This chart explains why the US is irrationally exuberant about self-sufficient oil production

21 Comments on "This chart explains why the US is irrationally exuberant about self-sufficient oil production"

Arthur on Fri, 7th Dec 2012 3:56 pm 



If the US really has 6.13 mbd in 2040 from domestic production, than there is time for an energy transition of sorts after all. No Olduvai Cliff any time soon, probably never. Solar on every roof and a large windturbine near every small town should be feasible by 2040, if not 2030.

Arthur on Fri, 7th Dec 2012 4:13 pm 



And then this… look at the graph for domestic gas production than you know that the US has rather favorable conditions for the coming two decades. And talking about the very near future… there are clear signs that the economy in both Europe and the US is picking up again. The Deutsche Bank released a study recently suggesting that Greece could pay a large part of it’s debt with the recently found oil and gas:

http://tinyurl.com/c673foq

I think that for a year or two we will have some economic breathing space.

rollin on Fri, 7th Dec 2012 5:58 pm 



As long as oil prices stay high, the oil companies will make a tidy profit on tight oil even with the need to drill huge amounts of wells to keep up the flow. As long as we are willing to throw away an area the size of Pennsylvania just to keep burning oil, peak oil will be delayes a bit longer.
The scarier part is the increase in offshore production, only the Atlantic and/or Arctic will be able to provide that.
Not that I actually believe this graph, I don’t. Just drilling that many successful wells in 4 or 5 years seems far fetched.

The other part of this graph that is hard to swallow is the almost stable production of other onshore wells. What is keeping up the flow?

BS on Fri, 7th Dec 2012 5:58 pm 



Amazing!!!

Notice a few things:
1. Onshore declines only slightly to 2040. Not consistent with history.
2. Offshore declines only slightly to 2040. Not consistent with history.
3. Production in 2040 is almost exactly the same as 2012. Coincidence?

This is the same forecasting as before. No problems. Production will ALWAYS meet demand.

GregT on Fri, 7th Dec 2012 6:54 pm 



“the US has rather favorable conditions for the coming two decades”

The US has a higher debt load per capita than Greece. They are running a 1.5 trillion dollar annual deficit, and currently are a facing a “fiscal cliff”. Austerity is coming, and once the USD no longer remains as the world’s reserve currency, it could very well be the end of the Union.

Even if this report wasn’t a total load of horse shit, 6.13 million BPD is less than a third of present US domestic consumption. Nowhere near enough to keep the failing economy afloat, much less maintain all of the failing infrastructure.

Solar on every roof top might keep people’s homes lit at night, but it will do nothing to help the economy and will not supply food to 300 million people.

bakkendispatch on Fri, 7th Dec 2012 8:36 pm 



I saw that recent report by the IEA, but I’m not sure where the oil’s coming from. We have like a 5 mil per day deficit to overcome.

Arthur on Fri, 7th Dec 2012 9:08 pm 



“The US has a higher debt load per capita than Greece.”

Last time I checked it was 100% GDP, Greece has much more. Japan has 200% + Fukushima and is still not broke. I agree that the situation is not sustainable, but a stiff tax increase to European levels plus cuts in the military will do the job.

“6.13 million BPD is less than a third of present US domestic consumption.”

That’s true but it is also the domestic oil production *now*. And peak gas is still ahead of us plus the possibility of replacing gradual decreasing carbon supply with renewable production.

BillT on Sat, 8th Dec 2012 2:07 am 



All of you dreamers that:

1. The above info from “Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers” is NOT going to be accurate or reliable.

2. The Us is keeping it’s economy alive with printing, not cutting expenses. The non-Western world is moving away from the dollar. It’s days are numbered.

3. Europe is a basket case and eventually it will trip and the first domino will fall, taking the rest of it into the can. You can play with numbers all you want but the riots are growing in number and volume.

4. And then there is the increasing likelihood of a world war being triggered to take the sheeples minds off of their coming financial demise.

5. Just keep in mind, that in every flock, there are a few black swans.

GregT on Sat, 8th Dec 2012 3:58 am 



Arthur,

I said debt load per capita, not GDP.

A stiff tax increase along with cutting social security, medicare, and the military will do the job. The job of destroying what is left of the US economy. This is called austerity. Exactly what people all over are rioting about already.

There is nothing that will replace oil, you are comparing apples to bananas.

