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99 comments on Can A 'Shadow OPEC' of 'Global Guerrillas' Set Global Oil Prices?

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westexas on June 18, 2008 - 11:04am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

Peaks happen, even in politically stable areas, where private companies developed the oil fields, using the best available technology, with virtually no restrictions on drilling

Based on the logistic HL model, Mexico started declining at about the same stage of production at which the North Sea started declining. The ongoing slide in production and net exports from Venezuela preceded Chavez coming to power, although Chavez certainly has not helped matters. The US invasion of Iraq has certainly not helped matters there, and Nigeria certainly has problems with guerrilla activity.

However, peaks happen, even in the best of circumstances, and the peaks occur because we tend to find the big fields first, and we then can't fully offset the declines from the older, larger oil fields. If Ghawar is in decline, which I believe it is, every oil field in the world which has ever produced one mbpd or more of crude oil is presently in decline.

If we use ExxonMobil's upper end estimate for the decline rate from existing wells worldwide (-6%/year), which is the midpoint for many estimates, the world needs, from 2005 to 2017, about 37 mbpd of new crude oil production--just to maintain flat production.

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jeffvail on June 18, 2008 - 11:25am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Geological peaking happens without regard to geopolitical issues, but I think the relevance of this Shadow-OPEC concept is twofold:

1) geological peaking transforms what would be a negative geopolitical feedback-loop into a positive feedback-loop (if they could, producers would just produce elsewhere when geopolitical troubles pop up); and

2) these geopolitical feedback-loops have the potential to dramatically accelerate geologically-driven declines.

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hugho on June 18, 2008 - 11:39am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Jeff, this comment by John Robb seems a recapitulation of comments you have made in the past vis a vis your construct of RHISOME. I would hope you could amplify your comments on John's work, you know Jeff: contrast and compare....

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jeffvail on June 18, 2008 - 11:50am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Probably more accurate to say that John Robb's writings have been a significant influence in my formulation of rhizome. I would contrast "rhizome" as a theory of organization with Robb's "Global Guerrillas" concept as a geopolitical phenomenon that involves some of the same organizational principles at its core.

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SwordsOfDamocles on June 18, 2008 - 1:02pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Jeff,

I am a huge fan of your rhizome networks idea, I think trying to do build wind, solar and geothermal is ridiculous if we are not planning to end the growth paradigm. Do you have a link to any of your papers explaining what sufficient negative feedbacks you would need in place to keep it resorting to increasing hierarchy?

Thanks,
Crews

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jeffvail on June 18, 2008 - 1:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The link above (here) probably has most of my writing on buffering these positive feedback-loops, though I haven't done a good job of framing the issue that way--something I plan to work on. I think one key is the development of localized/individualized self-sufficiency (at least in key areas), but I've certainly drawn a lot of criticism with that argument (particularly the placing the situs of self-sufficiency at the individual/family level instead of the community/national level). I stand by the theory, though.

Interestingly, John Robb has also addressed buffering these positive feedback-loops. See his posts on his concept of Resilient Community. Robb places the situs of self-sufficiency at the community level, and adds some interesting notions of platform engineering, distributed manufacturing, etc.

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davebygolly on June 18, 2008 - 3:24pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

2) these geopolitical feedback-loops have the potential to dramatically accelerate geologically-driven declines.

I agree, but not about just or precisely THESE geo-political feedback loops. War is part of a geopolitical feedback loop, and this is certainly going to directly hasten decline and the effects of decline.

Our only hope as a species is to get ahead of the decline, i.e. decrease our consumption of non-renewables ahead of decline rates. War and the threat of war is the chief impediment to any such program.

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99 comments on Can A 'Shadow OPEC' of 'Global Guerrillas' Set Global Oil Prices?

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