Thread: We are at the peak in world oil production...

... there is only decline to follow. This is why the world markets are failing simultaneously. The only reason the game didn't end in 2008 was fiat currency.

It's not speculation, it's not price gauging, it's not the Saudis playing games, it's not liberal regulations. Those are short-term factors. ... The reason oil price is up some 600% in 10 years is basic supply and demand. Period.

Interview with Sadad al Husseini - “The Facts Are There”

Question (ASPO): Why do you think there is so much denial that world oil production is approaching or has reached a plateau?

Sadad al-Husseini (Referred to by the New York Times as “one of the most respected and accomplished oilmen in the world” and by the Wall Street Journal as “one of Saudi Arabia”s most powerful oilmen” many argue that his knowledge and expertise in the industry is unrivaled):

"There is a push-back to the notion that there is a plateau in world oil supplies which is largely based on lack of information or lack of research. In fact, if you look at published information—for example, British Petroleum’s annual statistical report—it very clearly shows that from 2003 forward, oil production has hardly increased. So the information is there. If you look at some of the advertising that Chevron has been putting out for years now, they clearly say we’re half-way through the world’s reserves. The information is there. The facts are there. Oil prices did not jump four-fold over a three- or four-year period for any reason other than a shortage of supply. Yes, there may have been some recent volatility in 2008, but the price trend started climbing way back in 2002-2003. So, these are realities and the push-back is a sense that somehow the market is not able to deal with these realities, that somehow people can’t cope with these realities."

On the other hand, if you don’t talk about them, you never will fix the situation. This is not going to get any better. This is going to get worse because you have population growth all over the world, you have a standard of living that is improving all over the world, you have aspirations across the globe for a better quality of life, and people want energy...

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZp-OxZuflE"]Video of interview[/ame]
scroll to 5:03

Once you get your head around the fact that peak is here, everything else that has happened in the geopolitical arena the past 20 years begins to make complete sense. Including 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, food prices, Arab Spring, tWoT, dollar vs. yen, and on and on and on and on)

From the Australian government's senate committee report:

http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committ...ns/sub0103.pdf

"The case is made that the global peaking of crude oil production has happened 2005-2008. This triggered the financial crisis in a banking sector which had a pre-condition of accumulated debt. The recession which was to be expected after peak oil has now damaged the economy, making it harder to respond to the evolving oil & energy crisis.

The root cause for the global financial crisis was and still is the untested assumption of perpetual economic growth, an almost religious belief that fueled investments to underpin such growth, the use of accumulating debt to finance it and the slowly dawning realization that such growth could not and cannot happen due to high oil prices and limited oil production."

It's not a conspiracy, and these men didn't all meet at some secret location in order to get rich .... It's the uniformed conclusion reached by international energy monitoring entities, intelligence branches, heads of state, major oil giants, university studies, government think tanks, our own Dept. of Energy, and most important: ... countless petroleum geologists and executives.



Just what is supposed to represent the "unidentified projects" wedge going forward? It's OK if you don't know; the question remains a mystery to the International Energy Agency too.

Ah well. ... enjoy:

Washington considers a decline of world oil production as of 2011
(LeMonde)

The DoE April 2009 round-table, untitled “Meeting the Growing Demand for Liquid (fuels)“, was semi-public. Yet it remained unnoticed and unjustly, as it put forward forecasts that are far more pessimistic than any analysis the DoE has ever delivered.

Page 8 of the presentation document of the round-table, a graph shows that the DoE is expecting a decline of the total of all known sources of liquid fuels supplies after 2011.

The graph labels as “unidentified” the additional supply projects needed to fill in a gap that is expected to grow after 2011 between rising demand and decline of known sources of supply that the DoE supposes will start that year. The declining production foreseen by the DoE concerns the total of existing sources of liquid fuels plus the new production projects that are supposed to come on-stream before 2012.

The DoE predicts that the decline of identified sources of supply will be steady and sharp : - 2 percent a year, from 87 million barrels per day (Mbpd) in 2011 to just 80 Mbpd in 2015. At that time, the world demand for oil and other liquid fuels should have climbed up to 90 Mbpd, according to the presentation document.

“Unidentified” additional liquid fuels projects would therefore have to fill in a 10 Mbpd gap between supplies and demand within less than 5 years. 10 Mbpd is almost the equivalent of the oil production of Saudi Arabia, world top producer with 10.8 Mbpd.

