EIA insisting on plateau
Posted by Stuart Staniford on August 3, 2006 - 12:14pm
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: peak oil, plateau [list all tags]
If we average the two data sources in an attempt to determine the peak month:
Right now, May 2005 is the winner, but December 2005 and April 2006 are statistical ties. Minor revisions and changes to methodology could very easily change which is exactly the winner (indeed it was December 2005 for a while). But anyway, the oil industry doesn't seem to quite be able to tip it past the 85mbpd mark (on a combined agency basis) for the time being.
Finally, some folks expressed interest in just looking at crude plus condensate (ie real honest-to-God oil, rather than including natural gas liquids, biofuels, CTL, etc, etc). The EIA tracks that in Table 1.1, and here is the plateau in that:
As you can see, the basic plateau shape is just the same.
See here, for more background on these plateau posts if you haven't been following them.
The US has grow quite vibrantly since 2003. However we are not consuming as much petroleum as we were last year. This is unusual for the US. Although, gasoline consumption has grown, it's just that consumption of other products has diminished.
Another way of saying this, is that the US is getting less of the market share of oil production. I expect this trend to continue (other nations may adjust their currency in order to make it continue). When global oil production tilts downward, then the US will be getting a declining share of a declining resource. A double whammy that will undoubtedly make a lot of people angry.
If you are using GDP growth for the basis of the above quote, the discrepancy you note could be due inflation is not being adequately accounted for in the governments GDP numbers. If increasing GDP is primarily due to inflation instead of increasing national output the decreasing or flat petroleum usage makes sense.
Gasp are you saying the US goverment may be hiding real inflation numbers from the public while the Feds continue to raise rates ?
And a lot of companies still have not passed down high fuel costs yet once they have to it will be a perfect storm.
When I consider inflation and GDP numbers I see in my mind a bunch of gov't guys telling me "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth."
Alternatively, if you want the truth, assume the opposite of what most government officials are telling us.
Right now our collective response seems like an ostrich responding to Chicken Little with its head in the sand:
"Ain't no sky falling down here!"
Have you seen the cover story from todays "USA Today"?:
What's the real federal deficit?
Rob Portman, director of the Office of Management and Budget, presents "The Mid-Year Budget Review" at the National Press Club on July 11. Due to increased tax receipts, the Bush administration says it's goal of cutting the federal deficit in half by 2009 is a year ahead of schedule. But deficit numbers vary depending on who's counting.
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY
The federal government keeps two sets of books.
The set the government promotes to the public has a healthier bottom line: a $318 billion deficit in 2005.
The set the government doesn't talk about is the audited financial statement produced by the government's accountants following standard accounting rules. It reports a more ominous financial picture: a $760 billion deficit for 2005. If Social Security and Medicare were included -- as the board that sets accounting rules is considering -- the federal deficit would have been $3.5 trillion.
Congress has written its own accounting rules -- which would be illegal for a corporation to use because they ignore important costs such as the growing expense of retirement benefits for civil servants and military personnel.
Last year, the audited statement produced by the accountants said the government ran a deficit equal to $6,700 for every American household. The number given to the public put the deficit at $2,800 per household.
Read more about it here.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-08-02-deficit-usat_x.htm
Looks like those bogus government numbers are starting to get a bit more scrutiny.
Grow up.
People who look at unemployment generally double the gov't figures.
The same kind of tricks are used for exports, and all kinds of things. It's a HUGE shell game and this is fairly mainstream knowledge. You have to pretend it's all legit to get a job in the US media, and you have to sound like you accept it all at face value to get various "selling" jobs where you're convincing people to give you your life savings to throw away in the stock market, but most people know much about our economy is hallucinated.
Take "Productivity" for instance. Amazing things are called "productivity" including, or should I say especially, exporting US jobs.
