Predicting the timing of peak oil

Main article: Peak oil

US oil production (crude oil only) and Hubbert high estimate.

M. King Hubbert, who devised the peak theory, predicted in 1956 that oil production would peak in the United States between 1965 and 1970. Hubbert further predicted a worldwide peak at "about half a century" from publication and approximately 12 gigabarrels (GB) a year in magnitude, though he revised this estimate in 1974 to 40-Gb/yr in 1995. "if current trends continue". In a 1976 TV interview Hubbert added that the actions of OPEC might flatten the global production curve but this would only delay the peak for perhaps 10 years.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, global oil consumption actually dropped (due to large oil price shocks in 1973 and 1979, the shift to energy-efficient cars, the shift to electricity and natural gas for heating, and other factors), then assumed a lower level of growth in the mid 1980s (see chart on right). Thus oil production did not peak in 1995. This underscores the fact that the only reliable way to identify the timing of peak oil will be in retrospect. However, predictions have been refined through the years as up-to-date information becomes more readily available, such as new reserve growth data.

Pessimistic predictions of future oil production

Saudi Arabia's regent Abdullah told his subjects in 1998, "The oil boom is over and will not return... All of us must get used to a different lifestyle." Since then he has implemented a series of anti-corruption reforms and government programs intended to lower Saudi Arabia's dependence on oil revenues. The royal family was put on notice to end its history of excess and new industries were created to diversify the national economy.

Matthew Simmons said on October 26, 2006 that global oil production may have peaked in December 2005, though he cautioned that further monitoring of production is required to determine if a peak has actually occurred. In 2007, Kenneth S. Deffeyes also argued that world oil production had peaked in December 2005.

2004 U.S. government predictions for oil production other than in OPEC and the former Soviet Union

World Crude Oil Production 1960-2008. Sources: DOE/EIA, IEA

The July 2007 IEA Medium-Term Oil Market Report projected a 2% non-OPEC liquids supply growth in 2007-2009, reaching 51.0 mb/d in 2008, receding thereafter as the slate of verifiable investment projects diminishes. They refer to this decline as a plateau. The report expects only a small amount of supply growth from OPEC producers, with 70% of the increase coming from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Angola as security and investment issues continue to impinge on oil exports from Iraq, Nigeria and Venezuela.

In October 2007, the Energy Watch Group, a German research group founded by MP Hans-Josef Fell, released a report claiming that oil production peaked in 2006 and would decline by several percent annually. The authors predicted negative economic effects and social unrest as a result. They stated that the IEA production plateau prediction uses purely economic models, which rely on an ability to raise production and discovery rates at will.

Sadad Al Husseini, former head of Saudi Aramco's production and exploration, stated in an October 29, 2007 interview that oil production had likely already reached its peak in 2006, and that assumptions by the IEA and EIA of production increases by OPEC to over 45 MB/day are "quite unrealistic." Data from the United States Energy Information Administration show that world production leveled out in 2004, and an October 2007 retrospective report by the Energy Watch Group concluded that this data showed the peak of conventional oil production in the third quarter of 2006.

ASPO predicted in their January 2008 newsletter that the peak in all oil (including non-conventional sources), would occur in 2010. This is earlier than the July 2007 newsletter prediction of 2011. ASPO Ireland in its May 2008 newsletter, number 89, revised its depletion model and advanced the date of the peak of overall liquids from 2010 to 2007.

Texas alternative energy activist and oilman T. Boone Pickens stated in 2005 that worldwide conventional oil production was very close to peaking. On June 17, 2008, in testimony before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Pickens stated that "I do believe you have peaked out at 85 million barrels a day globally."

At least one oil company, French supermajor Total S.A., announced plans in 2008 to shift their focus to nuclear energy instead of oil and gas. A Total senior vice president explained that this is because they believe oil production will peak before 2020, and they would like to diversify their position in the energy markets.

The UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES) reported in late October 2008 that peak oil is likely to occur by 2013. ITPOES consists of eight companies: Arup, FirstGroup, Foster + Partners, Scottish and Southern Energy, Solarcentury, Stagecoach Group, Virgin Group, and Yahoo. Their report includes a chapter written by Shell corporation.

In October 2009, a report published by the Government-supported UK Energy Research Centre, following 'a review of over 500 studies, analysis of industry databases and comparison of global supply forecasts', concluded that 'a peak in conventional oil production before 2030 appears likely and there is a significant risk of a peak before 2020'. The authors believe this forecast to be valid 'despite the large uncertainties in the available data'. The study was claimed to be the first to undertake an 'independent, thorough and systematic review of the evidence and arguments in the 'peak oil’ debate'. The authors noted that 'forecasts that delay a peak in conventional oil production until after 2030 are at best optimistic and at worst implausible' and warn of the risk that 'rising oil prices will encourage the rapid development of carbon-intensive alternatives that will make it difficult or impossible to prevent dangerous climate change and that 'early investment in low-carbon alternatives to conventional oil is of considerable importance' in avoiding this scenario.

A 2010 report by Oxford University researchers in the journal Energy Policy predicted that production would peak before 2015.

Optimistic predictions of future oil production

Non-'peakists' can be divided into several different categories based on their specific criticism of peak oil. Some claim that any peak will not come soon or have a dramatic effect on the world economies. Others claim we will not reach a peak for technological reasons, while still others claim our oil reserves are quickly regenerated abiotically.

Plateau oil

Monthly world oil supply data from 1995 to 2008. Supply is defined as crude oil production (including lease condensates), natural gas plant liquids, other liquids, and refinery processing gains.

CERA, which counts unconventional sources in reserves while discounting EROEI, believes that global production will eventually follow an “undulating plateau” for one or more decades before declining slowly. In 2005 the group predicted that "petroleum supplies will be expanding faster than demand over the next five years."

