Peak Oil Update - November 2006: Production Forecasts and EIA Oil Production Numbers

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An update on the last production numbers from the EIA along with different oil production forecasts.




Fig 1.- World oil production (EIA Monthly) and various forecasts (2000-2020). Click to Enlarge.

New forecasts added:

  • The shock model (Crude oil + NGL, 2004)
  • The GBM model (Crude oil + NGL, 2006)
  • Deffeyes (Crude oil + condensate, 2004)
  • Jean Lahèrrere (All liquids, 2006)
  • Forecasts from CERA (All liquids, 2006)

EIA Last Update (August)

Data sources for the production numbers:

  • Production data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2006 (Crude oil + NGL).
  • EIA data (monthly and annual productions up to July 2006) for crude oil and lease condensate (noted CO) on which I added the NGPL production (noted CO+NGL).

The All liquids peak is now August 2006 at 85.10 mbpd, the year to date average values (8 months) are down from 2005 for all the categories. The peak dates are unchanged for Crude Oil + Cond., NGPL and Crude Oil + NGL.

CategoryAug 2006Aug 200512 MA12006 (8 Months)2005 (8 Months)SharePeak DatePeak Value
All Liquids 85.10 83.90 84.32 84.30 84.37100.00%2006-08 85.10
Crude Oil + NGL 81.55 80.60 81.16 81.20 81.25 95.83%2005-05 81.87
Other Liquids 3.55 3.30 3.16 3.10 3.11 4.17%2006-08 3.55
NGPL 7.88 7.36 7.69 7.78 7.76 9.26%2005-02 8.04
Crude Oil + Condensate 73.67 73.24 73.47 73.42 73.50 86.58%2005-12 74.06

Table I - Production estimate (in millions of barrels per day (mbpd)) for August 2006 taken from the EIA website (International Petroleum Monthly). 1Moving Average on the last 12 months.





Fig 2.- World oil production (Crude oil + NGL) and various forecasts (1940-2050). The light gray box gives the particular area where the Figures below are zooming in. Click to Enlarge.


Business as Usual


  • EIA's International Energy Outlook 2006, reference case (Table E4).
  • IEA total liquid demand forecast for 2006 and 2007 (Table1.xls).
  • A simple demographic model based on the observation that the oil produced per capita has been roughly constant for the last 26 years around 4.4496 barrels/capita/year (Crude Oil + NGL). The world population forecast employed is the UN 2004 Revision Population Database (medium variant).
  • CERA forecasts for conventional oil (Crude Oil + Condensate?) and all liquids, believed to be productive capacities (i.e. actual production + spare capacity). The numbers have been derived from Figure 1 in Dave's response to CERA.




Fig 3.- Production forecasts assuming no visible peak. Click to Enlarge.

PeakOilers: Bottom-Up Analysis

  • Chris Skrebowski's megaprojects database (see discussion here).
  • The ASPO forecast from the last newsletter (#71): I took the production numbers for 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2050 and then interpolated the data (spline) for the missing years. I added the previous forecast issued one year and two years ago (newsletter #58 and #46 repectively). There was no revision since August 2006.
  • Rembrandt H. E. M. Koppelaar (Oil Supply Analysis 2006 - 2007): "Between 2006 and 2010 nearly 25 mbpd of new production is expected to come on-stream leading to a production (all liquids) level of 93-94 mbpd (91 mbpd for CO+NGL) in 2010 with the incorporation of a decline rate of 4% over present day production".
  • Koppelaar Oil Production Outlook 2005-2040 - Foundation Peak Oil Netherlands (November 2005 Edition).
  • The WOCAP model from Samsam Bakhtiari (2003). The forecast is for crude oil plus NGL.




Fig 4.- Forecasts by PeakOilers based on bottom-up methodologies. Click to Enlarge.

PeakOilers: Curve Fitting

The following results are based on a linear or non-linear fit of a parametric curve (most often a Logistic curve) directly on the observed production profile:



Fig 5.- Forecasts by PeakOilers using curve fitting methodologies. Click to Enlarge.

Production Growth





Fig 6.- Year-on-Year production growth. Click to Enlarge.

Forecast2005200620102015Peak DatePeak Value
All Liquids
Observed (All Liquids) 84.41 84.30NANA2006-08 85.10
Koppelaar (2005) 84.06 85.78 89.21 87.982011 89.58
EIA (IEO, 2006) 82.70 84.50 91.60 98.302030118.00
CERA1 (2006) 87.77 89.52 97.24104.542035130.00
Lahèrrere (2006) 83.59 84.82 88.93 92.272018 92.99
Lahèrrere (2005) 83.59 84.47 86.96 87.772014 87.84
Crude oil + NGL
Observed (EIA) 81.29 81.20NANA2005-05 81.87
ASPO-71 80.00 81.90 90.00 85.002010 90.00
ASPO-58 81.00 82.03 85.00 79.182010 85.00
ASPO-45 81.00 80.95 80.00 73.772005 81.00
Koppelaar (2006) 81.76 82.31 91.00NA2010 91.00
Bakhtiari (2003) 80.24 80.89 77.64 69.512006 80.89
Skrebowski (2006) 80.90 81.42 87.32NA2010 87.92
Staniford (High) 77.45 77.92 79.01 78.512011-10 79.08
Staniford (Med) 75.81 75.94 75.52 73.002007-05 75.98
Staniford (Low) 70.46 70.13 67.92 63.402002-07 70.88
Loglets 81.12 82.14 84.65 83.262012-01 84.80
GBM (2003) 76.06 76.27 75.30 67.792007-05 76.34
Shock Model (2006) 80.76 80.43 78.27 73.742003 81.17
Constant barrels/capita 78.81 79.73 83.42 88.012050110.64
Crude oil + lease condensate
Observed (EIA) 73.55 73.42NANA2005-12 74.06
CERA1 (2006) 76.49 76.89 82.29 83.832038 97.58
ASPO-71 73.10 74.45 78.00 72.002010 78.00
ASPO-58 73.00 73.80 76.00 69.502010 76.00
ASPO-58 72.80 72.56 71.00 63.552005 72.80
Deffeyes (2004) 69.81 69.81 68.90 65.882005-12 69.82

Table II. Summary of all the forecasts (figures are in mbpd) as well as the last EIA estimates.1Productive capacities.

Next update in December.

Previous Update:

October 2006
September 2006