Peak Oil is You
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Page added on April 24, 2016
How Much Oil is Left?
In 2005, 60% of world oil production came from just 500 of the giant oil fields of the world, nearly all discovered over 40 years ago (the rest from about 49,000 smaller fields). Therefore, future world oil production depends on the fate of these giant oil fields, because they represent roughly 65% of the global ultimate recoverable conventional oil resources. Of the 331 largest fields, 261, or 79%, are declining at 6.5% per year, and every year the decline rate increases, so by 2030 giants in decline will be doing so at a rate of 9% (non-giant fields decline even faster). for a full discussion of this, see Giant oil field decline rates and their influence on world oil production. If Hook et al are correct, conventional oil production could be as low as 19 mbd in 2030 (see figure 13).
The EROI of unconventional oil is much less, and likely to lead to a net energy cliff rather than a bell curve. Tar sands EROI is between 6 and 1 depending on mined versus in situ, if the energy to move the tar sands from Canada to refineries in the USA is included or not, etc.
Arctic oil will take decades to find and develop — that is, if we can figure out how to do so, and requires a vast, non-existent infrastructure. That’s where roughly 25% of all remaining undiscovered fossils exist, about 6 years of global production.
Even at $100 a barrel, tight “fracked” oil was unprofitable, so it is likely that Dittmar’s 7.5 mbd of world tight oil may be high.
The actual work of society is done by heavy-duty diesel engines in trucks (tractors, harvesters, long-haul, delivery, logging, mining, cranes, forklifts, construction, etc), locomotives, and ships, the oil that actually matter is diesel fuel, which can only come from a fraction of the 60+ products made from crude oil (i.e. asphalt, propane, etc). Diesel engines can’t burn ethanol, and 85% of natural gas liquids are used to make plastics and other petrochemicals, not fuel. See my book “When Trucks Stop Running” for details.
Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com
31 Comments on "How Much Oil is Left?"
makati1 on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 6:21 am
It’s not how much is left, it is how much can be recovered profitably. That number is contracting daily.
onlooker on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 6:56 am
Absolutely, Net recoverable oil and profitable extraction that does not compromise the economy. That era is now behind us. Oil extraction is NOW compromising the Economy.
dave thompson on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 7:17 am
This short article sums it all up nicely. There is nothing that will replace the power,substance and versatility of crude oil, nothing. That is for our current set of living arrangements.
geopressure on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 8:02 am
There’s plenty of oil left… PLENTY…
joe on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 8:19 am
Frogs in pots. They wont announce peak oil. If they did, everyone would have a chance in the markets.
Instead they will quietly offload shares and invest in new energies which may not be as profitable as oil, they believe will have a future. Look to the past in areas of a future labour market where humans will likley compete with artificial intelligence. Servanting to the wealthy, cleaning, sport and leisure, cheap temp services (job careers will be measured in months), people will outcompete machines on farms etc as they will litterally work for food.
This is not to say its a disaster as it depends on how we view these things. In the future the offering of such services will inevitably replace the current option of burning cheap fuel. Energy is historically very expensive. Energy hungry automatons will not be cheap. Stacking a shelf or getting a package eventually has only limited profit, when taken all in the lifetime cost of a automated factory or car is not going to be very much cheaper than an almost desperate labour market.
Stabilizer on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 9:00 am
The amount of oil left depends on price. At the current price, we are almost dry. This price won’t last long. The only reason there are 49,000 high cost smaller fields supplying 40% of world oil is the 500 giants CANNOT SUPPLY ALL DEMAND. This is pretty obvious. At today’s price, the 49,000 smaller fields aren’t being replaced and the giant fields supply a larger % of the market EVERY WEEK. It’s a guarantee of high prices when demand exceeds supply, because the giant fields can’t increase extraction.
makati1 on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 9:29 am
Stabilizer, what didn’t you understand about my comment that the amount of oil depends on price/profitability? Higher prices will just crash the economies of most Western countries. There are hundreds of tankers anchored offshore full of the oil that cannot be sold for a profit today. China has filled every tank, pipeline and milk bottle with oil so they are prepared for when the SHTF and the oil stop flowing.
