WebHubbleTelescope, a long time TOD poster, has been one of the most active in the blogosphere in the area of oil production modeling. He has advocated a more physically based approach instead of a heuristic curve fitting approach such as the Hubbert Linearization. He proposed an original method, the so called Shock Model, that has a clear physical interpretation and that is making use of both the production profile and the discovery data. I think that a review of the Shock Model is long overdue.

I also propose three modifications or extensions:

1. Originally, the instantaneous extraction rate function E(t) has to be provided by the user. I propose a method to estimate E(t) directly from the observed production profile.
2. Reserve growth is modeled as a fourth convolution function based on an empirical parabolic cumulative growth functions (this will be detailed in part II).
3. A new way to project future extraction rate (in part II).

In summary, the shock model is a simple and intuitive model that is making use of both the production profile and the discovery curve. In this essay, the method is applied on the world conventional crude oil production (crude oil + condensate) and the ASPO backdated discovery data. Interestingly, the derived Reserve to Production ratio (R/P) seems to match the values obtained when using the proven reserve numbers (BP) once corrected for Middle-East spurious reserve revisions (in 1985, 1988 and 1990). In addition, R/P values are presently at a record low levels and below what have been observed during the previous oil shocks.

The code in R language is provided at the end of this post.