And here's where Kunstler is dead right, the current "booming" economy is based on the real estate bubble. Building sprawl. Building statues! More statues! Bigger statues! Jobs for all! Making the stone tools and the people who get that red rock for the top of the head, and the people who keep the grass trimmed around the statues, etc. You get the idea. A huge proportion of US jobs depend on those McMansions, and even more jobs, like nail salons and the Olive Garden, depend on people feeling "spendy" because their McMansion appreciated this year. And car sales are very much driven by "home" sales, look at all the ads on TV for trucks, showing someone loading lumber because they're gonna get some work done on the house, yep.
The gov't's job, almost, is to keep the people from freaking out, and try to make the coming Depression more of a slide than a crash. Like in The Matrix, can't break the illusion too abrubtly (sp?), it could be fatal.
The problem is clinical not factual.
I always considered them smart.
Try "shadow government statistics" in google and see what pops us. You need to quit drinking the kool aid mate.
The monthly NFP stats are hugely skewed by the CES Net Birth/Death Model:
http://www.bls.gov/web/cesbd.htm
While I think that such a model is probably reasonable and necessary it is based on GDP estimates...
Which are probably overstated by about 3% since these are based on the 'GDP deflator' - a measure of inflation - which seriously understates 'real' inflation and inflation as measured 20 years ago.
Had you noticed that the US GDP estimates for the last few years have been revised downwards by a pretty uniform 0.5% because some basic assumptions have been somewhat incorrect? The news was about a week ago, I don't have a link but might be able to find some.
Have you properly read John Williams 'shadow government statistics' stuff? the arguments are quite compelling, here are links:
http://www.shadowstats.com/cgi-bin/sgs
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/williams_j/main.html
If there are any aspects in the above you find questionable and want substantiating data and links ask and I will see what I can do.
(I have an extant response to you on climate change in the works but incomplete, might manage to finish tonight but Sunday is more likely)
I sincerely regret not continuing this debate with you but after 20 yrs of listening to too many nuts i just have run out of patience. Absolutely no reflection on yourself. Take care.
I'm no novice at statistics, though no expert at the esoteric mathematical nuances of statistical theory. That the BLS and other govt / official stats producers have changed the basis of calculating several important economic measures over the last 20 years is very evident - and they admit it.
There are some valid logical arguments for the changes made but they seem to be more dictated by govt 'self interest' to me. The currently 'preferred' US measures of unemployment, inflation, GDP are significantly different from the way they were calculated 20 years ago and the way European countries calculate them. On the 'old US' or 'European' basis the numbers would probably be about: 8% unemployment, +1% GDP for Q1+Q2 2006 together annualised (+0.0% Q2 alone), +5.5% CPI.
Replied on rapid climate change:
http://www.theoildrum.com/comments/2006/7/28/19350/1306/169#169
My favorite, though, is Bob's Furniture, or as I call them, Bob's Chinese Furniture. Are they nationwide? I'm thinking so... But they are the low price leaders with their "no-name" brands. The latest adds on the TV are saying "buy now, before the prices go up due to higher energy costs".
I've set aside a flyer from my local grocery chain and put a date on it. It may be quite interesting to compare it with a current one in a few months. Try it, amaze your friends...
Higher energy prices will indeed tend to push up furniture prices, of course, but barring some economic catastrophe, they're likely overplaying it by a fair amount.
Tracking that actual food prices is a much more useful exercise, in my opinion, as it's real data, not advertising claims.
My wife usually does the shopping so I had stayed a bit insulated. But shopping at Walmart the other day, it was very clear that there has been a significant "up tick." (I seem to recall paying about $5 per four-pack of shaving blades a year or so ago -- now it's $9!)
Must be all of them doomers stocking up on essential shaving supplies. ;-)
We now know for a fact that Cantrell is going to tank over the second half of this year and next year. Ghawar is very very suspicious with just Cantrell going its enough to send us into terminal decline much less other factors.
Can any one take the mega projects stuff and add in only Cantrell decline at various rates that should be enough to send us over the edge.
Where is the miracle ? I think its time to start focusing on decline rates not peak.
