<Hawaii: Peak Oil Canary in a Coal Mine The Oil Drum DrumBeat: June 23, 2008>

131 comments on Saudi Arabia Announces They Will Produce More Oil

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westexas on June 22, 2008 - 11:56am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

I thought it was interesting that the King reportedly put current production at 9.0 mbpd. In any case, my comments on the Drumbeat thread are linked below, with an excerpt shown:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4199#comment-366091

Last year, in March, one of the objection to the Saudi HL plot was that the observed production decline was sharper than what the HL model predicted. I responded that I therefore expected to see a production increase.

This year, one of the objections to the Saudi HL plot is that we are seeing increasing production. I have responded that I expect to see a resumption of the production decline, probably in 2009.

We can say that it is quite likely that Saudi Arabia will have shown three straight years of annual production below their 2005 rate, at about the same stage of depletion at which the prior swing producer, Texas, peaked.

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Energy Maven on June 22, 2008 - 2:19pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Could be crude only(not total liquids).

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westexas on June 22, 2008 - 3:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I'm sure it is, but many media reports were claiming current crude production of 9.45 mbpd, and the EIA showed 9.2 mbpd for the first three months of the year.

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bigald1 on June 22, 2008 - 3:48pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Exactly. As others have pointed out, the Saudi's less than a month ago announced a production increase of 300K barrels to 9.5M. It seems that no matter how often the Saudis claim to increase production, the amount being produced never seems to actually top 9.5M barrels.

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Starship Trooper on June 22, 2008 - 6:41pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Here's my latest graphic of mothly KSA production through April 2008 (note that their first peak occurred in November 1980);

The HL for KSA from annual data looks as follows (the 2005 arrow shifted a little in converting from Excel to jpg):

and on a monthly basis:

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Joe Average on June 22, 2008 - 7:57pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Funny looking Hubbert Curve. Are you sure the final shape won't be a slowly-declining plateau to a cliff?

That is, just keep burning 'til it runs out?

Regards, Matt B

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Starship Trooper on June 23, 2008 - 2:45am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Would not be the first time there would be a cliff. But if the trend continues, then the pronouncements of the Kingdom are fairly meaningless. AND to flatten the curve requires considerable growth of not "capacity" (the US has a "capacity" of 20 million barrels per day, it's just unable to pump that much from the existing "capacity"), but real production making the cliff even more probable.

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BobCousins on June 23, 2008 - 3:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Matt, it's not the normal Hubbert curve but a "linearization" of a Hubbert curve. It's a mathematical technique to estimate the total oil reserve from the oil production so far.

Maybe an HL expert can explain further.

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Joe Average on June 23, 2008 - 7:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Thanks, Bob. I get a little overwhelmed by all these charts; and for that matter, the nitty gritty. No doubt I should be seeking more mainstream answers to my simple "What The?" questions (though many of you do dumb it down for me; thanks!), but of course easy answers are hard to find.

Regards, Matt B

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131 comments on Saudi Arabia Announces They Will Produce More Oil

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