Peak Oil is You
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Page added on September 15, 2016
Peak oil by any other name is still peak oil
One of the most compelling charts I have ever seen is the “Growing Gap” chart that used to appear in every ASPO Newsletter. This is the one from the last ASPO Newsletter, written by Colin Campbell and published in April 2009.
Since then, more than seven years have passed, and peak oil has disappeared from the mainstream press headlines–almost. On August 29, Bloomberg published a story alerting to the fact that conventional oil discovery has reached a 70-year low. It published a very interesting chart, using data provided by Wood Mackenzie, the oil consulting firm, to show that fact. Unlike the ASPO chart, Bloomberg’s chart only goes back to 1947, the year before Ghawar was discovered.
I thought I would reproduce the “Growing Gap” chart using Wood Mackenzie’s data.
Neither Wood Mackenzie nor Bloomberg make public the data behind the chart, but I used a digitization program, WebPlotDigitizer, to extract data from the chart. The results are not perfect, of course, but give a good enough estimate. One must keep in mind that discovery data are not precise and may have a significant margin of error.
In order to obtain conventional oil production, I subtracted US tight oil production and Canadian tar sands production from the EIA’s global crude plus condensate number. I know I must also subtract the extra-heavy production from the Orinoco Belt, but it is hard to find data for it. In any case, this is a very good estimate. According to data gathered by Jean Laherrère, the Orinoco extra-heavy production is only around 1 Mb/d today.
The following chart shows the digitized Wood Mackenzie conventional discovery data and the production data described above. According to the data, since 1980, when the gap between production and discovery began to appear, humanity has extracted about 47 percent more conventional oil than it has discovered.
And the following chart shows a three-year moving average of discovery, to replicate the ASPO chart. Notice that discovered volumes are generally larger than Campbell’s data, but the drop since 2011 is more precipitous than he anticipated.
According to the Bloomberg story, this shortfall in discovery will be felt 10 years from now, when it begins to “hinder production.”
Peak oil by any other name is still peak oil.
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2016/09/peak-oil-by-any-other-name-is-still.html?m=1
16 Comments on "Peak oil by any other name is still peak oil"
Apneaman on Thu, 15th Sep 2016 10:00 pm
Oil Company Carnage Continues
“Moody’s reports that twice as many oil and gas companies have gone bankrupt so far this year than did so in all of last year. Investors affected by these failures have seen an average 21 percent return. No, that’s not return on their investment, it’s return of their investment; they lost 80 per cent of their money. And those were secured lenders; junk-bond holders got back 6 cents for every dollar they invested.”
http://www.dailyimpact.net/2016/09/14/oil-company-carnage-continues/
Apneaman on Thu, 15th Sep 2016 10:03 pm
THE DEATH OF THE BAKKEN FIELD HAS BEGUN: Means Big Trouble For The U.S.
“The mighty Bakken oil field located in North Dakota reached peak production in December 2014 at 1.26 million barrels per day (mbd) and is now down to 942,000 bd.”
https://srsroccoreport.com/the-death-of-the-bakken-field-has-begun-big-trouble-for-the-u-s/
Hello on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 12:43 am
The peak of bakken is due to low price, not due to geology or lack of technology.
Revi on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 7:23 am
Very interesting. It appears that we are going to run into some problems soon with supply. Right now the story that we hear is that there is a “glut” of oil. Peak Oil is not dead after all. I expect the downside of the peak to be much steeper than we expect. There isn’t enough energy in unconventional oil to make it worth getting, so we will drop back to conventional sources, which are going to be dropping as well. It’s not going to be pretty.
Cloud9 on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 8:16 am
I suspect that mott and bailey will be the next building craze.
makati1 on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 8:44 am
LOL. Cloud9, you might have to explain that to most here. I doubt their education extends to English history and fortifications. You could be correct. If so our farm has a perfect location for one.
ghung on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 8:52 am
Our place is naturally motte and bailey; house built on/in a hill, surrounded by terraced pastures which are surrounded by thick hedgerows of brambles. Anyone who makes it through the brambles will be an easy downhill shot. Of course, with things like RPGs, I guess “motte and bailey” becomes “moot and maybe”, eh?
rockman on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 9:09 am
Hello – “The peak of bakken is due to low price, not due to geology…”. Well, yes and no. The price decline did very QUICKLY decreas the rig count which obviously EVENTUALLY shows up in the production rate. But had prices stayed flat both reductions would have happened but much more SLOWLY. The process isn’t perfect but we do try to drill the best REMAINING prospects first. The quality of drilling prospects have never been equally distributed in ANY PLAY…never.
