The Oil Drum

Recently, Robert Esser of CERA testified before congress World Oil Production capacity to increase up to 25% by 2015; No peak seen for decades, US Congressional Committee told.

"A detailed new audit of our own analysis and the enormous scale of reserve upgrades in existing fields, confirmed by the most extensive and complete databases on field production - the proprietary databases of IHS, of which CERA is now part - contradicts those who believe that peak oil is imminent," Esser testified.

CERA was acquired by IHS Energy in September, 2004, so of course this amounts to CERA auditing itself. It seemed that the IHS Energy website might be a good source on the IHS/CERA point of view and this turns out to be a bit of a gold mine. Indeed, there are a number of presentations there that give us some insight into their thinking. There is a lot of material there to sort through. In order to narrow this story somewhat, a presentation entitled Global Oil Supply Issues: Recent Trends and Future Possibilities (pdf) seemed a good place to start--not least because it contains some slides on IHS Energy's position on peak oil. The presentation is by Ken Chew, IHS Energy VP for Industry Performance and Strategy. Let's see what Chew had to say about the peak oil issue.