[Cool Hand Linc]

Ok, here is the idea. I attempt to be very realistic when looking at issues. I like to be optimistic and not pessimistic. Yet I want to know what the numbers really are and what possible variables are.

ASPO has created a curve seen in the monthly news letter. If you have read much here at PO.com you know what I am referring to, if not
http://www.peakoil.net/Newsletter/NL50/newsletter50.pdf
page 2.

Optimistically, oil will be found regularly to keep the world in oil until alternate sources come online.

Pessimistically no more oil will ever be found.

I want to see the worst case scenario. Knowing that it can always get better. Just to see 'what if'.

So back to the graph shown in the monthly news letter at ASPO. The chart, in the middle of the page shows Future, new regular oil of 145 Gb. This 'new has not been discovered yet. Sooo...

Worst case is no more oil is discovered. What would the curve look like if the 145 Gb is removed from the declining side?

[pup55]

Others may wish to add commentary to this.

Sorry to complicate what should be a relatively straightforward project with details.....

If the amount of reserves remaining is only 760gb, and the production up until present is 950 give or take, that means the curve is asymmetrical and non-hubbertian already, and we have already overpumped the peak, so the decline curve may be any of a variety of shapes.

It could, I guess, just follow the ASPO curve for awhile until reserves are run out. This would happen in about 2050.

I have three other scenarios, below. Others may wish to give other ideas. (By the way, this is for liquids only, does not include gas or heavy oil etc). All three are "production curves", namely, gbo pumped per year. Also, I spliced on an ASPO-like "verhulst curve" onto the historical data as a baseline. Maybe the ASPO people will give us the data points for their curve at some point so we can graph their curve onto our models for comparison.

The first curve starts with 30 gb/yr and annual extraction declines by 3% per year. This is probably pretty conservative, and more what you had in mind. By 2050, the remaining reserves are only about 13gb, so only about two years of pumping left.

The second curve is the "Nordic Decline" scenario, which is that the world depletes in the same pattern as the UK and Norway, which is 9% decline in the first few years after depletion hits, then slowing to 5% decline when the reservoir hits 50%, then 3% decline in the out-years. By 2050, we still have 360gb left, give or take, and we are pumping at a low enough rate for this to go on for awhile.

The third curve is the "average decline" case, per our "experience-based" decline curve we did last fall. This is the "average" global decline curve as experienced by those nations already in decline. Production decline is about 7% in the first three years after depletion hits, then stabilizes and levels off at 1-2% per year, for some number of years (60-65% of maximum production). No telling how long this can go on, but if this model is any indication, not too long, because you completely run out of oil in about 2040 if this is the case.

It depends on your outlook, of course, but in a way, you'd better hope for a steep decline in the early years, a-la the Nordic model. Reason: If the reserves are low like this, it is best to get off of the current pumping rate as soon as possible so as to preserve some reserves for the out-years. The longer we pump at the current rate, the faster TSHTF, if you do not mind me using that overworked phrase, provided reserves are limited like you say.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
verhulst 760@3% Nordic Average
1965 11.61
1966 12.62
1967 13.55
1968 14.76
1969 15.93
1970 17.54
1971 18.56
1972 19.59
1973 21.34
1974 21.40
1975 20.38
1976 22.05
1977 22.89
1978 23.12
1979 24.11
1980 22.98
1981 21.73
1982 20.91
1983 20.66
1984 21.05
1985 20.98
1986 22.07
1987 22.18
1988 23.04
1989 23.36
1990 23.88
1991 23.80
1992 23.99
1993 24.09
1994 24.47
1995 24.82
1996 25.48
1997 26.29
1998 26.79
1999 26.30
2000 27.25
2001 27.19
2002 27.03
2003 28.02
2004 29
2005 30.00 30.00 30.00 30.00
2006 30.69 29.10 27.30 28.11
2007 30.67 28.23 24.84 26.47
2008 30.60 27.38 22.61 25.68
2009 30.50 26.56 20.57 24.68
2010 30.36 25.76 18.72 23.60
2011 30.18 24.99 17.04 23.06
2012 29.97 24.24 15.50 22.58
2013 29.74 23.51 14.73 21.85
2014 29.47 22.81 13.99 20.43
2015 29.19 22.12 13.29 19.79
2016 28.88 21.46 12.63 19.47
2017 28.55 20.82 12.00 19.99
2018 28.20 20.19 11.40 18.85
2019 27.85 19.59 10.83 18.56
2020 27.47 19.00 10.28 18.27
2021 27.09 18.43 9.77 18.54
2022 26.70 17.87 9.28 18.38
2023 26.30 17.34 8.82 18.20
2024 25.89 16.82 8.38 17.91
2025 25.48 16.31 7.96 18.68
2026 25.06 15.82 7.72 19.51
2027 24.64 15.35 7.10 20.08
2028 24.23 14.89 6.53 19.78
2029 23.81 14.44 6.01 20.51
2030 23.39 14.01 5.53 19.11
2031 22.97 13.59 5.09 18.81
2032 22.55 13.18 4.68 19.57
2033 22.14 12.79 4.31 19.53
2034 21.73 12.40 3.96 19.21
2035 21.32 12.03 3.64 19.09
2036 20.91 11.67 3.35 19.48
2037 20.51 11.32 3.09 19.16
2038 20.12 10.98 2.84 18.84
2039 19.73 10.65 2.61 18.27
2040 19.34 10.33 2.40 17.72
2041 18.96 10.02 2.21 17.19
2042 18.59 9.72 2.03
2043 18.22 9.43 1.87
2044 17.85 9.15 1.72
2045 17.50 8.87 1.58
2046 17.14 8.61 1.46
2047 16.80 8.35 1.41
2048 16.46 8.10 1.37
2049 16.12 7.85 1.33
2050 15.79 7.62 1.29
2051 15.47 7.39 1.25
2052 15.15 7.17 1.21
2053 14.84 6.95 1.18
2054 14.54 6.74 1.14
2055 14.24 6.54 1.11 ')

