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Of course the HL method can't promise an exact day, month and year. But we can predict the most likely year.
Deffeyes predicted that 2006 was the the most likely year for a world crude production decline, and I predicted that 2006 was the most likely year for a Saudi crude oil production decline.
If you want to see what a crashing super giant field does to a region's production, take a look at Cantarell and Mexico, where David Shields is predicting about a 25% net decline rate for Mexico from 2007 to 2008.
Mexico and Saudi Arabia are two major oil exporting countries where one field, with a rapidly thinning oil column, accounts, or accounted, for more than half of each countries' production.
As I said yesterday, IMO, other than the production rates, the only real difference Pemex & Cantarell and Saudi Aramco and Ghawar is that Pemex has grudgingly admitted to the Cantarell decline/crash.
This is why I suspect that the initial Saudi decline/crash may be much more severe than what we saw in Texas.
I have previously--and repeatedly--described these two fields as two warning beacons burning brightly in the night sky, heralding the onset of Peak Oil.
I just want to mention again how instructive the exchanges between WT and RR have been for me.
Both men bring depth and breadth of understanding to the topic, terrific analytical abilities, and a great deal of civility.
My heart-felt thanks to both!
And now, back to the regularly scheduled discussions....!
Lets get some error bars once we know the confidence limits I think that a lot of the wrangling will dissipate.
In the short term accept my +/- 4mbd interval till we can narrow it.
I'm guessing but I suspect this gives a 10 year spread on world HL plots.
In any case I'd love to see someone with the numbers just show the variance in a world HL plot say using a 2% and 4% relative variance.
I'm guessing but I suspect this gives a 10 year spread on world HL plots.
And you nailed what I am getting at. I think one could scientifically defend something like an HL with a 10 year margin of error. Historically, you could show that this would have worked in the past. My criticism of Deffeyes specifically is that he has taken a tool with 10 year resolution and shouted to everyone that peak was in 2005. Such claims won't be taken seriously, and do much for fostering the "Peak Oilers are crackpots" reputation.
I understand that this doesn't matter to some. But I post here under my real name, and I have a career in the oil industry, so credibility probably has a higher priority to me than it does to the average anonymous poster.
Seems to me that this is basically saying that the precise peak of production doesn't matter but the 'precise' plateau (+- 5 yrs) matters. I believe this to be true as well. Then the question becomes, "Are we on the Peak Oil Plateau?" It looks like we are, so what if we have an upward blip in '07 or '08 that becomes the actual peak. Only thing that would matter would be a sustained increase over the next few years.
Then the question is, "When do we reach the end of the plateau?"