Buying it with USDs by the way. They are dumping dollars for real goods, like gold, land, etc. as fast as they can without crashing the dollar system.
I would like to see oil go to $147 again so it finally shuts down the entire system for good. It would be the best thing that could happen for mankind and the planet.
Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 9:34 am
Middle East OPEC is drilling like mad. Just look at the increased rig counts. It’s not new fields either. It’s infill drilling. Infill drilling will keep production flat for some time as opposed to declining but when the decline happens it’ll be a steeper drop. Basically what happens is infill drilling brings future production to the present.
Frank on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 10:20 am
This is more propaganda by the liberal media to promote the agenda are many wells capped of for future use. Most people do not understand that the core of the earth is molten and creates a constant supply of oil it will never run out.
Northwest Resident on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 10:32 am
“Most people do not understand that the core of the earth is molten and creates a constant supply of oil it will never run out.”
That has to be sarcasm. Please tell me it is sarcasm…
Abraham Petrovic on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 10:36 am
conventional oil maybe 50 to a hundred years. unconventional oil, fracking oil, more than conventional oil. hopefully we would have shifted to alternative energies by then.
peakyeast on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 10:44 am
@Geo: Plenty for what?
1% population growth for 15000 years?
or
1% population growth for 500 years?
or
7% resource growth for 50 years? Like you USED to have before 1960 in the USA?
How much and for what, please?
james story on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 12:02 pm
all lies
Speculawyer on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 12:07 pm
“Even at $100 a barrel, tight “fracked” oil was unprofitable,”
nonsense.
energyskeptic on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 1:12 pm
The above is the introduction to a grab bag of articles at
http://energyskeptic.com/2016/how-much-oil-is-left/
the next article is:
Dittmar, M. January 29, 2016. Regional Oil Extraction and Consumption: A simple production model for the next 35 years Part I. 25 pages.
Conventional oil production was 71 million barrels per day (mbd) in 2014, and likely to decline to 66 mbd in 2020, 50 mbd in 2030 and 33 mbd in 2050.
Adding all unconventional oil and oil-equivalent liquids, and 2014 refinery gains of about 2.5 mbd, the upper production limit for all liquids will be 93.5 mbd in 2015, declining to 92.5 mbd in 2020, 79.5 mbd in 2030 and less than 62 mbd in 2050.
Laherrere predicts a global conventional crude oil peak at about 73 mbd around 2015-2018, declining to 72 mbd in 2020, 65 mbd in 2030, and 35 mbd in 2050.
Laherrere’s ALL-LIQUIDS global production peak (including refinery gains) is 94 mbd in 2020, 88 mbd in 2030, 60 mbd in 2050.
[ If Hook et al (http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:225443/FULLTEXT01.pdf) are correct that the decline rate of conventional oil fields will exponentially increase over time, conventional oil production could be as low as 19 mbd in 2050, not 33 to 35 mbd as Dittmar and Laherrere propose above.
As far as all-liquids go, I don’t see how there can be 25 (Laherrere) to 29 mbd (Dittmar) of unconventional oil produced in 2050. It will be coming from very low EROEI, likely unprofitable sources that the financial system may not be able to lend to in a depression (credit will dry up). Worse yet, these projects will be increasingly using more conventional oil, so these figures of all-liquids being 60 to 62 mbd, even if realized, don’t reflect that not all of that energy will be available to society at large, as the energy industry consumes increasingly larger shares of conventional to produce less and less unconventional oil. ]
William Whitsitt on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 3:44 pm
This is another attempt by Future Investors to lie and attempt to create a despair that Oil is running out. But the Lord says to you I am against Babylon the great which fall and tumble to the sea. My servants will sue out of existence you see for attempting to price fix. Your hay days of lies and false, misleading facts to deceive The People into believing those facts. I am coming to sue you out of existence for unlawful price fixing future buyers.