[johnmarkos]

[Cool Hand Linc]

That is great!

I need to study this some.

When I read what Mathew Simmons has said lately. Basically he believes Sadia Arabia may not have the reserves to continue producing at the rates they have been. Most likely past peak.

http://www.iags.org/n0331043.htm

I look to the future and wonder.

[Tyler_JC]

15 billion a year production in 2013


That means 8 years till complete chaos...

I really hope they find that extra oil that *should* be there. I wonder if that oil will be worth anything in energy terms. Also, if all of this extra oil is heavy oil or artic/deep water, who is to say it will be found at all? We assume that the deep ocean has lots of oil, but we don't really know because we haven't found it yet. If it doesn't turn up, we are going to be in for a long and fast ride down.

3% is an almost random number. Many oil fields decline much faster. The North Sea is experiencing a 5%-7% decline (or so I'm told).

[Cool Hand Linc]

15 billion a year production in 2013?

Did I miss something?

[RdSnt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MissingLink', '1')5 billion a year production in 2013?

Did I miss something?

[Cool Hand Linc]

Billion or million?

Day or year?

15 million a day production in 2013?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')eep ocean oil, if it's there, is unreachable. Doesn't matter how much oil may be worth.
Much of the petroleum that is slated to come on-stream soon is of a low quality.
There was big news that Venezuela sold a big supply to China just recently. What was glossed over was that the deal was for really heavy oil only good for pavement. The Chinese are the only people in the market for that type of oil.
Caspian Sea oil has a real high sulpher content, so does the new field in Alberta.
Oh yes, then there is the tar sands. What a joke, good oil after bad.

[pup55]

The units are gb/y, billion barrels per year. Currently global is about 30.

Explanation of the "nordic slide".

Here is the IEA data for the last 5 years for UK production in tbd:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', ' TBD
1999 2684 1
2000 2275 0.85
2001 2282 0.85
2002 2292 0.85
2003 2093 0.78
2004 1840 0.69')

Similarly for Australia:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', ' TBD
2000 722 1
2001 657 0.91
2002 626 0.87
2003 512 0.71
2004 450 0.62')

Australia, by the way, had a really bad month in October, only 382,000 barrels pumped, 52% of its peak value, so maybe we should call this the "Aussie Slide" instead.

The point is, five years after the peak in Britain, and 4 years after the peak in Australia, the fields are only producing an average of 65% of their peak output. This is an average decline of 9% per year. So, if you apply this to the global rate (30 gb) that's 19.5 gb five years out, and at the same decline rate, couple more years until 15 gb.

These are the "worst case scenarios" and someone into geology will tell us that because the fields are relatively small and isolated there is no way to generalize this to the whole world. But, so is Ghawar.

In the case of the US, which is bigger and contains a lot of different fields, they were down 14% from the peak after 7 years, and the world average was down 22% from the peak after 7 years, so on a bigger scale, kind of a middling estimate is possible.

In each of these cases, the "cliff", as it were, was a lot more severe than those predicted by the ASPO graph and Hubbert-type analysis.

