Actually, reading Google's translation of Rembrandt's post, he seems to imply things could be even worse, given the impact on production from financial turmoil:

In the longer term, the economic downturn just before additional problems because there is less investment in oil production, far less than needed, according to the IEA. On this basis and looking to the oilfields in production in the next five years it is increasingly clear that oil production will peak around 2011/2012, and may depend on the behavior of OPEC earlier. The oil industry will be very hard to attract to the production after 2010 to legs, and in the current financial climate, this seems an impossible task. However, the agency in the WEO down the production with considerable investment will grow to 106.4 million barrels per day until 2030. This compared with a current production of 86 million barrels per day of total liquid fuels, and 74 million barrels per day of crude oil. The figure is a bloodletting in comparison with the previous report, where production amounted to 116.3 million barrels per day in 2030. According to the Financial Times it is possible that production in the final report even lower because this draft is a month old, and the latest insights on the financial crisis are not included.

I've been tallying Credit crunch impacts on production. Someone will read the roll call soon enough. This latest from Reuters is a doozy: FACTBOX-Financi al crisis hits global oil investment. Whole page of cancelled tar sands operations. And many say the credit unwind has just started!

...given the impact on production from financial turmoil:...

Hm, this is where I get a little confused. How does one distinguish "natural" (geological) decline from economically induced decline? It's probably hard to do, but it seems to me to be a distinction worth keeping (and making). I guess the most vivid example was the SU when an economically induced peak and decline preceded a later geological peak that is only occurring about now (do I have that right?)

Exactly this is what I thought of.

So the financial termoil is pulling back the curtain on ERoEI?

Right now there are many instances where obtaining credit is holding smaller companies back, which I'd say on the face of it operates independently of the geologic decline, or the current price of crude. Inability to obtain credit will impact supply, possibly eventually manifesting itself in a positive feedback loop; or the smaller companies and service outfits will find another avenue of doing business. Or the minor players will go under and be bought for fire sale prices - but will XOM want to tender a bunch of stripper wells?

How does one distinguish "natural" (geological) decline from economically induced decline?

There is no distinction. The economics have always been part of the picture. Less obvious, perhaps at high EROI and for the low hanging fruit - the easy oil.

cfm in Gray, ME