their decisions. Producers may choose to produce below the maximum if they believe that we will have shortages in the future and their oil will be worth even more then. A production cutback in the face of high prices is therefore not necessarily evidence that we are at peak now, but it suggests that producers see a peak as a realistic possibility within their planning horizon, and that is affecting their decisions today.
http://mainelyenergy.com/
An addendum. On the one with the Lebanon conflict. The shooting started on July 12th. That is hugely important. It is a terrible omission. I was aware of the problem when I went to print. That's why I called it a Beta. There's one more Zoom out I have to do on this but I haven't decided on a time frame.
It's a long way to the top if you wanna Rock 'n' Roll.
Is it really you Jack Black? Loved your movie (School of Rock).
I Love Jack Black. Funny as hell. But I can't tell any of his movies apart. Is that me? Or does this guy need to find a new routine if he wants to stay in Hollywood.
In an attempt to retain my sanity. It's all about Borat. Check my comments on TOD for a reference to Borat. If Leanan or Super-G hasn't deleted it I mentioned Borat before the movie existed. So that's either premonition or I'm delusional.
"There is no God. And we are all his prophets."
For anybody that wants to dis me. For anybody thinks I'm full of shit - I just saw an ad. They were trying to convince people that they didn't have to eat less to lose weight. You've seen it. Watch it again. Then Try to say I'm fucking with you. Yeah right fella.
I'm trying to watch ABC Evening news. They got college football on. OK, tis the season. When I hear college Football the only thing I know is Nebraska. So I was brainwashed. Oh, scratch that...Thank God for NBC.
Check the Cat Power regimen. She's got it going where she can be crazy and keep it under control. Sort of.
I didn't miss LSD. You're thinking of someone else.
2 more things. Try younger women. I don't believe the pedophile routine you did the other night. Young women (not girls) smell and feel clean, not messy. Though you may feel dirty. (You dirty old man.) I've encountered only one woman of a certain age who could be unmessy. (How bad is messy?)
And Seroquel. Know when.
Great video, down the boulevard in Melbourne.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=H1iR2Wi3u5o
I was actually one of the back-up bag-pipers on the flat-bed. A lot of people are unaware of that. Did you catch the black helicopter circling above right towards the end?
You are correct. Those "reporter persons" got their wires inverted ... as usual.
- The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
- Envisioning Information
- Visual Explanations
- Beautiful Evidence
They're all in print, available though your favorite online bookseller or from Tufte's own publishing company, Graphics Press http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/Tufte has cornered the niche (?) of practical information design in the social and political sciences, and to a lesser extent the physical sciences. He used to be prof. of Social Science at Yale, but retired some years ago and now makes a living by publishing and consulting. You should try to catch his 1-day seminar if you live in the US and he comes to your city.
In recent years he has started to come across as being a bit intellectually arrogant. I think he is increasingly frustrated by the world's refusal to embrace his ideas, but his books are still worth reading. If you are going to buy just one, it should be "Visual Display", which is now in its second edition. His critiques of NASA's root-cause analyses of the two Shuttle accidents are available as pamphlets from Graphics Press (also in the books), and are a good introduction to his way of thinking.
Oil CEO - if you feel your graphs could be improved (and they're not perfect, though they could be a lot worse), read "Visual Display" for ideas. My own advice would be to lose the color-gradient background - what information does it convey? And find a way to make the dates on the axes a bit less random. I realize you're probably constrained by time, convenience and cost to use Excel, but even the bastard offspring of Micros~1 can produce good results with a bit of coaxing.
Your last paragraph is the best because that is where you tear into me. I'm aware of these things. I wanted feedback. The color gradient thing is problematic for me. I need it to put the focus of my own eye on the graph. A white background distracts me. That's a personal problem. I realize that. The Dates are horrible. I've tried so many hacks around what I'm given, I can't tell you. Paris is gonna throw me some bucks for a new laptop soon. Maybe she'll send me Boone Pickens' rejects with the killer chart skills. God knows they did him right.
I tought myself C++. Why am I afraid of Excel? Yeah, you're coaxing me. Cuz I'm getting to old for this shit. But the truth always stays the same. If you wannit done right, you gotta do it yourself. Thanks again for slapping me in the head. The plucky underdog. rarely posts. always hits hard. always a friend.