[Cool Hand Linc]

OIC, sorry, I thought the reference was to Sadia Arabia's swing roll. I had just said something about SA and was thinking of SA when I read Tyler_jc's post. I did miss something!

I was thinking of the expected swing role of SA. That being they would increase production to fill the gap being left from other countries decreasing domestic outputs. If Matthew Simmons is correct in his belief that SA is already peaking. This will not happen.

Tylers post is all the more clear!

And I agree!

[Cool Hand Linc]

As I wrote in an earlier link. I needed to study this a little.

pup, this kind of data is what I was looking for. Somebody who had actually studied the decline rates.

Dam good information!

[pup55]

The Saudi swing role is kind of interesting.

Most of the gloomy scenarios you see make the assumption that the rest of the world's pumping is roughly constant, and Saudi has to produce in order to satisfy all of the demand growth.

If you look at the whole list of countries, and who is shrinking and who is growing....

Only about 1/3 of the global capacity was coming from places where the production is shrinking, at least as of 2003 which is covered by the most recent BP review.

So if the depleting countries continue to deplete at the same rate, but the growing countries continue to grow at the same rate, there is actually enough non-Saudi non-depleting capacity to take care of demand for awhile "if" the overall demand growth rate is at some reasonable level.
The "reasonable level" is about 5%. Anything over that, and the non-Saudi growth is not enough to keep up, and Saudi must grow or there is a problem.

Also, lack of ability to grow at the 2003 rate that occurs among big producers such as Russia or China throws the pressure back on Saudi.

Also, this assumes a constant Iraq, which is kind of iffy.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', ' 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Production w growing Saudi 76737 80858 85710 91374 97947 105541
Production w static Saudi 76737 79506 82821 86735 91318 96648

demand at 2% growth 76737 78272 79837 81434 83063 84724
demand at 4% growth 76737 79806 82999 86319 89771 93362')

Units are thosand bbl oil per day, source is the 2004 BP review.

[azur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')eep ocean oil, if it's there, is unreachable. Doesn't matter how much oil may be worth.

[azur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')uch of the petroleum that is slated to come onstream soon is of a low quality.

[RdSnt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('azur', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')eep ocean oil, if it's there, is unreachable. Doesn't matter how much oil may be worth.

[Cool Hand Linc]

I have trouble believing a number like 10 dollars on the deep water oil.


How could a number like this be possible?

[pup55]

http://peakoil.com/fortopic5184-0-asc-0.html

Azur:

It is good to have someone from this business to be with us.

What was your reaction to the attached article?

[Tyler_JC]

Not to repeat what I just said, but I recently took a very close look at ASPO's chart for peak oil in 2007-2008. I think they are wrong. Worse than that, they are WAY off.

Look at the chart one more time. In order for production to go up between now and 2008, there must be a massive increase in deep-water oil and in artic oil. I don't see that happening. If they have not found it by now, they probably are not going to find it. In the next couple of years, oil companies "have" to find tens of billions of new barrels of oil. I have seen no evidence of any major find. If they 100 billion+ left to discover is under 8000 feet of water, it's not useful. If it's underneath 1000 feet of ice, it's not useful. If it contains too much sulfur, it's not useful.

The only countries that haven't peaked yet according to their own data are; Canada, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and a few of the smaller players. I can't see those countries being able to compensate for massive declines in the US, the North Sea, and possibly Russia.

In addition, ASPO uses Natural Gas Liquids and counts them as oil. The fuel I put in my lighter has far fewer uses than the fuel I put in my car. To compare NGL to crude oil is illogical. If we run out of oil but have plenty NGL, it does not really help us.

Furthermore, ASPO puts heavy crude in the same category as conventional oil. If we have to refine heavy crude using extra energy, its EROEI dips. A barrel of heavy crude is equal to roughly 2/3 of a barrel of conventional crude. ASPO should reduce its estimate for unconventional oil to reflect this.

Lastly, the oil infrastructure can't handle much more oil. We are running at nearly 100% capacity in tankers, refineries, and pipelines as it is. Without building more of each one of these, we will be unable to increase the supply of refined oil products substantially. I just thought I’d throw that out there. Based on the data I’ve looked at, I believe that conventional oil will peak this year (if it hasn’t already).

[azur]

pup55

Thanks for pointing out that Open Discussion topic, which I had not seen. I posted my reply on that forum.

[azur]

MissingLink,

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') have trouble believing a number like 10 dollars on the deep water oil.


How could a number like this be possible?