DMyers on Sat, 8th Dec 2012 4:25 am 



This oil production graphic may very well be a work of modern art that someone found at a flea market and then slapped some words and numbers on. Its gentle pleasing affect reflects the wished for world, not the real world.
You can believe in the very, very, very best of all possibilities if you want, but you can’t deny that you’re going with the lowest probability.

It’s a pretty picture, indeed, but not the real picture.

DMyers on Sat, 8th Dec 2012 4:39 am 



Per capita debt in US is 35% higher than Greece. Google it. This is not a debatable question.

Arthur on Sat, 8th Dec 2012 12:06 pm 



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_position_of_the_United_States

“The overall financial position of the United States as of 2009 includes $50.7 trillion of debt owed by US households, businesses, and governments, representing more than 3.5 times the annual gross domestic product of the United States. As of the first quarter of 2010, domestic financial assetsA totaled $131 trillion and domestic financial liabilities $106 trillion. Tangible assets in 2008 (such as real estate and equipment) for selected sectorsB totaled an additional $56.3 trillion. The net worth of the United States at the end of 2008 was $75 trillion or 5.2 times GDP.”

You are not dead yet, not in a long shot, but you cannot go on like this for much longer. Remedies: tax increases, balanced trade rather than free trade, no more debt accumulation, severe cuts in military-industrial complex, increase retirement age, give up impossible NWO dreams, but instead be satisfied being a great power amongst others, radically close borders and stop morphing into a third world country, be isolationist, redefine yourself as a European society, if necessary kick majority mexican states back into Mexico. You can only accomplish this if you ‘address’ J-power in Washington. 9/11 truth and historic revisionism is the path to accomplish that. Renew alliance with Europe on a more equal footing and accept Russia as an ally and the future of European civilization both in Europe and America as a non-imperial ‘culture circle’ a la Samuel Huntington is assured.

BillT on Sat, 8th Dec 2012 12:40 pm 



Author, there is nothing in Europe that American’s want if it is not a nice, cheap place to vacation. We have used you like a cheap whore for 70+ years and will dump you in the alley and walk away without a second thought if needs be. Wait and see.

econ101 on Sat, 8th Dec 2012 2:45 pm 



The chart is a made-up fiction projected far into the future supporting the authors claims. Imagine that! LOL

It is as ludicrous as the peak oil crack-pot that had no idea about quantities in the ground only the idea that if you pump a well it can go dry. Its almost as baseless as EROEI, another fiction subject to enormous manipulation and misguided conviction.

Rick on Sat, 8th Dec 2012 3:44 pm 



econ101 must be related to SOS

Arthur on Sat, 8th Dec 2012 4:00 pm 



Bill, you are talking about the actions of the US governments during the twentieth century, where the US worked towards the destruction of it’s own mother civilization, the second time in close cooperation with the largest criminals in world history, the Soviets. The Soviets no longer exist and have turned into orthodox Russians again, which is bad news for the ruling zionist clique in Washington, as the Russians still have nuclear parity with the US. And the resources. And they learned the hard way about the true intentions of the zionists, which have cost them millions of lives due to that Wallstreet organized revolution of 1917. In the mean time the US has changed from a European society into one that will be a third world country in twenty years time, meaning it will be a house of cards of competing ethnic factions, that will behave like everywhere else on the planet, where different groups are mixed, with the threat of ethnic cleansing or even genocide just around the corner. For the US there are only two possible types of future: a) secession from Washington and removing zionists from power b) zionists hold on to power and the US morphing into the a new version of the USSR, including Gulags. 9/11 and Patriot Act are preparations of things to come.

Whether a or b happens will largely be a matter of coincidence. As I said before, a single video popping up of the facade of the Pentagon blowing up without a plane smashing into it, will be enough to set the US on fire and lead to a different kind of ‘Change’ than Obama was talking about.

“We have used you like a cheap whore for 70+ years and will dump you in the alley and walk away without a second thought if needs be. Wait and see.”

Not entirely clear where you stand from this wording… but regarding the fate of the US and Anglosphere in general… if Euro-America will be unable to escape the fate of being a cheap whore of the zionists instead of redefining itself as a European civilization rather than the third world entity it is going to be with policy unchanged, than the future of Anglosphere is extremely bleak and will be taken apart by Europe, Russia and China in the end, who possesses combined the man power, 75% of the remaining carbon resources as well as nukes. Expect Australia to go to China without much resistance, if China is forced to make a move, exactly as Japan was forced to in 1941, if China runs out of fuel. And the cards of China will be much better than those of Japan.

