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Page added on December 11, 2012
Total CEO: New Peak Oil Production Seen at 98 Million Barrels/Day
New discoveries and technological advances have increased the oil industry’s ability to increase production in recent years, pushing global maximum oil production to 98 million barrels per day for longer than initially expected, Total SA’s (TOT) Chairman and Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie said Tuesday.
Global oil production should plateau at that level for some time before dropping as reserves gradually deplete, Mr. de Margerie said during a meeting with the Anglo-American Press Association in Paris.
Technological constraints led the French oil major to estimate in 2007 that the “peak oil” production rate would be at around 95 million barrels per day, or mb/d–a conservative estimate compared with those of its competitors.
“Peak oil” is categorized as when worldwide oil production reaches its maximum possible level before irreversibly dropping back due to a lack of new reserves.
Emerging markets have driven demand for oil and gas with prices remaining high, allowing expensive investments to become profitable. Oil groups have raced to meet the demand by finding and developing new resources that were previously impossible to exploit such as very deep offshore sites, fields off the Artic circle, and shale rocks or sands. Mr. de Margerie referred to them as “frontier exploration areas.”
“It’s a totally different environment but that’s good news. It means there is energy for the future,” he said, noting he doesn’t see a specific time for “peak oil” anymore, anticipating more of “a long plateau” of maximum oil production before it eventually decreases.
Even though there is plenty of oil available now, it won’t be cheap and prices should remain at a high level as the industry tries to balance its investments and returns, Mr. de Margerie added.
As for the boom in U.S. tight oil–where the resource is stuck in hard, dense rocks and needs specific techniques to be released–Mr. de Margerie insisted no one can yet say what the impact on oil production will be.
“It’s something between an additional 1 mb/d and 3 mb/d,” he said, noting that this amount won’t yet allow the U.S. to be independent from oil exports. “That’s good for the U.S. economy…It’s opening a new debate on ‘is the U.S. potentially rid of Middle East crude?'” he said.
8 Comments on "Total CEO: New Peak Oil Production Seen at 98 Million Barrels/Day"
Rick on Wed, 12th Dec 2012 12:37 am
FOX, shit news source. Propaganda.
To that I say, FOX, watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16K6m3Ua2nw
BillT on Wed, 12th Dec 2012 1:33 am
And the shit gets deeper! Panic is setting in in the oil industry. Everyone is starting to realize that the game is about over. The easy money is gone. The investment may be a loser more than a winner. Buy a farm instead of investing in the market casino. You will be farther ahead in the future.
GregT on Wed, 12th Dec 2012 4:54 am
Every day, for the past 4 years, I have listened to the same propaganda. The economy is improving, new housing starts increasing, the unemployment rate is getting better, the markets have turned around, etc.
Growth, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth.
When will people finally figure out that exponential growth on a finite planet is not only impossible, it is terminal.
Arthur on Wed, 12th Dec 2012 10:20 am
This French oilman does not deny peakoil. The question is only when. I gradually shift to the position that peak liquid is not going to happen this decade. Yesterday this blog posted an interview with IMF modeller Hufman. He takes peakoil very serious. He cites studies that say 2030 at the latest, possibly earlier. Hufman is not sure. I would ***GUESS*** 2020-2025.
Beery on Wed, 12th Dec 2012 12:00 pm
Rick, I was with him until he said “It sure used to be”. It didn’t. That’s as much of a myth as the idea that it is.
Arthur on Wed, 12th Dec 2012 12:39 pm
Peak USA was in 1969… one small step for man… Then the decay of the cities began, the drugs, the crime rates, the gangs, the decay of standards, the necessity for women to work in order to stay on the same family living standard. 40% of the children born from single mother and need to be paid by the government. Modernity is a desaster. And then there is resource depletion.
BillT on Wed, 12th Dec 2012 1:40 pm
Of course Europe ended much earlier, say pre-WW2. A bunch of little countries that never could live side by side. Now they are struggling to survive in the big cruel world of finance, energy shortage and climate change.
I’m not worried about the end of oil or natural gas. I think Mother Nature is not going to give us time to burn the last calorie she has stored. Hot temperatures and climate change is going to take out civilization first.
The Four Horsemen are already riding and there is no mention of them running out of energy. Quite the contrary, they will get more and more as the days go by. We pump it into the air and seas everyday in the form of pollution.
Arthur on Wed, 12th Dec 2012 2:21 pm
Peak Europe was August 1914 at the eve of the Great War. Europe owned/colonized most territory of the planet, with London as the unofficial capital of the world and British running an empire of 25% of the planets surface as the private little Lebensraum of their own. They acquired this empire because the British were the first to exploit coal and later oil, giving them global reach and a competative advantage over the rest. These days will never return. The world is running out of energy and as a consequence out of global empires. The world is going to be very big again, with areas isolated from each other, with localized life styles.