The future of oil supply

[Ralph]

In order not to cause panis I've managed to locate the unedited graph that was posted above



So you see there is lots more oil than you think and everything will be allright.

Really it will

Holy Cow! How many peak oils can any particular area have? This is amazing! Someone needs to tell Colin and Co.

[SleeperService]

Holy Cow! How many peak oils can any particular area have? This is amazing! Someone needs to tell Colin and Co.

The 'saddle' was caused as noted above by the Piper Alpha disaster which, yo put it mildly, caused a bit of inconvenience in the UK. Once repairs were complete and production resumed there was a modest increase in production for a while before the decline resumed.

Note BTW Ralph that this is a properly presented graph, scales down to zero allowing the overall trend to be shown, unlike many of yours which magnify (and so distort) tiny fluctuations that are contained in the error range.

No matter how you cut it the decline is MUCH steeper than the increase in production because, as every accountant, economist and business man knows production is always a skewed distribution about the Peak.

[Ralph]

Holy Cow! How many peak oils can any particular area have? This is amazing! Someone needs to tell Colin and Co.

The 'saddle' was caused as noted above by the Piper Alpha disaster which, yo put it mildly, caused a bit of inconvenience in the UK. Once repairs were complete and production resumed there was a modest increase in production for a while before the decline resumed.

I know this. And note that it is just one of the possible explanations why using stylized assumptions of buildup and decline is fraught with danger.

Some know better. TOD is not in that group, obviously.

No matter how you cut it the decline is MUCH steeper than the increase in production because, as every accountant, economist and business man knows production is always a skewed distribution about the Peak.

I assume then that you are not an accountant, economist nor business man, because the actual profiles of oil field decline are most positively skewed.

The multiple peaks of North Dakota oil production for example, the first two being positively skewed…and I have just learned that accountants business men and economists think these are backwards.



Some of us are not economists, business men or accountants, so we know better.

[Ralph]

Mexican oil production. Someone needs to teach those accountants, economists, and business men some oil stuff. Look at all those Mexican peak oils as well…it does beg the question about how many peak oils can any particular aggregation suffer?

[Ralph]

How about a giant field like the Spraberry? Man…not only is that positively skewed, but who invented all that new oil!

[Ralph]

Prudhoe Bay?

[Ralph]

Texas? Does this look like something Jeff Brown would be pimping back in the TOD days,or what?



Obviously it didn't work out as Jeff had previously pimped, right?

[emordnilap]

This should gladden the heart of trolls everywhere. Thank you Tom Ward for brightening my day. I've not had such a belly laugh in ages.

In 2017 we get a new president, a new Congress, and an energy boom. I can't wait!

All those chubby Murcan cheeks of his must be trembling with excitement.

[SleeperService]

Ralph

Read what I wrote NOT what you want to rant on about.

I said production is always skewed NOT positively skewed. I may come from a tiny country but;

I know English

I don't get bogged down in minutiae when an overview is what matters

I note that many of the increases in production are concurrent. Could this be due to a new technique being adopted he asked innocently? After all these new techniques are meant to increase production from tired wells aren't they?

[Ralph]

Ralph

Read what I wrote NOT what you want to rant on about.

I said production is always skewed NOT positively skewed. I may come from a tiny country but;

I know English

I don't get bogged down in minutiae when an overview is what matters

Okay, so the amateurs know that oil production is skewed….so apparently it is the professional peakers who have screwed the pooch on this particular exercise?

But what is happening exactly with peak oil and why so much fuss about it? The problem may be simply that the idea had too much success. Let's go back to 1998, when Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere raised up again a problem that had been first noticed by Marion King Hubbert, in 1956. Oil depletion, Campbell and Laherrere surmised, will be gradual: production will go through a symmetric “bell shaped” curve that will show a peak when, approximately, half of the available resources will have been used up. According to this study, the peak, that Campbell later dubbed “peak oil,” would have occurred around 2005.

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013- ... le-concept

Funny thing, that Ugo says that Colin and Laherrere don't even know as much as businessmen, economists and accountants.

I think your generalized assumption of who knows what is substantially flawed.

I note that many of the increases in production are concurrent. Could this be due to a new technique being adopted he asked innocently? After all these new techniques are meant to increase production from tired wells aren't they?

There are many reasons why old declining areas have increased production. There are many reasons why they might be concurrent, but certainly many are not. But the interesting takeaway from all of these increases post peak, or creating new peaks, is that when those who predict all decline, all the time, do not make allowance for such things.

TOD, when making their 2008 peak oil call, made no allowance for new technology changing the game. Higher prices changing the game. The potential for economic GTL production to begin changing the game, the availability of high quality light oil from source rocks, the ability of the Saudi's to maintain output, the profitability to manufacturing liquid fuels from dirt and corn, the potential for old provinces to increase oil production faster than at any time in their history, and so on and so forth.

Quite a large blind spot it would appear. Amazing how obvious things can be so easily ignored when one is firmly gripped by zealotry.

[RenewableCandy]

There are many reasons why old declining areas have increased production.

Fundamentally there is only one (1): desperation.

[Ralph]

There are many reasons why old declining areas have increased production.

Fundamentally there is only one (1): desperation.

The US hasn't increased its oil production faster at any time in its history because of desperation. It has done so because of price.

Desperation better describes the time when the TRRC lifted production limits to show the world what Texas could do…and then couldn't do.

It just took them a while longer than they thought. A doubling since the 80's, and it hasn't stopped yet. Matter of fact, more rigs are even moving that way. I wonder what Hubbert would have said about how to design a bell shaped curve that…isn't? Would the zealotry have changed at all?