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70 comments on Can Acts of God and Bush Explain the Plateau?

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WebHubbleTelescope on January 4, 2006 - 8:57am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Reservoirs and other emergency reserves can buffer the effects of shocks, serving to delay the effects by a bit. The analogies to an RC circuit with the reserve capacitance acting as a cushion should not be discounted, depending on how oil production gets tallied. I think overall that the capacitance effect here is insignificant in the long term but it may show up on short time scales.
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westexas on January 4, 2006 - 10:33am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The most immediate production decline was due to the hurricanes. The key point is that this shortfall could not be made up with existing production, and a coordinated release of emergency reserves was necessary to bring the price back down below $70 per barrel.  

The world, at about 50% of Qt, is precisely in the middle of the range between the Lower 48 peak, at 48%, and the North Sea peak, at 52%.  These two regions have shown irreversible declines post-peak.  

Hold on to your hat.  IMO, it's all downhill from here.  

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p on January 4, 2006 - 11:07am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
What would that say about decline rates, you'd say? Since the place of the peak in relation to the amount of Qt has to do with the (amount of) use of modern secondary recovery techniques, which make decline rates higher, if I recall properly..
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Stuart Staniford on January 4, 2006 - 11:32am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hubbert linearization tends to suggest that average decline rates will be quite modest (not to suggest that there might not be some pretty bad years in there, but on average, it projects a modest decline rate). See this post.
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Cherenkov on January 4, 2006 - 2:33pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Secondary and tertiary recovery methods in the North Sea have caused the rate of decline to increase far beyond what Hubbert envisioned. I would think that that much would be obvious to everyone. Applying the same decline rate we enjoyed to the rest of the world is a bit "head-in-the-sand" in my opinion. The rest of the world has enjoyed the benefits of enhanced recovery technology in order to maximize profits. The water cut in the Ghawar is immense now, and the profile it exhibits is much like Yemen's Yibal field which experienced a dramatic collapse in a very short period. While counting the hairs in the nostril of a charging grizzly may be interesting, it is not helpful.

Dr. Robert Hirsch spoke to Global Public Media and expresses his concern about the probability that we are beyond the 20 year threshold of expedited remediation and technology switchover. We simply do not have enough time to provide a smooth transition.

http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/615

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Stuart Staniford on January 4, 2006 - 10:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes, but the Hubbert linearization predicted North Sea decline rates would be very high, and it doesn't predict the same for the world.
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Dave Cohen on January 5, 2006 - 2:02am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Sure, but the reason for our conclusions is based on the fact that Hubbert Linearizations have been successfully applied to megafields (eg. Cantarell is toast) and not that "vague" other category in which the world gets a lot of its supply from a diverse set of smaller sources.

Looking into the future, it is the assumed successful and consistent production from these numerous but small sources (mbpd for eg. Chad, Mauritania, you name it) that makes everything work. When CERA or other optimists make their predictions, there is always this large category for new supply called "Other". I for one tend to worry about that with respect to the "world" peak for oil production and I'm sure you do too.

best,
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Stuart Staniford on January 5, 2006 - 2:14am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Well, the reason for my confidence that Hubbert linearization is useful is that it seems to have worked as a decent rough approximation for whole countries, big fields and small together. If it's only successes were individual fields, there'd be far less basis for trusting its extrapolations.
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Dave Cohen on January 5, 2006 - 2:51am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yeah, sure, I agree. I was only bringing up the issue of the smaller "other" category (countries) that some energy analysts use to tell us where more and more of our future production capacity will come from. The data in these cases is not transparent and so inadequate. I guess my point is that either
  1. this "other" category has little impact on world predictions (vis-a-vis Hubbert Linearizations)
  2. or it does have some impact in the short (but not longer) term
My view is in accord with your own but I wish I knew more about these other small countries which individually are marginal suppliers but added up all together are claimed to be a major source of new supply--at least according to some well-known consultants who shall remain nameless -;) Just looking at megaprojects and large declines in big oil provinces is only part of the story. I myself have held onto a bias that tends to ignore those hundreds of millions of barrels available in off-shore Mauritania. I haven't (and still don't think) they matter at all in the big picture. I think it's worth raising the issue in any case. By the way, in Bubba's post on non-OPEC production, it is apparently predicted by his proprietary source that we can see a rise in Ecuador's production. I'm so glad! We are saved!

best,
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Joao Carlos on January 5, 2006 - 8:30am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Well, I can give some information about one other small country, Brazil. We are going strongly for the ethanol and biodiesel and when I say we I am saying the consumers and the federal government and Petrobras SA.

Aparently Brazil's crude oil will peak around 2010. We are geting crude oil under hard conditions, our oil come is offshore and the new fields are under 1000 meters water, so the new fields will not give their oil cheaply or easily. When you need to use robots and not humans for make the under water work the exloration cousts will not get down.  My guess that the thecnology limit for offshore exploration can go to 3000 meters under water, but that will be not possible economically (the cousts will be prohibitive, the crude oil need go to US$ 1000 price before you can have profit exploiting oil under 2000 - 3000 meters under water.

So, CERA's predictions for Brazil are plainly wrong. My guess is that other CERA's predictions for the small countries are plainly wrong too.

However, ethanol and biodiesel will not save us. We can MAYBE produce enough ethanol from sugarcane to mantain our automobiles. I have no idea how much biodiesel we can produce, but we are trying use oil from native tree species that have a higher oil production than soyan beans. I am not sure if will work.

I fear that the ethanol and biodiesel prices will follow the crude oil's prices, so the biofuels will only make sure we have no shortages (I hope), but we will have a lot of economic pain.

Moreover, our electric power come mostrly from hidroeletrics power generators and not from termeletric generators. So, oil and gas prices will not affect too much the eletricity prices here at Brazil. But we will need build more hidroeletric generators and there are not enought rivers where we can build dams out the Amazon Basin. I think that can be a good idea we go strongly for eolic power, mostly because our semi-arid Nordeste is a good place to build wind turbines (and maybe some solar energy too, few rain there). I suspect that nuclear energy will be not a solution for Brazil, mostly because it is not wise substitute a finite non-renewable energy suply for other finite and non-renewable energy supply. We don't have too much money, so can be better we use the few money we have to build wind turbines than build expensive nuclear reactors. By the way, what we will do with the nuclear waste?

João Carlos

Sorry my bad english, my native language is portuguese.

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