Pentagon’s Joint Operating Environment report: Surplus capacity gone by 2012
(Joint Chief’s pdf file)

To generate the energy required worldwide by the 2030s would require us to find an additional 1.4 MBD every year until then.

During the next twenty-five years, coal, oil, and natural gas will remain indispensable to meet energy requirements. The discovery rate for new petroleum and gas fields over the past two decades (with the possible exception of Brazil) provides little reason for optimism that future efforts will find major new fields.

At present, investment in oil production is only beginning to pick up, with the result that production could reach a prolonged plateau. By 2030, the world will require production of 118 MBD, but energy producers may only be producing 100 MBD unless there are major changes in current investment and
drilling capacity.

By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD.

US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015

(Guardian.co.uk)

The US military has warned that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact.

The energy crisis outlined in a Joint Operating Environment report from the US Joint Forces Command, comes as the price of petrol in Britain reaches record levels and the cost of crude is predicted to soon top $100 a barrel.

"By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day," says the report, which has a foreword by a senior commander, General James N Mattis.

It adds: "While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India."

The US military says its views cannot be taken as US government policy but admits they are meant to provide the Joint Forces with "an intellectual foundation upon which we will construct the concept to guide out future force developments."

International Energy Agency chief: ‘Era of Cheap Energy is Over’

The chief economist of the International Energy Agency said predicted Tuesday that the "era of cheap energy is over," with oil supply unlikely to keep up with demand.

… he predicted that demand from the major industrialized countries comprising the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has peaked.

"They are not anymore the drivers of oil demand, unlike in the past," he said.

Birol said he has "serious worries" about whether future supply can meet demand.

With investment down and production declining, even if global demand remains around 85 million barrels a day by 2030, about 45 million barrels a day worth of new oil would have to be found to compensate for falling output at existing fields, he said.

The Paris-based IEA is the energy watchdog for the major industrialized nations.

Governments Worried about Peak Oil
By Chris Nelde, Energy & Capital
Friday, April 16th, 2010

In the first part of this series, I reviewed a series of reports from March supporting the peak oil view, and warning that world oil production very well may go into terminal decline by 2015 or sooner.

The sources included the UK Industry Task Force on Peak Oil and Energy Security and officials within the British government; researchers within the College of Engineering and Petroleum at Kuwait University; researchers from Oxford University; and ConocoPhillips, the third-largest oil company in the U.S.

On March 25, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) joined the officially worried, with a report in French newspaper Le Monde titled "Washington considers a decline of world oil production as of 2011."

... The EIA has no idea how production could increase after 2012. In the absence of these "unidentified projects," they expect global oil supply to decline by about 2% per year - from 87 million barrels per day (mbpd) in 2011 to 80 mbpd by 2015 - while demand rises to 90 mbpd.

Within five years, then, there will be a 10 mbpd gap between supply and demand—roughly a Saudi Arabia's worth of production (currently 10.8 mbpd).

Virgin Group founder: oil crunch is coming within five years

(Guardian.co.uk)

Sir Richard Branson and fellow leading businessmen will warn ministers this week that the world is running out of oil and faces an oil crunch within five years.

The founder of the Virgin group, whose rail, airline and travel companies are sensitive to energy prices, will say that the (*)coming crisis could be even more serious than the credit crunch.

"The next five years will see us face another crunch – the oil crunch. This time, we do have the chance to prepare. The challenge is to use that time well," Branson will say.

"Our message to government and businesses is clear: act," he says in a foreword to a new report on the crisis. "Don't let the oil crunch catch us out in the way that the credit crunch did."

Other British executives who will support the warning include Ian Marchant, chief executive of Scottish and Southern Energygroup, and Brian Souter, chief executive of transport operator Stagecoach.

Their call for urgent government action comes amid a wider debate on the issue and follows allegations by insiders at the International Energy Agency that the organisation had deliberately underplayed the threat of so-called "peak oil" to avoid panic on the stock markets.

UK government chief scientist: World oil reserves 'exaggerated by one third'

(Telegraph.co.uk)

The world's oil reserves have been exaggerated by up to a third, according to Sir David King, the Government's former chief scientist, who has warned of shortages and price spikes within years.

The scientist and researchers from Oxford University argue that official figures are inflated because member countries of the oil cartel, OPEC, over-reported reserves in the 1980s when competing for global market share.

Their new research argues that estimates of conventional reserves should be downgraded from 1,150bn to 1,350bn barrels to between 850bn and 900bn barrels and claims that demand may outstrip supply as early as 2014. The researchers claim it is an open secret that OPEC is likely to have inflated its reserves, but that the International Energy Agency (IEA), BP, the Energy Information Administration and World Oil do not take this into account in their statistics.