Algeria: 400 kpd
Iraq: 500 kpd
Kuwait: 230 kpd
Nigeria: 1.1 mpd
Saudi Arabia: 1.5 mpd
Venezuela: 1.5 mpd
Angola: 470 kpd
Argentina: 100 kpd
Aruba: 122 kpd
Brazil: 150 kpd
Canada: 2.1 mpd
Chad: 100 kpd
Columbia: 200 kpd
Ecuador: 300 kpd
Gabon: 125 kpd
Mexico: 1.6 mpd
Netherlands: 150 kpd
Norway: 230 kpd
Russia: 400 kpd
Trinidad: 100 kpd
UK: 400 kpd
Virgin Islands: 300 kpd
The major importers are Canada, Venezuela, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria, all more than 1 mpd for a total of about 8 mpd or 66% of our imports.
Canada relies far too much on oil sands which are not sustainable given that they constantly need so much NG and that will turn out to be a major problem in the Americas if not the greatest problem. Much less in the future; less than 1 mpd(?).
Venezuela has pledged to stop selling us oil if we attack Iran which seems very likely. Even without an Iranian invasion, they are still attempting to move their markets to Chindia for political reasons. Zero oil in the future.
Nigeria will continue to suffer from major disruptions due to MEND and other groups of the sort. Only expect it to get much much worse as prices rise and the population becomes even poorer and much more desperate. Lucky if we get anything for a significant amount of time after 2010.
Saudi Arabia is a time bomb. If Ghawar, Abqaiq and Safaniya don't go under within the next decade naturally, then they will artificially as the region either explodes in war or SA is overrun by millions of unemployed youths. 0 barrels per day.
Mexico...Cantarell. None.
Those 8 mpd turns into just over 1, maybe 2 mpd, thus a loss of 6 mpd, at least. The other 4 mpd are from almost all from very poor African, Middle Eastern, Asian or American nations that aren't too fond of the US especially when PO hits. Maybe half a million barrels per day. So that gives the US 2.5 mpd. We have 7.5 mpd now and are suffering from 2% depletion. The depletion rate will climb much higher as Gulf oil peaks in 2010-2012. But even at 2%, the US will be down to 6.1 mpd in 10 short years, a decline of 1.4 mpd. In 10 years, the US may only have access to ~8.6 mpd of oil when demand is more than 24 mpd (guessing in the dark)...When's the next boat ride out of here?
Very gloomy mathematics. Makes me feel pretty unconfortable here in Europe as well. Russia doesn't seem to me very reliable in the long and as well medium run.
Middle East - Similar problem to Russia but add in India for a three-way. Couple that with increasing numbers of religious nuts who want big bombs. I'll pass again
Venezuela - Close enough to the US, and small enough not to put up much of a fight, that if we enter a world where TSHTF, Venezuela is likely to be annexed. PS the Canadians will probably be an equally attractive 51st or 52nd state.
Personally, I'm thinking the US is still in the top 3 places to be next to Australia and Canada. We do have coal reserves to buy a little more time and are on the lower half of the population density list. Plus, If/when the US goes imperial on the world, I'd much rather be a citizen of Rome, than a corpse in one of the tribute states.
Besides Don, why would you want to leave Colorado? You are sitting on the biggest well kept oil secret in the world.
Why not some place like Tahiti? Once the honeymoon industry goes away, it would be quiet, and maybe I could become a member of a cargo cult.
When you post numbers like xxx mpd, are you saying mbpd? (million barrels per day). or are you trying to say,
xxx thousand (what ever) per day)?
Kpd= thousand(s) barrels per day
I thought this was pretty common? I've only seen the 'b' placed in their if it is less than 1,000 (bpd).
So far it is not anything like PO.com. We try to minimize ad hominem attacks, pointless diversions like pop culture and polarizing fights about religion, sex, and politics. The average IQ of TOD posters is at least 20 points higher than the present masses at PO.com. The very small resident population of trolls and pathologically narcissistic personalities is actively discouraged and thankfully not growing. In short, this is a much better neighbourhood. Very glad to see your thoughful analysis showing up here.
