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42 comments on The Beginning of the End of Oil?

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Halfin on August 20, 2005 - 11:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
I agree that al-Husseini came off as the most credible. Simmons sounds a bit loony and the official Saudi line is worthless. But the bottom line from al-Husseini is that trouble is about 10 years away. Sounds like we should be okay at least through 2010 or so, hitting the 12.5 mbpd level. But by 2015 when they try to get up to 15 mbpd, he sees real problems. And beyond that, to 18 or 20 mbpd by 2020 and later, he sees as impossible.

That's a credible story but I'm not sure how acceptable it will be to the PO true believers. And for skeptics, it's a lot easier to imagine new technologies coming into play by 2015 or 2020 than if the peak happens next year (or even sooner!) like we hear from the hard core faithful.

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Stuart Staniford on August 21, 2005 - 5:28am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I could believe Saudi Arabia could get to 12.5mbpd by 2010.  However, even if so, that scenario seems very unlikely to be business-as-usual for the world economy.  I could also believe that al-Husseini is over-optimistic (very few producers to date have accurately predicted their own depletion), or is breaking the truth to us in stages.  Heading Out has discussed the issues in detail here

http://theoildrum.blogspot.com/2005/08/more-on-saudi-fields-and-rigs.html

and here

http://theoildrum.blogspot.com/2005/08/updating-saudi-oil-production-plans.html

To me, the largest question is this.  Given that the big fields are drilled with horizontal MRC wells into the oil layer, why wouldn't we expect the current depletion rate on the existing production to accelerate rather than stay the same?

Stuart.

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Prolific Researcher on August 21, 2005 - 5:51am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Halfin,

Your right, al-Husseini does come off as the most credible person in the article.  However, even if the Saudi's do increase their production to 12.5 million barrels a day by 2009.  That is only an annual increase of 500,000 barrels.  

When we compare this new data, to the EIA numbers that state NON-OPEC production is declining 500,000 barrels per year.  We can see clearly that the increase in Saudi production, will be off set mostly, if not completely by the NON-OPEC decline.

I think these two figures say that we are entering a period where total production will plateau for the next five years, and when the Saudi's do begin to decline in 2009 - 2015 we will start the descent down the other side of the bell curve.  

I do not claim to know the Magic number at which we reach maximum production.  Perhaps, we are at peak now and 85 million barrels is it.  Or perhaps high oil prices, will cause a mad rush for oil and for a couple of years we will reach 90 million barrels.  Either way, I would say it is safe to predict that we are reaching "the end of spare capacity" and on the same token "the end of cheap oil", which is dependent on 2 to 5 million barrels of extra production capacity.

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Halfin on August 21, 2005 - 11:18am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I'm not sure where you're getting your figures. The projections I have seen forecast non-OPEC production to continue to increase through the 2010 time frame. The EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook from August 9, 2005, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/3tab.html , shows non-OPEC production forecast to increase about 2 mbpd from 2004 to 2006.
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Donal on August 21, 2005 - 4:37pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I would say that the author presents al-Husseini as the most credible viewpoint - not as immediately threatening as Simmons, but not dismissive like Naimi or Yergin.  

Naimi is obviously a mouthpiece; I give him zero points for credibility.  I can think of reasons to doubt Simmons, he admits that he is interpolating from limited data, but I don't think he is intentionally skewing that data, or loony.  al-Husseini may be in a position to know that we have a little more time before the world peak, but this is the first time I've heard of him, so I'm hesitant to place his opinion above Simmons based on one article.  

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