The Oil Drum

Glad you like the chart. Says it all. The peak in LSC is a keystone of my rather infrequent peak oil rap - tying that in with the constant reports of refinery shutdowns we hear about. Would like to see an article charting the history of those, too.

Staniford contributed a small piece on LSC peak here, too, when he was still a guest contributor.

EROEI goes down, just because of the rising water cut and adding new smaller wells in higher to reach locations. Things that would add to the processing after production (higher sulphur, lower gravity) would reduce EROEI further.

The mix of oil types is moving to the ones that trade at a discount to the light, sweet types. Thus, the funds oil companies are receiving from the sale of oil will tend to lag indexes of a particular type of light, sweet oil (say WTI or Brent). The amount spent on processing goes up, so the cost to the consumer doesn't get much benefit of the price spread to lower grades.

Relative to average price of crude, the price of consumer pays probably goes up, because of lower EROEI.