I would gladly read Freddy or Sailorman anytime. Others may disagree with these two, but there are still more who find them entertaining. I'd rather drink bleach than have to sit through another un-capitalized sentence of yours. Especially one without a period!
This was simply vicious. Cease and desist. Or, as the UN says,"there will be dire consequences."
Oh. And thanks for the laugh. This was actually one of the funniest posts I've seen all day. Can't tell you why yet. I may never. But the reason will be apparent soon enough.
Do I smell some jealousy, Oil CEO?
Just because you are jealous not to be included?
(just kidding oily - you guys should put your penis back in and zip uop - if you didn't attach your ego to your alias you would be offended and bicker less often).
I feel pretty stupid for not having found it before... and discussing in the past that it probably didn't exist. I apologize to those who were misled by me.
Note how Crude seems to be the real driver of the plateau.
Also interesting is the smaller impact the September 2005 Hurricanes have on Crude production.
The lower blue lines are crude + condensate only. I subtracted out tar-sands as well.
The second graph just displays 13-month centered averages so you can see the divergence over the last ten years. I also raised the blue line by a uniform amount along the whole series to emphasize divergence.
Why did you substract the tar sands?
What are you calling "Non-Conventional Oil"? It appears to be about 4 mb/d, where does that come from.
How much of this is included in the EIA's Crude + Condensate.
I was under the impression, and still am, that crude oil is crude oil, regardless of its source. When crude oil peaks then that will be the peak, or perhaps more correctly, was the peak.
I believe if you can distill it into gasoline, diesel, and other refinery products then it should be counted. If it comes out of a corn field or must be contained in a pressurized bottle then it is not oil and should not be counted. But breaking it up into deep water oil and tar sands oil just adds unnecessary confusion to the mix.
All crude oil is crude oil and everything else is something else.
"All crude oil is crude oil and everything else is something else." Hahaha, that's what I though, too. What's condensate, then? Of course, I know now. As Axl Rose once said,"Welcome to the jungle."
Thanks for pointing that out. I have to revisit that issue when I update this and look at the tar-sands factor which Darwinian brought up. Probably this weekend. I'll run some analysis on the numbers themselves so we can filter-out visual influence.
Where were you guys when I posted these the first time?
It was actually Freddy, I believe, who remarked on the trendlines the first time around.
I will email my excel spreadsheets to anyone who wants them. I've spent a lot of time on getting the data into a shape that can be worked with. I'm all about open source. I just don't always have the time (or the ideas) necessary to work this stuff the way it needs to be.
In my opinion, the reason that we can compare various regions to each other using Hubbert Linearization (HL) is that we consistently find the big fields first. Once the big fields roll over and decline, trying to reverse the decline is like trying hold back an avalanche.
http://www.grinzo.com/energy/blog_entry_archive/2006/08/2006x08x03_2.html
I do it cuz i need an accurate base year(s) for projections of the Depletion Scenarios. We continually go back three years and six quarters and three months upon the biannual revisions. But GIGO prevails if one relaxes...
Of course we do have the problems in Nigeria and Iraq but there has never been a period in history where there was no political problems causing some shutdown in the world. What we have now is probably far less than what one would normally expect. And anyway, it is unlikely that the situation in either Iraq or Nigeria will get any better any way soon. Did you catch the general talking to Congress today? It is likely that we will have an all out civil war in Iraq. And we already have an all out Civil war in Nigeria.
Basically it is currently corresponding to our theory that we are at or very near peak.
In previous plateau's we knew there was enough oil to be extracted in the fullness of time. That is not at all clear today.
be the result of the much more rapid decile of Cantarell and the reductions in production in SA, probably as a result of water problems in Ghawar. Time will tell on SA but I for one do not believe they would be reducing production, in the face of the present markets, voluntarily. it completely goes against the " Yamani" mentality which has guided their policy on production for the last 35 years. These two declines could be offsetting the deep water gains that are supposed to be driving us to 90 by 2010. Of course we also need to discuss whether GTL can really ramp up as fast as indicated as well.
