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27 comments on Oilwatch Monthly - October 2007

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Rembrandt on October 17, 2007 - 3:27am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

clearly showing a peak in crude oil production in 2005. A PDF version (1 Mb) is now available here:

A peak yes, but likely a temporary peak. An issue that is also adressed on the first page of this month's oilwatch monthly.

You and Matt write in the article that

This annual decline of 1.8 million bpd can be broken down to about .6 million bpd annual
decline relating to the countries Nigeria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia (combined), and about 1.2
million bpd for other countries below the black line. One might argue that the production of
Nigeria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia (Figure 8) is not necessarily in long-term decline, so should not
be below the black line. Since the production for these countries has recently declined, it is
shown in this group.

Consider the case that this 0.6 million bpd of production decline stops and reserves. Then we would not have a decline but an increase, above peak levels of 2005.

One of the things we need to do now is monitor the data, and confirm the 2005 peak in world oil production. We cannot know whether this peak was a geological peak per se.

In that case the 2005 peak wasn't the peak, and production shall continue to increase.

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Matt on October 17, 2007 - 6:42am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

You quoted by cutting the sentence in half. What we said:

We cannot know whether this peak was a geological peak per se, or whether there were other factors, such as geopolitical feed back loops involved

and we specifically included the link to this post:
Geopolitical Feedback Loops in Peak Oil
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3017#more

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Moe_Gamble on October 17, 2007 - 9:45am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I think it's misguided to think in terms of a "geological peak" versus some other kind of peak (and it leads to too many stupid arguments here). Peak will always and necessarily be a result of combined geologic and economic factors.

And when people estimate recoverable reserves, the estimate is based on combined geological and economic factors, which is why the HL model works.

Obviously there is a lot of oil in the ground, even though it is a finite amount.

And obviously we could pump more of it at any given time if we were willing to throw every last dollar in the world at it to create a higher peak.

Memmel is right--the effective peak happened a couple of years ago, because it was the end of the easy, most versatile, most economically-produced stuff. As it takes more energy to get and refine the current stuff, we are in effect getting less even if we technically produce more.

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jkissing on October 17, 2007 - 4:34pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Also consider that all liquids includes a still growing volume of ethanol. Forgetting the very large energy inputs in producing this particular liquid, much akin to tar sands, it contains 1/3 less btu/gallon than gasoline or crude. If the ethanol component of all liquids were simply reduced by 1/3 of the ethanol contribution, we would see all liquids declining faster than recent charts indicate.

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tgstone on October 17, 2007 - 4:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I suspect more people would buy into the concept that demand is increasing faster than supply capacity and that excess capacity will soon be absent from the system as a result. Once this occurs, prices will rise until there is sufficient demand destruction to bring supply and demand back into balance.

The above can be successfully argued without requiring the listener to accept that oil production is peaking. It is sufficient to get this listener to accept that the rate of increase in supply capacity is slowing; a much easier argument to make regardless whether it understates the actual situation.

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