The Bakken had a 40+ year history of vertical wells that did a fair job of indicating the sweeter spots in the basin. If one looks at the production distribution prior to the recent boom it would show a wide range of results: highly profitable to money losers.
As the horizontal tech began to be applied we already had a template to follow. Even some previous mediocre areas looked better thanks to the COMBINATION of tech and prices. Obviously that calculous has changed with the price of oil.
So the good news: the return of higher oil prices will increase drilling. The bad news: the remaining undrilled acreage doesn’t have the same potential as the region did when the boom began.
makati1 on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 9:20 am
Nice play on words, ghung.
Cloggie on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 9:40 am
The “1776 crowd” of Infowars promoting living off the grid and prepping (5 min video):
http://www.infowars.com/tim-kennedy-reveals-secret-to-off-grid-living/
You don’t have to be a card-carrying ASPO member to instinctively know what could be coming your way.
ghung on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 10:35 am
Interesting “off-grid” video, Clog. Thanks. Of course, the video shows power lines running through the center of the property and right over the garden; looks to be both distribution and 3-phase transmission lines. Conclusion? The guys property has a big utility easement through it, likely a “blanket easement” meaning the utility can do pretty much as it pleases on the property, including trashing the guy’s garden. They can come and go as they please and, in many states, lease that easement to whomever they please. Yikes!
The whole property is “of-the-grid”, whether or not these folks think they are living off-grid. Just sayin’.
Cloggie on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 11:52 am
ghung, I think you are nitpicking. These folks live next to a city. Don’t know about the laws in Texas, but here you can’t cancel your connection to the grid; all you can do is not consume electricity.
But the point of going off-grid in the context of the video is of-course: setting up a self-sustaining life-style, or at least as much as possible: growing your own food, repair your own house, a few panels on your roof, etc.
And I think that it is difficult to find a people on earth more suitable for this kind of life-style than hyper-pragmatic, government-hating, self-relying Americans. Perhaps Siberians come close.
So I am absolutely not buying into this idea that Americans are to degenerated to care for themselves.
Before you know it, it is Bonanza time again, yee haw!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOk3DZoMr84
Cloggie on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 12:01 pm
Gardening in the overdrive, Harrogate “mine is bigger than yours” contest:
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/riesengemuese-wettbewerb-in-harrogate-fotostrecke-141101.html
(onion of 7 kg)
ghung on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 12:21 pm
“…but here you can’t cancel your connection to the grid; all you can do is not consume electricity.”
That’s what you get when you live in a pipsqueak little country where every square meter is already developed and has multiple claims on it. Not so with the average reader at Infowars. It’s still possible in the US to find land that has no such encumbrances. What’s the point of going off-grid where big brother already has the right to undo your investment, tell you what to do with your property, or force you to buy their product? My property has no easements, rights-of-way, or superior claims. Anyone on my land without my permission or a warrant is trespassing and I have the right to prosecute them if I so choose. The possibility of the government or their corporate overlords attempting imminent domain is also very low. Not much here they would want.
I left a comment under your linked video:
“Hint: When looking for off-grid property, go rural or semi-rural, with low property taxes. Pay very close attention to the deed and any easements, rights-of-way, or other encumbrances. Be sure there’s a good water source, and that you have full water/mineral rights. Essentially, make sure no one has “superior rights” to your property or what’s under it.”
I doubt the sort of folks that read Infowars would consider that “nitpicking”. Indeed, many of the articles there talk about the government going as far as reading their minds with electro-magnetic waves, and stuff like that….
Apneaman on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 1:53 pm
“the government going as far as reading their minds with electro-magnetic waves”
I bet that’s a short read…….like half a paragraph filled with terrible grammar.
ghung on Fri, 16th Sep 2016 2:24 pm
Actually, a rather long video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HikJV1_eNlQ