Search The Oil Drum with Google
Recently on TOD:World
TOD:Local
- Streets: Utilitarian Corridors or Livable Public Space
- Summer Streets a Success!
- Plan for Hydro-Fracture Drilling for Unconventional Natural Gas in Upstate New York
TOD:Europe
- Oilwatch Monthly - November 2008
- The 2008 IEA WEO - Production Decline Rates
- The EU Strategic Energy Review: maybe not so depressing after all
TOD:Canada
- The Round-Up: October 24, 2008
- Compressed Air Energy Storage - How viable is it?
- Oil Megaproject Update (July 2008)
TOD:ANZ
Blogroll
Energy Sites
- The Coming Global Oil Crisis
- Die Off
- Dry Dipstick
- Energy Bulletin
- From the Wilderness
- Life After the Oil Crash
- Peak Oil Crisis
- Peak Oil News and Message Boards
- Powerswitch
- Rigzone
- Matthew Simmons
- Wolf at the Door
Environment & Sustainability Sites
- The Daily Green
- EcoGeek
- Eco Street
- Green Car Congress
- Green Options
- green.alltop.com
- Gristmill
- RealClimate
- Sustainablog
- Treehugger
- WorldChanging
Blogs
- The Big Picture
- Casaubon's Book
- Cleantech Blog
- Clusterf
k Nation (Jim Kunstler) - The Cost of Energy
- David Strahan
- The Energy Blog
- Entropy Production
- European Tribune
- GraphOilology
- jeffvail.net
- Mobjectivist
- Peak Energy (Australia)
- Peak Energy (USA)
- R-Squared
- Resource Insights
Finance & Economics Blogs
- Calculated Risk
- Ecological Economics
- Econbrowser
- Environmental Economics
- Infectious Greed
- The Mess That Greenspan Made
- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Organizations
“Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.”
—Henry Ford
User login
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
Personnel
- Editors: Prof. Goose, Heading Out, Stuart Staniford, Nate Hagens
- DrumBeat Editor: Leanan
- Contributors: ace, Engineer-Poet, Gail the Actuary, jeffvail, JoulesBurn, Khebab, Robert Rapier
- TOD:Local: Glenn
- TOD:Europe: Chris Vernon, Euan Mearns, Francois Cellier, Jerome a Paris, Luís de Sousa, Rembrandt, Rune Likvern, Ugo Bardi
- TOD:Canada: benk, Libelle
- TOD:ANZ: Big Gav, Phil Hart, aeldric
- Technician: Super G
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
I noticed something pretty interesting yesterday, on the CERA thread, where I was having a "Deja Vu" HL debate.
In 1956, Hubbert predicted that the Lower 48 peak would be between 1966 and 1971, based on URR estimates of 150 Gb and 200 Gb respectively. He also predicted, in 1956, that the world peak would be no later than 2006.
In effect, Hubbert said that if the Lower 48 URR was 200 Gb, then the peak would be no later than 1971.
The Lower 48 peaked in 1970.
Using data through 2004, Khebab put the Lower 48 Qt (a HL estimate of URR) at 196 Gb.
Deffeyes predicted that 2006 was the most likely year for a decline in world crude oil production (within a 2004 to 2008 time frame), and world crude oil production is declining (EIA).
You continuously point to the US and the North Sea as examples of where HL happened exactly as expected, so thus HL should be used as the guiding model for everywhere. But both the US and Great Britain have had stable political climates, and a system of capitalism throughout their Oil producing life cycles. I would argue that those are both prerequisites for HL to work correctly.
The same can not be said for Iran, Iraq, Russia, Saudi Arabia, as well as countries in Africa. Iraq is a battlefield, certainly not the best environment to see a good HL plot. Russia has only recently recovered from the fall of the USSR. Iran is under UN sanctions I believe. Saudi Arabia is a kingdom.
The bottom line is HL is a capitalistic model of oil field development. The world just doesn't fit that model cleanly.
I don't disagree with you that we are at or near peak...but there are a lot of political reasons for that.
Geologically, (if there were no political boundaries and plenty of capital available for development) I think we could probably get to 100mbd. But that's really a moot point not worth arguing. What we're gonna get is a relatively (10 years?) long plateau and then a decline.
At least that's my take.
Although I would say that you're right that the bell-shaped curve of the Hubbert curve does not fit every region, an HL-plot certainly seems to work.
The reason why the US-48 is used as an example is because it was developed gradually - fits the hubbert curve almost exactly. The reason why the UK is used is because it is a two-humped camel, not fitting the curve at all. Just like Russia and Saudi Arabia, for instance. EVEN THEN the HL method worked. It won't be long til Saudi Arabia replaces the UK as HL's second prime example...
I'm still not sure when to listen to a dog leg or not, or where the line should be drawn..
Speaking of dog legs, I see one in this post by Euan Mearns yesterday
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/2283#comment-162318
Another case of HL producing a false alarm with the real peak following ~10 years later. If Saudi Arabia follows the same pattern it should begin its involutary decline around 2015.
now does that nice little post take into account the cooking of the books in the 80's where S.A.'s reserves doubled literally overnight with no physical proof of it?
this is something westexas's estimates using HL take this little fact into account and has been proven right so far.
Freddy weren't you banned?
Do you think no one notices your sockpupet?
At least learn to capitolize, that would make your posts a little different.
The change in inflection on the data set right before 1999 was the same pattern that we saw right before the Texas, Lower 48 and Saudi declines.
In any case, rather than arguing hypotheticals, why not argue actually predictions?
As Deffeyes predicted, world crude oil production is declining (EIA).
As I predicted, Saudi crude oil production is declining.
As Khebab predicted, Mexican crude oil production is declining.
What is really bizarre about this whole "debate" is the ongoing attacks on the HL method even as region after region start declining, as predicted.
Here is the best information I have seen to date on what you talk about. This was done by Khebab, cover what fits and what doesn't fit very well in respect to HL. Worth the time to look at has 30+ charts from around world.
http://graphoilogy.blogspot.com/
Thank you.
The bottom line is HL can be a good indicator, but is not always the gospel. Oil producing regions can be throttled back, improperly developed, mismanaged, or even destroyed (natural disasters, hurricanes). Saudi Arabia would have the biggest financial incentive of anybody to do this, and as a Kingdom they are much more capable of pulling it off then in a capitalist society where monopolies are illegal.
Sometimes I wonder if there's room for any shades of grey at TOD.
For the record, I will state that it is possible Saudi Arabia really is over the hump and is now in massive decline. Or they could be throttling back to protect the price of oil. No one outside of a few people knows for sure. We watch and wait.
Actually, I think that whether one is a communist, capitalist, socialist or Paris Hilton worshiper has little to do with the peak. The big fields are found first. The overall decline sets in when the decline in the big fields can't be overcome.
I am really using the Lower 48 and the North Seas as best case histories for the post-peak decline rate.
"Paris Hilton worshiper" WT, great shout out for our great pal Oil CEO. Can we get him Unbanned? I miss him. I can get him to behave I swear.
westexas i strongly advise you to not use greenman's script.
many people have replied to this post and are attacking hl and your very good predictions with no data to back it up. and your lack of reply's and counters makes them appear they are right and the saudi's won't decline for another decade or more!
Damn, I'd just turned off the script, and now it looks like I've got to turn it back on.
*plonk*