Rainsong said and linked source to...
"OPEC oil supply up about 3 million barrels since 2005.
World oil supply grew in 2008 compared to 2007.
http://omrpublic.iea.org/

Ohhhh, what you just said! :-O!

I said something similiar the other day, asking where the big "crash" in production was that is claimed to be causing such a massive and fast runup in oil prices, and was pretty much put in my place for it.

Just as no one on the cornucopian side wants to admit that there are limits to how much oil can be produced, almost no one on the peak side can admit that oil production to this point is still growing.

Right now, the cornucopians, the financial community and the peak oil community all have one thing in common: They are all driven much more by what they want to happen than by what is actually happening.

How many people here on TOD, upon reading what the quote from rainsong said immediately thought, "that can't be right, world oil production is declining, isn't it? Didn't we peak in 2005 or so? No one here has talked about INCREASED PRODUCTION!"

RC

Oil production may have increased but I would imagine that excess production capacity has almost certainly decreased. (don't have time to reference it) Pricing is always done at the margin and it is becasue of production capacity reductions that the oil price has been run up by the traders. Production from exisitng wells can increase but you can only turn the taps on to 100% and after that you need to build another tap. The number of new wells coming on line doen't inspire long term confidence and that is what the marketwill need to see before the price comes down.

You can't argue with the reality of the price increase and something has spooked the market enough to keep it there. Whether it turns out to be real or just imagined future shortages will be proven in time. The trend is for flattening production and discovery so I think prudence is the order of the day.