I think the deep water gains and other alternative resources like oil sands etc are only maybe enough to offset depletion excluding the mega fields. I don't see how we can handle Cantrell much less decline in Ghawar or any of the other big fields.
Again its time to assume were pretty much maxed out worldwide and start working on decline rates. Best case the max is 86mbd
where just quibbling over the details now what the real peak is. From now on out lest see if there is a consensus on decline rates I see numbers all over the map from reputable sources. And I haven't seen any real refutation of the super straw theory. Sure your recovery may go up to some extent which causes a delay but I see serious cliffs in production from advanced methods that seem to cause serious decline rate once they set in. Since were basically at peak now advanced recovery will keep the plateau for a while but I still see a cliff.
When you have field decline rates of 8-15% and a few of the big ones going down wiping out new production gains its hard to see why we won't see and overall decline rates of at least 5-8% and that seems to be generous.
What I see is a initial slow decline till Cantrell is toast say 2008 Ghawar has to be having problems at this point then a cliff till demand destruction ( a lot of dead people )
gets us back to a smaller decline rate of say 3-5% a year.
Say about 2010. At this point I think we will see demand destruction ( steady population decreases ) match decline rates.
So the big demand destruction ( I love that word ) seems to be about 2010 2011.
Looks like Bush started working on demand destruction a bit early but thats probably a result of a twist of fate that American elections come at the wrong time I bet he is miffed.
There is no way that shale oil will make anything other than a negiable contribution to supply.
This chart shows price and supply on a time scale. I adjusted the scales to bring the curves into alignment and as you can see they are beginning to diverge significantly (again, I know this isn't high math).
From trough to peak (1970 to 1980): nominal oil prices went up by about 1,000%.
From 1972 to 1982, number of producing wells increased by 14%.
From 1972 to 1982, production fell by about 30%.
Based on the HL method, Saudi Arabia, in 2005, was at (as a percentage of Qt) where Texas was at, in 1972. We are seeing the same kind of price/production divergence now with Saudi Arabia.
Production Data: http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/divisions/og/statistics/production/ogisopwc.html
A. As supply growth slows, the price will increase until demand destruction restores the balance.
B. In the face of slowing supply growth due to a global production plateau, the cost (to the consumer) of adding additional capacity will grow exponentially until market forces make it impossible to grow further.
They both say the same thing, but in two slightly different ways that reflect differently on the nature of the problem.
When oil production starts to fall my guess would be that prices will continue to rise - at that point your dots will head for the top left corner of the price - supply chart. I wonder if there are not signs of that already in the data?
So, yes, there the elephants may be peaking, and yes that may result in some near term leveling off in global production over the next few years. But a true geological peak in a Hubbertian sense is not here now or in the near term. What we are seeing is a lot of military fog interfereing with petroleum production and the start of some countries (like Russia and Kuwait, according to recent news noted here by Leannan) hoarding their production.
Bottom line in my view:
+ the oil supply world is tight mainly due to military issues.
+ a geological "Peak" is still years off
+ the visibility of a global Hubbertian Peak sometime within then next decade is spawning a trend toward hoarding that is exacertabing the supply shortage
+ for all these reasons, prices will probably continue to trend higher UNLESS PEACE BREAKS OUT.
+ all this massaging of production data is interesting but only an academic exercise. To the extent it is taken to indicate a Hubbertian Peak it is misunderstood.
"But a true geological peak in a Hubbertian sense is not here now or in the near term."
CERA:
"Rather than a 'peak,' we should expect an 'undulating plateau' perhaps three or four decades from now."
Mr. Robert Esser
Senior Consultant and Director, Global Oil and Gas Resources
Cambridge Energy Research Associates
EXXONMOBIL:
"Contrary to the theory, oil production shows no signs of a peak... Oil is a finite resource, but because it is so incredibly large, a peak will not occur this year, next year, or for decades to come."
