IMO, you are correct about the wisdom of oil producers electing to defer production (much more common onshore than offshore of course), partly because it is hard to find quality production.

Oil reserves are valued on a Net Present Value (NPV) basis. You estimate the annual production, throw in the operating costs and a price projection and then discount the stream of income to present value using some kind of discount rate (most commonly 10%, but it depends on whether you are buying or selling).

With low current interest rates and the expectation for rising oil prices, IMO it makes sense to develop a field and fast as possible and then to produce at less than the Maximum Efficient Rate. In many reservoirs, this will also result in somewhat higher recovery factors.

At Matt Simmons' predicted price of $200, in constant 2005 dollars, each incremental 10 bpd of production would generate a gross cash flow, before operating costs, to the working interest owners and royalty owners of about $15 million over a 20 year period. The big factor is operating costs.

The Lower 48 fields I'm talking about will produce several hundred thousand to several million barrels, and take years to decades to fully deplete--and meet world crude demand for a time period measured in minutes and hours.

But what about competition? Surely, there will be some between exporters.

My working guesstimate is that total world net oil exports will have dropped by at least 75% from 2005 to 2031. It's really more of a competition between importers for declining oil exports. As noted above, IMO, the bidding will get more aggressive as forced energy conservation moves up the food chain.

what about competition? Surely, there will be some between exporters.

The important thing is to maximise profit - there will be competition, but that does not mean that they will produce more oil in the short term (or, more especially, enough oil to permit BAU economic growth) - profit means minimising cost/risk and maximising income. Profit is overridingly important to a producer, not the customer's/world's actual total needs.

The more efficiently a producer extracts oil the greater the depletion rate, the less time to make a profit - oil will be more expensive/difficult to extract in the future which is what causes global peak oil, since as prices rise (in order to make a profit) demand falls - as opposed to an individual oil well which peaks due to geological reasons.

Post peak we are in a new paradigm since, sadly, there appears to be no adequate alternative to oil for the forseeable future - on average expect constant declines in volume but constant increases in price - the lower the world total volume the higher the profit if you have an existing well. If the supernormal profits attract 'windfall' taxes there is a definite disincentive to produce.

Peak oil is bonanza time for producers but disaster time for consumers - the poorest consumers suffer the most - are people with the largest debts the richest or the poorest?

The economic theory, politics and energy sources used to run our 'exponential growth' world will have to be rethought I suspect.

xeroid said: "The important thing is to maximise profit - there will be competition, but that does not mean that they will produce more oil in the short term (or, more especially, enough oil to permit BAU economic growth) - profit means minimising cost/risk and maximising income. Profit is overridingly important to a producer, not the customer's/world's actual total needs."

This is oligopolistic behavior.

Yes -it is

This is oligopolistic behavior.

It is how the world in general works, but especially the world of oil - a very large percent of exported oil comes from OPEC (a known price setting cartel) or from nationalised oil companies working to a domestic political agenda.

Most people try and get the maximum pay for the minimum amount of effort, if it costs more to go to work than you get in pay there is no profit so you don't do it - it is normal human behavior.

Shareholders of any large company pay the company directors to maximise and grow profits - things like paying interest on savings and pensions depend on this.