[mmasters]

Free milk and cookies for whoever wins!

[John_A]

Point of order, which plateau? The one we just left a year or so back, or what is expected to be the new one?

[Palpatine]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('John_A', 'P')oint of order, which plateau? The one we just left a year or so back, or what is expected to be the new one?

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'G')lut? Referring to the scant 750,000bpd tight shale we've managed to yank out in the last five years?

[Palpatine]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('John_A', '
')And we still don't know which plateau we are talking about yet, the old 83 mb/d one or the new 90+ one!

[ralfy]

This might help:

http://crudeoilpeak.info/latest-graphs

[ralfy]

Also,

the-plateau-is-the-peak-t68427.html

[Loki]

So John and Palpatine, when do you think the US will blow past our previous peak in 1970? Surely this vast new production will give the lie to Hubbert's failed analysis about peak oil. The only question is when?

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Palpatine', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('John_A', '
')And we still don't know which plateau we are talking about yet, the old 83 mb/d one or the new 90+ one!

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ralfy', 'T')his might help:

http://crudeoilpeak.info/latest-graphs

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', 'S')o John and Palpatine, when do you think the US will blow past our previous peak in 1970?

[Loki]

Yes, yes, but surely this new production falsifies the peak oil hypothesis. Your multiple posts on the subject have convinced me. This plateau nonsense is just code word for peak oil, which we agree is a bunk concept.

This apparent plateau is just a lull before the storm of oil that's too cheap to meter. Peak oil my ass, it'll be flowing like the river Ganges in no time. Just wait.

[John_A]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', 'Y')es, yes, but surely this new production falsifies the peak oil hypothesis. Your multiple posts on the subject have convinced me. This plateau nonsense is just code word for peak oil, which we agree is a bunk concept.

[agramante]

One thing you just mentioned, John--total liquids, not crude. (And since by your own graph we've yet to hit 90 million per day, I think you're anticipating things just a bit by calling a 90+ million plateau. About 3 or 5 years after we do pass 90 million, should we ever, then we'll be on a new plateau. But your eagerness is admirable.) Comparing apples to apples:

world-crude-oil-production-2012.jpg

things have gotten a bit bumpy lately. If the latest spike, as of 2012, remains at a consistent level for a few years. But even including condensate:

Global-Crude-Plus-C.jpg

the same story emerges. There's a possibility that the current plateau we've been on since 2005 could rise, and stay there for a while. I'm lousy at all forms of gambling so I don't really care to put a number to it.

[Palpatine]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', '
')This apparent plateau is just a lull before the storm of oil that's too cheap to meter. Peak oil my ass, it'll be flowing like the river Ganges in no time. Just wait.

[agramante]

Absolutely, Palpatine. I believe the process is happening but we won't know clearly when peak (or the plateau equivalent) occurred until production is clearly in decline. This might sound like a face-slap truism, but innovation clearly counts for something, or we wouldn't have gotten as much out of the planet as we even have so far. Trying to push myself into a corny/doomer frame of mind is really beside the point of just trying to maintain a reasonably clear idea of what's going on.

[davep]

I've gone for five years. It's scarily close in the scheme of things but sufficiently far away that if I'm wrong no one's going to remember anyway

[mididoctors]

Decades. they(we?) are going to throw every last bit of carbon into that bonfire

[ROCKMAN]

Here’s a thought: if we are going to focus on “plateaus” why not just stick with the one that’s of ultimate interest to everyone. As I just mentioned elsewhere except for us geogeeks very few folks care when PO happened, what the current US oil production rate is or isn't ’ going to be, how many more shale wells will be drilled, how much of our liquid fuels won’t be coming from crude oil, ELM, geopolitical upheavals, etc. etc.

Why not focus on the plateau that all those various and often difficult to decipher factors affect: price. Of course that leaves us with the constant question of defining “plateau”: is it a 10% window…20%. Ignore short term spikes…up or down? I’ll let other thrash that out. And then what price do we chart? Brent? WTI? Average price at the pump…in the US…elsewhere?

Probably doesn’t make a lot of difference. In the end we’ve been on a price plateau for a number of years IMHO. And appear to be staying on it at least in the near future. The nice thing about focusing on price is that it modulates factors like increasing oil production in the US from the shales. Increasing US oil production would be fantastic…even it hadn’t come about as a result of those higher prices. I think most have come to the obvious conclusion that the shales are not going to bring us back to the days of $40/bbl oil. This also brings up the puzzle: if US oil production is rising and demand is decreasing why do we still have high prices? We can debate that answer till the cows come home but it doesn’t change the fact that we are on a plateau.

I’ll let the charters do their thing. It would be interesting to see other metrics like US production rates, biofuel production, etc plotted on the price plateau chart. Might make clear some of those relationships we’re always debating.

[rollin]

As I sit here in the greatest civilization on earth, the lights keep flickering. I wonder when they will go out again.

It seems appropriate that the major response was three to five years for the plateau to end. The descent has always been predicted as three to five years in the future except for one or two who kept declaring it to be in a few months, over and over again.

As far as I am concerned, first world countries are in a descent now, economically and fuel wise. They are band-aiding petroleum with poverty (lower demand), low molecular weight NGL's, bio-fuels, efficiency, natural gas and lots of media lies. The patient has been injured, first aid is being applied but the fight still goes on and so does the injury. When will the first tourniquets and amputations happen?