Maybe Orwell was right after all with his prediction of a totalitarian three polar world of US, Eurasia and China plus ‘disputed territories’. Wait and see.

http://strangemaps.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/1984_fictious_world_map.png

I have already made up my mind and have chosen for Eurasia. You Americans are invited but we Europeans remember very well what happened to Germany that kept on begging for an alliance with Britain. No way Jose. The biggest enemy of European civilization since 1913 until today is zionist run USA. I even tend to believe that an alliance with Russia plus a non-agression agreement with China is the best garantee for the future of European civilization, as long as Euro-America does not grow a pair and continues to let itself being disposessed. If you don’t, Detroit and Saint-Louis-East will be the fate of every American city. Good luck to you. We prefer to watch that display of fireworks from a safe distance.

SOS on Sun, 9th Dec 2012 11:56 am 



Our president and his legions want the US to be a third world country. The myth of peak oil is one of the prime movers. Perfectly sane people, I think, will look at factual oil production information and then use any number of excuses to explain it away. That graph is so obviously arbitrary and self-serving that it defies logic to think it is given any credibility.

SOS on Sun, 9th Dec 2012 12:05 pm 



The US is a failure. We are spending $168/day/household on means tested welfare programs. This does not include Medicare and SS. It amounts to over 1trillion/yr, at least a 30%increase unders this regime. We have half the country idling on welfare. The president and our leaders should be in dismay, apalled, but rather the contrary. They seem to take pride in a poor nation and get some type of satisfaction in taking what others have – that’s the 1 trillion plus. Our nation is sick and dying from the rotten politics and terrible leaders we are experiencing. It’s tough to get people with there hands out to hold a shovel if it’s their right to get whatever they want for free.

BillT on Sun, 9th Dec 2012 1:47 pm 



Arthur, Europe is a dead man walking. You are in no better shape than the US or Japan. You have bureaucrat banksters forging the chains they are easing around your necks even now. The only question is who goes down first, taking the rest of the West with it.

Eurasia? You mean when China owns anything worth anything in the former Area called Europe..lol. When they divide up the spoils between themselves and Russia. You need to stop reading the EU propaganda. It is as bad as that in the US.

Arthur on Sun, 9th Dec 2012 4:11 pm 



Bill, I think neither Europe (GDP $18T) nor the US (GDP $15T) are ‘dead men walking’ and that you are grotesquely overestimating China, that has GDP $7T with 1300 million people. To be frank, I sometimes get the impression that your very bleak assessment of the energy and resource situation has something to do with your drastic decision to move to the Philipines and await ‘the end of times’ there. And that your dogmatic dismissal of every technology or potential solution results from that decision, from a psychological point of view. What would you do if you would know now that in the coming 20 years (your statistical remaining life span) the West would NOT crash… would you still ‘survive’ in the Philipines or would you come home?

I am giving the energy issue attention for almost a year now and I have grown gradually less pessimistic, in the sense that I think we have more time than we previously thought to sort out problems out.

Currently there are three threats, in descending order:

1) war in the Gulf
2) financial/economic collapse
3) energy depletion

1) with the reelection of Obama it looks as if the zionist left wing has won and Netanyahu/Likud lost and that as a consequence war has become slightly less likely

2) All signs are that the economies both in the US and EU are picking up again. It will not be great but statbilization yes. There seems to be a solution for Greece due to the very large oil and gas finds there, equal to the total national debt of Greece. Problem solved.

3) ASPO is correct as far as conventional oil and gas is concerned, but unconventional carbon fuel could precisely offer that little extra breathing space that will enable us to compensate the downward slope with renewables. At the moment I am writing a post on gigantic UK plans for 32 GW offshore wind power. This will have a very stimulating effect on other parties.

I am more interested in accepting the challenge than saying that everything is lost. It is not.

GregT on Sun, 9th Dec 2012 9:01 pm 



“El excremento del diablo”

“Ten years from now, twenty years from now, you will see: oil will bring us ruin… Oil is the Devil’s excrement.”

Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso, a prominent Venezuelan diplomat, politician and lawyer primarily responsible for the inception and creation of OPEC.