ExxonMobil Advertisement in New York Times, June 2, 2006
OPEC:
We in Opec do not subscribe to the peak-oil theory.
Acting Secretary General of Opec, Mohammed Barkindo
July 11, 2006
www.mg.co.za
Brown/Khebab:
"In summary, based on the HL method and based on our historical models, we believe that Saudi Arabia and the world are now on the verge of irreversible declines in conventional oil production."
May 25, 2006
http://www.energybulletin.net/16459.html
As well, all your positive quotes are speaking of "all liquids" whereas your negative comment is based on conventional data.
I don't think anyone in this forum disagrees that a conventional peak occured between 2004 & 2006. Please don't mix apples and oranges.
I would have preferred to use just crude + condensate for the world plot, but the only data base that Khebab had handy was the BP data base.
BTW, in regard to the accuracy of the method, post-1970 cumulative Lower 48 production was 99% of what the HL method predicted, using only production data through 1970 to generate the predicted post-1970 cumulative production.
Depletion rate(t)= K*Q(t)/URR
so the logistic-based depletion rate is not a constant and is in fact dynamic.
http://www.angelfire.com/planet/peakypie/
I still laugh every time I go to that thing. Excellent work.
Perhaps u can decipher where the differences have their basis:
Those who followed Stuart's linearise this sereis of a few weeks back, and Daves follow up post may recall that no conclusion was reached but certain key observations were made:
EOR - the effect of EOR (horizontal wells) seems to be to skew the Hubbert Peak so that peak is reached after 50% of the way throgh URR, but this is followed by more rapid decline. So decline rates are slower to start with because you produce dry oil for longer but then the decline rate accelerates as the water hits the whole productive interval of your well all at once.
HL - the geologists among the TOD contributors recognise that HL only works in a dynamic equilibrium situation of "business as usual". I guess the HL addicts believe that the World is so big that nothing man can do will alter this dynamic but that simply isn't true. The little kick up in the last 3 years of JL's World all liquids chart is caused by the oil industry going out a drilling till they drop, basically doing everything they can to maintain and increase production - but in the absence of new discoveries this does not impact URR. DuncanK has now posted several times what I consider a key HL for Yibal (he has posted this again further down this page). This shows a dog leg in the HL caused by man intervening and drilling lots of horizontal wells followed by a production crash. The key observation here was that drilling the horizontal wells did not alter the URR. The kick up in JL's chart pointing at URR of 3000 may be followed by a turn down that will point at 2250.
ME OPEC - if you look at the HLs for KSA, Kuwait and Iran, they all show this flattening as shown above, and these countries are probably the main contributors to flattening on JL's chart.
MEGA PROJECTS - in a small post below this thread (but posted several hours before it) I point out that Skrebowski has 3.4 mbd new production pencilled in for 2006. This for me is the real world, many of these projects in the Caspian Sea etc are tangible and major amounts of new oil comming to market. The key to understadning if peak has been reached or not is finding out how much of this new oil is already on the market (included in Stuart's figures) and how much is in the pipeline. As indicated below the only two fields I know about are Buzzard (not on yet) and Chinguetti (came on earlier this year). If 7/12ths of 3.4 mbd is already on then you know that capacity erosion is running at same pace as new capacity - we are on a plateau that will shortly turn down. If less than 7/12ths is on and there is a huge chunk of new production bearing down on the market then expect production to rise above 85 mbd later this year. If more than 7/12ths is already on then capacity erosion is running well ahead of new capacity then expect production to turn sharply lower - and run for the hills.
Dave has posted the link to Skrebowski's latest review http://sydneypeakoil.com/downloads/PR_APR06_Megaprojects.pdf - if anyone knows the status of the 28 new field developments pencilled for 2006 then please say so. For example is Thunderhorse up and running - that's 250,000 bpd new production - it makes a big difference whether or not that oil is already on the market. Given the platform's problems last year I would be amazed if it were up and running.