Oxford report: World oil reserves at tipping point
by Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment

“The Status of Conventional Oil Reserves – Hype or Cause for Concern?” published in the journal Energy Policy concludes that the age of cheap oil has now ended as demand starts to outstrip supply as we head towards the middle of the decade. The report also suggests that the current oil reserve estimates should be downgraded from between 1150-1350 billion barrels to between 850-900 billion barrels, based on recent research.

Dr Oliver Inderwildi, Head of the Low Carbon Mobility centre at the Smith School, said:

“The common belief that alternative fuels such as biofuels could mitigate oil supply shortages and eventually replace fossil fuels is a pie in the sky. There is not sufficient land to cater for both food and fuel demand. Instead of relying on those silver bullet solutions, we have to make better use of the remaining resources by improving energy efficiency. Alternative such as a hydrogen economy and electric transportation are not mature and will only play a major role in the medium to long term.”

Nick Owen of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment added:

“Significant oil supply challenges will be compounded in the near future by rising demand and strengthening environmental policy. Mitigating the oil crunch without using lower grade resources such as tar sands is the key to maintaining energy stability and a low carbon future.”

The Smith School paper also highlights that in the past, political and financial objectives have led to misreporting of oil reserves, which has led to contradictory estimates of oil reserve data available in the public domain.

Sir David King, Founding Director of the Smith School, commented:

“We have to face up to a future of oil uncertainty much like the global economic uncertainty we have faced during the past two years. This challenge will have a longer term effect on our economies unless swift action is taken by governments and business. We all recognise that oil is a finite resource. We need to look at other low carbon alternative."

and of course:

“And, you know, interestingly enough, you're seeing the Saudis make significant investments both in their own country and outside of their country in clean energy, as well, because I think they recognize that we've got finite… we have a finite supply of oil.”

- U.S. President Barack Obama

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/wo...es-sights.html

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/40306

We also have oil sands and oil shales, which is more expensive to harvest, it isn't hugely more expensive.

In parallel:

We use less oil per capita becuase increased efficiency. Steel was replaced with aluminum, aluminum with plastic and carbon fiber.

With the ability to make graphene in large sheets, the weight / strength ratio keeps getting better, smaller (more aerodynamic) and lighter (less energy to accelerate and stop), cars and airplanes are on the horizon. Graphene allows storing energy in small, very high RPM flywheels, or high energy density capacitors. Graphene can reinforce engines and the drivetrain, allowing them to be much lighter

Technology is reducing the need for travel. High speed internet allows satellite offices and work at home. VoIP allows office extentions to be anywhere on the planet. Video conferencing replaces a lot of travel. Services like WebEx allows a global audience to watch the same slide show, and collaborate.

Google Earth and webcams allow visiting much of the planet without leaving your computer. But, resolution leaves much to be desired.

HDTV is moving from 1080P to 2160P, with 4320P demo'ed at the Consumer Electronic Show last Jan. TV's based on Organic LED's can have curved screens - 4320 on a curved screeen is effectively immersion.

Graphene's strength changes the face of space travel. Sheets sandwiched into a ribbon create a cable to geosynchronous orbit. It allows building a miles in diameter space station, rotated to provide artificial gravity. That rotation also is a flywheel providing the energy to fling space ships out, and capturing energy as we capture ships coming in.

Asteroids can be captured, and lowered to earth, counter balancing whatever is being brought out to orbit.

Will all this happen tomorrow - no. But, none of it requires major breakthroughs. It will happen faster than oil run out.

So those men are all alarmists? Or just moot because the technology you assert will be ready within 3-4 years?

The chart above includes shale and sands in the colored portion. They are no more than a sliver on the scale. I can pretend to show how there's a quadrillion barrels of oil behind the moon. Says nothing of how viable it is to bring to market and maintain growth. Nevermind that heavy, unconventional oils won't make diesel or jet fuel, and aren't really "oil" at all, but a synthetic.

http://www.postpeakliving.com/peak-oil-primer

As for oil from shale, it's good to remember that oil shale is a rock, technically called marlstone. If we are trying to get oil from rock, that should be a strong indicator that we are getting desperate. Shale has roughly the energy of a baked potato and the net energy available after one extracts the oil from shale is so low that, in my view, almost all the shale will stay in the ground forever. Despite shale being hyped for well over a century, no physical process yet invented can obtain the energy from the shale at a net energy profit. There are some small pockets of oil within the shale that seem to be worth getting, but it doesn't amount to much.

