Sometimes it's as easy as watching the trends. EIA, IEA & Colin Campbell have been the most prolific suppliers of annual outlooks wrt Peak Oil. EIA, IEA & the optimists have been revising their targets downward over the years by an avg of 3-mbd/annum.

The Peaksters have been upward revising by just under 2-mbd/annum.

It is relatively easy to revise up due to availability of bottom-up flow analysis on the short and medium term.

The long term targets have been based, disturbingly, on demand projections tied to Real GDP Growth. These 2020 to 2030 targets are also dependent on sufficient resource (URR). Using Hubbert type analysis, URR's in the 3 or 4 Trillion barrel magnitude helped justify those targets from an geologic viewpoint. What is lacking unfortunately is sound basis for supply from each country associated with the targets and timelines.

The first to lash out was Saudi Arabia at the CSIS Conference in 2004. It called the IEA & EIA targets for itself absurd. But they have been a voice in the wilderness in their pleas for sanity and due diligence on the part of stakeholders and decision makers. It did make some difference. TrendLines chastised EIA and published an "Aramco-modified EIA projection to draw light and scrutiny. The 2005 EIA model was trimmed 10mbd accordingly.

If awareness of the Peak Oil phenom and consequences are to become topical, it is necessary to challenge the 2020 to 2030 targets that give sighs of relief to peak watchers.

At this point, it is only the the upward revisions (as shown below) that have momentum and gain the attention of analysts and pundits. At TrendLines, we are entering the third year of posting our tracking updates of the ASPO/Campbell record. Colin's Peak Rate has moved between 64-mbd to 89-mbd. The Peak Date has ranged from 1995 to 2012. Exhaustion has been extended from 2060 to 2100.

Optimism is relatively easy when the magnitude of upward revisions is incrementally increasing ... not decreasing: