Oil Production: Will the Peak Hold?

[Aurora]

Oh! And did you see that the oil price is dropping again, it's back to $99.50. I won't bother with that extra bit of insulation then.

[Vortex]

I think RGR only comes on here to wind people up.

He seems honest enough ... but rather fed up with the Mad Max doomers!

RGR is probably right ... we WILL find a bit more oil in strange unexpected corners and through unusual methods.

Sadly I think that Reality will also hit hard.

We already have oil at $100 / bbl ... forget PO, Reserve Growth, the price of fish ... whatever the cause, this high oil price is HURTING economies.

Even if RGR is 110% correct, he does seem rather too relaxed about what's happening out there.

Something is pushing up the price of oil, and even if it's fixable by say building more refineries or tapping the Orinoco gloop, we STILL face a decade or so of 'The Canyon' where energy prices will go through the ceiling.

We have some possibly VERY difficult years ahead.

[emordnilap]

Is RGR a he?

[clv101]

RGR is probably right ... we WILL find a bit more oil in strange unexpected corners and through unusual methods.

Of course, no one sensible thinks we won't. The early peakers are expecting another Saudi Arabia's worth to be found in the coming decades.

[Adam1]

There is a tendency amongst some peak oil bloggers, like RGR (?), to argue strongly about a specific point - whether some oil executive would have used EROEI as the basis of an investment, whether Colin Campbell got the right year for conventional peak, etc - and lose sight of the bigger picture.

It doesn't matter whether executives and entrepreneurs consciously consider EROEI when making business investment/strategic decisions. The EROEI that a society can achieve though its energy/food harvesting activities is still, in my view, the fundamental parameter that determines how complex that society can be.

Likewise, whether Colin Campbell's estimate of a 2005 peak is made "incorrect" because we reach a new conventional peak this year, or in 2010, is of secondary importance to the observable fact that fossil fuels do peak then decline and that the chances of a distant peak in fossil fuels are looking very remote.

I don't see the point of putting all that emotional and intellectual energy into arguing about facts that are of secondary importance. (I'd never do that of course )

[RenewableCandy]

Erm...the 'Bargaining' stage, perhaps ?

[RGR]

[RGR]

Much like Campbell and his yearly estimates of when peak oil will occur, crying wolf only works for so long.

Where is Campbell wrong? He forecast peak regular conventional oil production as being mid 2005 and, three years on, he was right.

[RGR]

I think RGR only comes on here to wind people up.

[RGR]

Even if RGR is 110% correct, he does seem rather too relaxed about what's happening out there.

[Erik]

Hirsch has been calling for an energy crisis since the early 90's. Much like Campbell and his yearly estimates of when peak oil will occur, crying wolf only works for so long.

... until people presume that there never was a wolf and lose interest?

I certainly hope not. There is a wolf....and its related to how we humans treat our home. But the end of the world is more likely to happen with an asteroid strike then it is by running out of oil.

Well there's not a great deal we can do about big asteroid strikes or supervolcanoes and the like, so it's not something that's really worthwhile losing sleep over. But there is a lot we could do about mitigating the effects of oil depletion, and we should be doing these things right NOW, regardless of when the peak actually occurs. That's why we're all here in this forum surely?

[chris25]

There is no point in denying in PO RGR it is inevitable.

China has 1 billion people
and 1 billion in India very shortly (within next 15 years) getting cars

We have depleting oil fields, many which have crossed peak already, so every day their extraction rate falls. While there have been little decent discoveries to replace rate falls.

I bet a child knows that when demand outstrips supply up goes the price of something.

When oil starts sitting just below $100 compared to $30 in 2005 then you might want to think again.

Peak oil will not hit us over the night, there will be no SHTF. It will be a gradual process in the destruction of modern life. It will be like no commet, super-volcano etc etc, it may even be quite a boring transition.

[emordnilap]

Much like Campbell and his yearly estimates of when peak oil will occur, crying wolf only works for so long.

Where is Campbell wrong? He forecast peak regular conventional oil production as being mid 2005 and, three years on, he was right.

I think he has at least 3 predictions prior to 2005,

but we all make judgements based upon currently available data, some of which may be wrong and besides, he only had to be right once, after all, which he was.

and his current one with ASPO is somewhere in 2010?

That's peak all liquids, as opposed to what he calls 'regular conventional'. Again, in the light of new information, he may change that. It doesn't make him wrong.

II am a specialist in drilling for, completing, producing, evaluating, and researching oil and gas.

In a world dominated by a shortage of oil and gas and high prices...do you really think I have much to worry about?

I think the Brits have a saying for that.

[Catweazle]

Why all these arguments, oil is a finite resource and it will run out. All we need to predict is when, and what difference does 10, 20 even 50 years make ?

[Vortex]

RGR does make a valid point ... it's probably a good idea to be working in the energy industry rather than simply being a consumer ...

When times get tough some people will be better off than others.

Foundry worker, van driver ... or oil prospector ... which would YOU rather be in say 15 years time?