The tar sands are also low net energy sources of oil. Current production is only 1.5 million barrels/day (200 and because of the enormous quantity of water and natural gas used to clean and cook the sand, it is unlikely to go above 3 million barrels/day, according to the Canadian government. For a thorough examination of the tar sands, see Tar Sands: The Oil Junkie's Last Fix at The Oil Drum. (Just remember that tar sands are a mining operation, not a pumping operation. That's a world of difference because mining operations can't be ramped up quickly and take enormous amounts of capital.)

Technology is wondrous, but it's way way behind for this predicament, and the ramifications of peak are already upon us. They will get far worse long before thorium or "efficiency" can come to the rescue for our 89 million barrel per day appetite.

Conservation is the only way right now. And I have my doubts that the gluttonous West will ever willfully adapt before it's too late.

We have been hearing this for years yet every year there are new oil deposits found

The Air Force had experimented with making synthetic jet fuel using the enhanced Fischer-Tropsch process. They got to the pilot plant stage and acsertained that F-T JP-8 would be competitive with the same product made from $80/bbl oil.

F-T does also produce a lot of carbon dioxide. The current administration had the Air Force shut down the synfuel plants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

F-T usually uses coal as a feedstock. It is carbon-rich and usually fairly cheap and consistent. The F-T process can also use almost any carbonaceous feedstock. Old tires work well, as does dried sewage sludge.

Here is your synergy:

Location: South Texas about 50 miles inland from the gulf.

Trains bring in Texas sub-bituminous coal, tire crumbs, and dried sewage sludge. This mixture is fed to the Fischer-Tropsch plant which make it into gasoline, diesel or jet fuel. By-product are carbon dioxide and an ashy but still carbonaceous "char."

The carbon dioxide is conditioned and bubbled into seawater pumped in from the Gulf. The carbon dioxide rich water is also dosed with nutrients, and bioengineered algae, exposed to the sub-tropical sunlight and algae grows at an industrial rate.

The oil is pressed and dissolved out of the algae to make biodiesel. The oil-extracted algae still has sugars in it and can be fermented into alcohol to support the production of biodiesel. The remainder of the "mash" is still protein-rich and is fine farm animal feed. Farmers will clamor for the spent mash.

The F-T fuel liquids and the biodiesel (blended with F-T kerosene to defeat the gelling problem) is then shipped off by pipelines to markets.

The char is burned in a fluidized bed boiler to provide process heat and power to pump seawter and product. The by-product propyl triol is sold to cosmetics makers and the chemical industry.

Why has this never been done? Excessive regulation. It does look a lot like an oil refinery crossed with a power plant an getting a NSR permit in less than fifteen years would be mission: impossible. Also the pipelines would be blpcked by NIMBYs enviro-lawyers and gullible jidges.

ptif is right.

The end of oil has been predicted ever since Col. Drake's day.

Conservation is OK, but more government regulation and taxation is simply unacceptable.

A better approach is to get government out of the way of development of alternatives.

Originally Posted by Jiggs Casey

So those men are all alarmists? Or just moot because the technology you assert will be ready within 3-4 years?

Of course they are alarmist. No one get notice if they say everything is going to be OK.

Originally Posted by Jiggs Casey

As for oil from shale, it's good to remember that oil shale is a rock, technically called marlstone. If we are trying to get oil from rock, that should be a strong indicator that we are getting desperate. Shale has roughly the energy of a baked potato and the net energy available after one extracts the oil from shale is so low that, in my view, almost all the shale will stay in the ground forever. Despite shale being hyped for well over a century, no physical process yet invented can obtain the energy from the shale at a net energy profit. There are some small pockets of oil within the shale that seem to be worth getting, but it doesn't amount to much.

Thats is odd, I was in Rifle CO in the early 80's, when shale oil was the future. Maybe the concerns with peak oil back then were unfounded.

Originally Posted by Jiggs Casey

Technology is wondrous, but it's way way behind for this predicament, and the ramifications of peak are already upon us. They will get far worse long before thorium or "efficiency" can come to the rescue for our 89 million barrel per day appetite.

What is the answer, bio-fuel? When does that make a dent in the oil consumption?

Originally Posted by Jiggs Casey

Conservation is the only way right now. And I have my doubts that the gluttonous West will ever willfully adapt before it's too late.

Technology will, and has, made a far bigger impact than conservation.