The list is as follows:
AOR - E delta (Nigeria)
Asab upgarding (Abu Dhabi)
Bu Hasa (Abu Dhabi)
Darkovin phase 2 (Iran)
Dolphin, Al Khalij (Qatar)
EA (Nigeria)
Erha (Nigeria)
Ghawar Haradha (KSA)
In Amenas (Algeria)
NEB Ph1 (Abu Dhabi)
South Pars (Iran?)
ACG ph2 (Azerbaijan)
Albacora Leste (Brazil)
Atlantic (USA)
Benguela- Belize (Angola)
Buzzard (UK)
Cachalote (Brazil)
Chinguetti (Mauritania)
Dalia (Angola)
Enfield (Australia)
Foster Creek (Canada, tar?)
Golfinho (Brazil)
Jubarte (Brazil)
Surmont (Canada, tar by sagd)
Syncrude (Canda, tar by mining)
Tengiz/Kololev (Kazahkstan)
Thunder Horse (USA)
Upper Salym (Russia?)
In total 3.4 mmbd - is this bearing down on the market or not? The majority are operated by western companies so it shoud be fairly straight forward to find out what is going on. I'm away this weekend but will research this and post next week. But if anyone has first hand knowledge of any of these projects please post info.
THIS IS THE REAL WORLD
Neo Wolf
Frantic drilling over the past 3 years:
- HAS increased production
- HAS NOT - made any major new discoveries
- HAS NOT - made any significant change to recovery factor
Therefore, activity of last 3 years HAS NOT increased URR. This is a perfect illustration of the caution required in using HL . I think it is a great technique but needs to be interpretted with reference to the real world.All that is happening is companies are getting at the remaing oil faster. In other words the industry is running up a gentle slope and is about to fall off the cliff at the top.
Neo Wolf
PS energy used to get at this last oil is increasing all the time.
This does not logically follow. URR can be increased in an existing field, without a new discovery. URR is a function of both what is in the ground and what portion of that is economically feasible to recover. As price rises, URR should increase.
IMO, the only reasonable plot of this data set is the middle case, which derives about the same Qt that Khebab and Stuart came up with. Are there fluctuations above and below the "glideslope?" Yes. Whether one use crude + condensate or total liquids, the HL plots show that the world is right at about 50% of conventional URR, and recent EIA data show that world oil production is trending down.
I first become of aware of the HL technique when I read Deffeyes' second book. I did some research and came up with the pre-1935 Texas production data and then generated a HL plot of Texas production. I believe that Stuart's first essay on Hubbert Linearization (the one where I think he coined the term) used my Texas HL plot as an example. In any case, this exercise convinced me of the accuracy of the method. BTW, my HL estimate and Khebab's estimate of Texas Qt's were within 5% of each other.
It is becoming increasingly aware to me that, despite your loud protests about the certainty of your conclusions, you have simply not done your homework. Which is fine, we still (so far) have some degree of freedom of speech.
I do take exception to your continued personal attacks on gentlemen like Deffeyes and Simmons. You continue to refer to Deffeyes' many failed predictions. As I have pointed out before, Deffeyes has been very consistent regarding his mathematical models--that the peak was between 2004 and 2008, most likely around the end of 2005. In 2003, he made an observation that he may have been wrong, and that the peak was in 2000. An observation made after the fact cannot be construed to be a prediction.
Below is a post you made on 7/31/06, in which you refer to Deffeyes and Simmons as "Sleazebags both." I have met both of these two gentlemen. I have reviewed their work in considerable detail, and in my opinion you have libeled both of them. Do you wish to retract your statement?
Freddy:
[new] Freddy Hutter on Monday July 31, 2006 at 1:50 AM EST
Apparently u and greyzone know about as much about the pope's pre-omipotent days as y'all do about deffeyes seven predictions and all his backpeddalling. They guy is on the book ciruit and looks only for notoriety. Simmons $200 public bet for $5k is of the same ilk. Sleazebags both. And we see the have any easy time attracting koolaid drinkers here at TOD.