As ExxonMobil details in its report, more than 95 percent of today’s oil comes from fields discovered before 2000. About 75 percent comes from pre-1980 discoveries. While many massive, older fields can keep gushing for decades — Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar field, first tapped in 1951, still hums along at 5 million barrels per day — they seem to be dwindling overall. As Exxon’s chart shows, reserves discovered in the 1960s and before maxed out around 1980 (even as oil companies are trying to recover additional oil from older wells with better technology). What’s more, it seems to be getting tougher to squeeze oil out of newer finds.
Is this proof that oil’s peaking or running out? That’s not so clear. Certainly Exxon and agencies like the Energy Information Administration sound confident that oil production will keep surging in the decades ahead, as nearly one billion new middle-class drivers in China, India and elsewhere start buying cars. Judging by its outlook report, ExxonMobil is banking on the belief that extraction technology will keep improving and production will keep rising significantly.
On the other hand, pessimists like Gregor McDonald point out that global oil production seems to have hit a ceiling since 2005, even as demand has been growing. And, they note, while the world certainly won’t run out of crude anytime soon, all this new unconventional oil in hard-to-drill regions like the Arctic will require inordinately high crude prices that could prove incompatible with healthy economic growth. (Burning all that dirty unconventional oil would also speed up the pace of global warming.) That’s the real worry about peak oil, and it’s a concern that the official forecasting agencies often discount.
BillT on Thu, 15th Dec 2011 11:48 am
“Healthy economic growth” is over. The contracting supplies of ALL natural resources will guarantee that in the coming years. Yes, when you have to go 5 miles down, under miles of ocean, to get a few billion barrels, (Brazil) it is going to cost more and be unreliable. Likewise, any other “new” source.
$300+ oil is just around the corner, as is rationing and eventually none for the public. That may not happen until we have bounced along this economic plateau for a few years, or, it may happen next year if the world’s financial system ruptures.
J.J.H on Thu, 15th Dec 2011 1:00 pm
Fact: 6 years of stable production around 87 to 90 mil bpd.
Fact: no big discoveries in the last 15 years.
2 billion barrels in not a giant when you place this in the rate of consumption perspective. This is just al little more than 25 days of the global consumption.
Fact: nothing big is coming upstream
150.000 to 200.000 bpd is nothing big when you look at the global day production of 89.000.000 bpd. It is just a little more than 0,00224%. Its not even enough to offset the decline rates of the giants (North Ghawar -6% to -8%).
Peakoil is here. This is a plateau! I can’t make it any better than this.
Kenz300 on Thu, 15th Dec 2011 1:53 pm
Quote — “more than 95 percent of today’s oil comes from fields discovered before 2000. About 75 percent comes from pre-1980 discoveries.”
———————
Higher oil prices, long gas lines, rationing, recession, high unemployment and business failures were the result of the oil supply shortages of the 1970’s.
Gale Whitaker on Thu, 15th Dec 2011 5:56 pm
I’ve got an idea! We could make it illegal to commute to work in our personal cars. The government could provide public transportation centered around natural gas powered buses and trains. That change would put people to work, make our economy more efficient and help us become energy independent. An idea like that will drive the Republicans crazy. A violation of the status quo like that could be even worse than gun control.
tubaplayer on Thu, 15th Dec 2011 9:59 pm
@Gail:
Go further. When I was a young boy in a not very rich town in the UK nobody, repeat NOBODY, had a car. The last time I went there I had a problem finding space to park my motorcycle.
Much further. Why not make it illegal for any person who could not show a justified business use for having a car illegal? i.e. Joe Public (unless a business man showing just cause) cannot own a car.
How radical is that?
MrEnergyCzar on Fri, 16th Dec 2011 12:55 am
No growth or steady state economies eventually will replace our current growth based model….the post peak oil money printing frenzy can only go on for a few years.
MrEnergyCzar
SimplifyIt on Fri, 16th Dec 2011 4:21 am
@Gail & tubaplayer:
Unfortunately it’s not that easy. As a nation we have foolishly constructed an infrastructure that is completely useless without a personal car. And infrastructures aren’t free or easy to re-build to suit a switch to public transit, bicycles, etc. Ever been to L.A.?
BillT on Fri, 16th Dec 2011 3:09 pm
Well, it may not be easy, but the days of the personal auto is coming to a close. Buses and trains can easily replace cars for most trips, or just walk. Soon anything less than a mile will be done on foot or bicycle and more than a mile will be by bicycle or public transit. Not difficult. One side of an interstate could be converted to rail easily. All major cities and most towns would be connected. And trains can run on many fuels.