Your time of illegal controlling prices by buying up supply and trying to control demand by false information has ended.
Neeraj on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 4:39 pm
What an awful article and website.
Measured in gold (which is the true price, not shrinking dollars), oil is the cheapest it’s been since it became important about 100 years ago.
And for those of you who care about actual scarcity, lower prices signify abundance.
On the flip side, when prices rise, we see significant demand destruction.
I’m guessing none of you has taken an economics class.
Malthusians have been proclaiming the end of oil since before the first well was drilled.
If I save even one reader from this delusional website, it will have been worth it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus
Plantagenet on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 5:38 pm
speculawyer is right. Companies like Pioneer in the Permian and a few in the Bakken are still making money fracking TOS at $34/bbl. Thats why US TOS oil production fell very little last year in spite of the oil glut—-some of these TOS companies remain very profitable.
CHEERS
Comic Relief on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 8:48 pm
If past comments are indicative, the next time speculawer or plantagenet are correct about anything, will be the first.
geopressure on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 10:10 pm
“Most people do not understand that the core of the earth is molten and creates a constant supply of oil it will never run out.”
It is KNOWN…
Boat on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 10:37 pm
Just in case Cummings just developed a nat gas engine that has very few emissions.
makati1 on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 10:58 pm
Bost, The only way it cannot have emissions is if it expels pure water or oxygen. What is in it’s exhaust?
makati1 on Sun, 24th Apr 2016 10:58 pm
geo, sorry but you need a refresher course in chemistry and physics. LOL
Boat on Mon, 25th Apr 2016 4:08 am
mak,
Go read about it.
makati1 on Mon, 25th Apr 2016 6:39 am
I don’t need to read about it. I know sales bullshit from reality. Some here do not. Tech is over. There is nothing new under the techie sun. YOU read about it.
rockman on Mon, 25th Apr 2016 6:51 am
Spec – So true. Folks make such broad speculation about oil field economics that they immediately destroy any credibility. Yes: lots of shale wells that weren’t profitable at $100/bbl. And lots of conventional wells that would not have been profitable even if oil were $1,000/bbl…those are called dry holes. LOL.
Trying to discuss such a complex dynamic system in such juvenile terms is wasting everyone’s time.
energyskeptic on Mon, 25th Apr 2016 1:53 pm
Rockman, I’m sorry I mentioned money. That’s just how people think, a short-hand way to say fracked oil was extravagant, more expensive than conventinal. EROI is best, but few studies are done to cite, and when studies are done, arguments devolve into boundary issues and nothing is settled. My main point is that the fracked oil bubble is popping for many reasons, including having drilled the best sweet spots, debt levels and so on, and that regardless of price, fracked oil may have already peaked or will by 2019 (shalebubble.org). Why do you think David Hughes (drilling deeper) and Tad Patzek March 16, 2016
Is U.S. Shale Oil & Gas Production Peaking? Part II: Oil Production http://patzek-lifeitself.blogspot.com/2016_03_13_archive.html are wrong?
Wiggs Photo on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 8:33 pm
You know,
When oil starts really running out, derricks close down, production slows, the price per barrel will skyrocket. People will be forced to find alternative sources of energy and fuel. We will never run out of oil, because economics will not allow that to happen!
Ghung on Thu, 13th Oct 2016 8:45 pm
You know,
When oil starts really running out, derricks close down, production slows, you can be one of those depression photographers documenting Phoenix subdivisions turning into slums.
Revi on Tue, 17th Jan 2017 8:54 am
I am inclined to believe that there is about 800 billion barrels of URR left. That gives us about 24 years at our present consumption rate. We’ll see what happens, but we might not be able to use as much as we’re using now….
Maybe the price will go up to enable more supply, but it’s too expensive at $80 a barrel, so I doubt it.
MichaelHe on Tue, 9th Jun 2020 6:14 am
Pretty much isn’t a right answer. How much oil left that is economically profitable to mine from the shelf. Here are https://prothesiswriter.com/blog/design-perfect-thesis-structure interesting thoughts.