And more importantly, what other obscure technical reasons might be trotted out to explain away further increases above and beyond the projected declines?

Maybe it's not so obscure to those in the industry, but I find it amusing how people are wedded to certain ideas to the point of dismissing any alternative scenarios, and then something like this happens and all of a sudden there are new rabbits in the hat to explain away what has happened. Explanations that were previously not even on the radar screen.

www.spegcs.org/attachments/studygroups/11/SPEGCS_RSG_Matt%20Simmons_2-24...

This is a good early 2005 presentation by Matt, which describes the three primary drive mechanisms. He also talks about the Yibal case history and Ghawar.

As they say, the simplest explanation is often the best. And the simple explanation is that it is a virtual certainty that every oil field that has ever produced one mbpd or more of crude oil is now in decline.

Texas and the Lower 48 couldn't match their early Seventies peak production rates, because of the declines from the old large oil fields, and so far Saudi and world crude oil production numbers are showing the same pattern as Texas and the Lower 48.