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NY Times

The high price of oil, hovering around $70 a barrel, has brought a nearly dormant Mississippi petroleum industry roaring to life. Wells abandoned long ago by the major oil companies are being reopened by independent operators. Requests for new drilling permits have spiked. Trainees for oil-field work can make nearly $14 an hour. Companies wait 12 months to rent the kind of field equipment that was once sold for scrap.

Five years ago there were some 20 functioning oil wells inside the city limits of Laurel; now there are 83.

I don't think we're quite home and dry yet. There has been a similar spike in applications for North Sea drilling permits and this probably is the kind of desperate scramble i'd expect just-past-post-peak.

All the excitement in Texas in the early seventies with their domestic peak and the first oil shock didn't achieve much... However looking at the most recent megaproject work would suggest healthy supply to the end of the decade. These forecasts carry significant uncertainly regarding inherent decline rates, geopolitical disturbance and even impacts of weather. The risk is on the down side not the up side.

Perhaps more significant is that in 2005 oil consumption fell in USA, Canada and a few other significant like Italy, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, Iceland and India without recession.

clv101 wrote:All the excitement in Texas in the early seventies with their domestic peak and the first oil shock didn't achieve much

You are right - they still could not prevent the inevitable decline - however at least they have acheived a very low decline rate for 36 years (under 1.5% ....although the US may turn out with hindsight to be a unique case depending on who you believe)

clv101 wrote: Perhaps more significant is that in 2005 oil consumption fell in USA, Canada and a few other significant like Italy, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, Iceland and India without recession.

How significant is that? For Sweden, for example, the statistics indicate a decline in the amount of oil uses since the early 70s. The statistics indicate that Sweden now uses about half of its early 70s consumption.