![]() | DrumBeat: October 31, 2007 | The Oil Drum | A Few Charts of the US Crude Oil Supply and Stocks Situation | ![]() |
32 comments on This Week in Petroleum 10-31-07
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
32 comments on This Week in Petroleum 10-31-07
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
Search The Oil Drum with Google
Support The Oil Drum
Recently on TOD:World
TOD:Campfire
TOD:Europe
- Peak Gold, Easier to Model than Peak Oil? - Part I
- Carbon Capture and Storage
- Oilwatch Monthly November 2009
TOD:Canada
- In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
- The Round-Up: October 24, 2008
- Compressed Air Energy Storage - How viable is it?
TOD:Australia/NZ
- International Energy Agency calls 'Peak' on OECD Oil Demand
- Australian Senate: Peak Oil motion defeated 31:6
- The Bullroarer - Friday 20th November 2009
TOD:Net Energy
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
- Casaubon's Book
- Cleantech Blog
- Clusterf
k Nation (Jim Kunstler) - The Cost of Energy
- David Strahan
- Early Warning
- The Energy Blog
- European Tribune
- GraphOilology
- Health After Oil
- jeffvail.net
- Mobjectivist
- Peak Energy (Australia)
- Peak Energy (USA)
- R-Squared
- Resource Insights
Finance & Economics Blogs
- The Big Picture
- Calculated Risk
- The Crash Course
- Ecological Economics
- Econbrowser
- Environmental Economics
- Infectious Greed
- The Mess That Greenspan Made
- Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Organizations
Peak Oil Primers
Beware email scams!
Beware email scams claiming to be from this site. We do not have any job openings. If anyone contacts you about a job at The Oil Drum, do not reply to them, and definitely do not give them any personal information or send them money. Read more here.
“Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.”
—H. G. Wells, 1904
User login
Contact
- Content: editors at theoildrum dot com
- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
Personnel
- Editors: Nate Hagens, Gail the Actuary, Prof. Goose
- DrumBeat Editor: Leanan
- Contributors: ace, Engineer-Poet, Heading Out, jeffvail, JoulesBurn, Sam Foucher, Robert Rapier
- TOD:Campfire: Glenn, Jason Bradford
- 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
- Emeritus: Stuart Staniford
- Technician: Super G
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.










GAIA Host Collective
At the beginning of this year, Robert, WestTexas and others were engaged in one of our ongoing debates about whether Saudi Arabia had peaked. I asked Robert and WT if they could supply a criteria which would definitely falsify their theories; in other words, was there a theoretical future set of events that would persuade them to believe they were wrong?
Robert was kind enough to give a very crisp response. He said if we saw inventories declining, prices increasing and no response from Saudi Arabia, that would falsify his theory. WT didn't give a direct response, but it was clear from his posts that if Saudi surpassed their old peak of 9.6 million barrels a day, he would be wrong. What actually transpired serves to illustrate how difficult it is to make good predictions about the future.
One thing Robert, WT, me, and probably most all of us thought back in January was that we would know the truth by the end of summer. We all thought summer driving season would push up demand and put the Saudis to the test.
What really happened was that inventories did start to decline in the spring, but most all of the decline was reflected in gasoline rather than crude. Thus, OPEC could plausibly point to adequate supply, but refining problems. By the time it became apparent that crude supplies might also be a problem, we had reached the end of summer and OPEC then announced a half million barrel increase to take effect in November.
The Saudi reaction has turned out to be too little and too late to stop the price run-up. It puts Robert's bet on $100 oil in jeopardy even though he hasn't yet been proven wrong on Saudi peaking. Furthermore, we are still looking to the future to see what they really produce as opposed to what they say, and neither Robert nor WT has yet had his theory definitively falsified.
amen and amen. well said.
You are correct regarding my position. Many regions, e.g., Texas & the Lower 48, have seen post-peak periods of flat production or even year over year increases in production, but what refutes a peak is a new peak. We would have to see an average annual crude oil production rate of 9.6 mbpd (C+C) or more for a given calendar year to refute the presumed 2005 peak.
As I noted in the comments section to Stuart's 8% decline rate post on Saudi Arabia, I anticipate that Saudi Arabia will at some point show a rebound in production following the initial decline.