The Oil Drum

44 comments on The ASPO Conference -First Morning

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myndlessconsumption on September 18, 2007 - 12:42am

jkissing, you hit the nail on the head.

In a perfect world, with perfect infrastructure, we could expect numbers similar on a timeline to whats being discussed at the ASPO conference.

But as you all know this isn't a perfect world. Fields don't behave the way they should on paper; pipelines break; national oil companies damage their fields; refinery fires and explosions happen. you name it, it will happen in this industry.

The infrastructure is old. The oil isn't getting sweeter. Nothing is getting easier. I take whatever number the general consensus is from ASPO and substract 3-5 years because we do not live in a perfect world, and never will.

I shudder when I think of when 3-5 years before the consensus is. 2014? 2011? We may very likely be in no man's land already, and the way international actors are behaving, probably are.

Good luck to everyone.

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luisdias on September 18, 2007 - 6:47am

They simply forget to calculate Murphy's law into account.

They don't understand that things are getting harder and not easier.

I also find some thoughts presented as staggering:

From Mike Rogers

Basically by 2010 he feels that non-OPEC will have peaked, and be starting to decline, and that the only growth in OPEC will be from heavy oil and NGL. For this he sees OPEC giving 33-36 mbdoe in 2010; 37-55 in the 2015 timeframe; 50 mbd by 2020.

50mbd. Amazing. So they will only peak then. Apart from Iraq and Angola, I can't see any growth happening. Right now, OPEC is struggling to meet 30mbd, and this guy figures 50, just after 13 more years of oil depletion? Right.

I'll be more apologizing in the unconventional, because that sector may grow above expectations from new technologies and stuff. But, being realistic, I'd prefer a more conservative approach, and if I'd be wrong, that would be like a kind of bonus.

From Pierre-Rene Bauquis, I find this kind of "predictions" amazing:

By 2100 the energy for transportation will come 30% from oil and gas, 60% from nuclear power, and 10% from other renewables.

Where do these people come from? They ought to know that a "prediction" of a century span is not a prediction, but rather a program, with no doubt at all, a very personal one. Many things can happen and predicting at this level is bullshit. I could even say:

By 2100 the energy for transportation will come 30% from renewables, 60% from nuclear power, and 10% from oil and gas.

or

By 2100 the energy for transportation will come 30% from nuclear power, 60% from renewables, and 10% from oil and gas.

I'd be exactly as precise.

overall I agree with everything else, being the point in case that Murphy's law should be accounted for, as Jim Buckee noted:

He already faces decline problems every day in his work, but while it is now controlled, when it reaches 7% then there will be another OOPS moment. Oil wells decline exponentially, gas wells go faster, but for many fields post peak, this can reach over 11% pa.

Is this problem really accounted for?