In 2007, The Wall Street Journal reported that "a growing number of oil-industry chieftains" believed that oil production would soon reach a ceiling for a variety of reasons, and plateau at that level for some time. Several chief executives stated that projections of over 100 million barrels of production per day are unrealistic, contradicting the projections of the International Energy Agency and United States Energy Information Administration.

In 2008, the IEA predicted a plateau by 2020 and a peak by 2030. The report called for a "global energy revolution" to prepare mitigations by 2020 and avoid "more difficult days" and large wealth transfers from OECD nations to oil producing nations. This estimate was changed in 2009 to predict a peak by 2020, with severe supply-growth constraints beginning in 2010 (stemming from "patently unsustainable" energy use and a lack of production investment) leading to rapidly increasing oil prices and an "oil crunch" before the peak.

It has been noted that even a "plateau oil" scenario may cause socio-political disruption through extreme petroleum price instability.

Energy Information Administration and USGS 2000 reports

The United States Energy Information Administration projects (as of 2006) world consumption of oil to increase to 98.3 million barrels per day (15.63×10^⁶ m³/d) in 2015 and 118 million barrels per day (18.8×10^⁶ m³/d) in 2030. This would require a more than 35 percent increase in world oil production by 2030. A 2004 paper by the Energy Information Administration based on data collected in 2000 disagrees with Hubbert peak theory on several points. It:

• explicitly incorporates demand into model as well as supply
• does not assume pre/post-peak symmetry of production levels
• models pre- and post-peak production with different functions (exponential growth and constant reserves-to-production ratio, respectively)
• assumes reserve growth, including via technological advancement and exploitation of small reservoirs

The EIA estimates of future oil supply are countered by Sadad Al Husseini, a retired Vice President of Exploration of Aramco, who calls it a 'dangerous over-estimate'. Husseini also points out that population growth and the emergence of China and India means oil prices are now going to be structurally higher than they have been.

Colin Campbell argues that the 2000 United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates is a methodologically flawed study that has done incalculable damage by misleading international agencies and governments. Campbell dismisses the notion that the world can seamlessly move to more difficult and expensive sources of oil and gas when the need arises. He argues that oil is in profitable abundance or not there at all, due ultimately to the fact that it is a liquid concentrated by nature in a few places that possess the right geological conditions. Campbell believes OPEC countries raised their reserves to get higher oil quotas and to avoid internal critique. He also points out that the USGS failed to extrapolate past discovery trends in the world’s mature basins.

No peak oil

The view that oil extraction will never enter a depletion phase is often referred to as "cornucopian" in ecology and sustainability literature.

Abdullah S. Jum'ah, President, Director and CEO of Saudi Aramco states that the world has adequate reserves of conventional and nonconventional oil sources that will last for more than a century. As recently as 2008 he pronounced "We have grossly underestimated mankind’s ability to find new reserves of petroleum, as well as our capacity to raise recovery rates and tap fields once thought inaccessible or impossible to produce.” Jum’ah believes that in-place conventional and non-conventional liquid resources may ultimately total between 13 trillion and 16 trillion barrels and that only a small fraction (1.1 trillion) has been extracted to date.

I do not believe the world has to worry about ‘peak oil’ for a very long time.

— Abdullah S. Jum'ah, 2008-01

Economist Michael Lynch says that the Hubbert Peak theory is flawed and that there is no imminent peak in oil production. He argued in 2004 that production is determined by demand as well as geology, and that fluctuations in oil supply are due to political and economic effects as well as the physical processes of exploration, discovery and production. This idea is echoed by Jad Mouawad, who explains that as oil prices rise, new extraction technologies become viable, thus expanding the total recoverable oil reserves. This, according to Mouwad, is one explanation of the changes in peak production estimates.

Leonardo Maugeri, group senior vice president, Corporate Strategies of Eni S.p.A., dismissed the peak oil thesis in a 2004 policy position piece in Science as "the current model of oil doomsters," and based on several flawed assumptions. He characterizes the peak oil theory as part of a series of "recurring oil panics" that have "driven Western political circles toward oil imperialism and attempts to assert direct or indirect control over oil-producing regions". Maugeri claims the geological structure of the earth has not been explored thoroughly enough to conclude that the declining trend in discoveries, which began in the 1960s, will continue. He goes on to claim that complete global oil production, discovery trends, and geological data are not available globally.

Abiogenesis

Main article: Abiogenic petroleum origin

The theory that petroleum derives from biogenic processes is held by the overwhelming majority of petroleum geologists, however abiogenic theorists, such as the late professor of astronomy Thomas Gold, assert that oil may be a continually renewing abiotic product, rather than a “fossil fuel” in limited supply. They hypothesize that if abiogenic petroleum sources are found and are quick to replenish, petroleum production will not decline. Gold has not been able to prove his theories in experiments

One of the main counter arguments to the abiotic theory highlights the biomarkers which have been found in all samples of all the oil and gas accumulations to date. These suggest that oil has a biological origin, and is generated from kerogen by pyrolysis.

Peak oil for individual nations

Further information: List of oil fields

Peak Oil as a concept applies globally, but it is based on the summation of individual nations experiencing peak oil. In State of the World 2005, Worldwatch Institute observes that oil production is in decline in 33 of the 48 largest oil-producing countries. Other countries have also passed their individual oil production peaks.

The following list shows significant oil-producing nations and their approximate peak oil production years.

Norway's oil production and a Hubbert curve approximating it.

Canadian conventional oil production peaked in 1973, but oil sands production is forecast to increase to at least 2020

• Australia (disputed): 2004; 2001
• Egypt: 1987
• France: 1988
• Germany: 1966
• Iran: 1974
• India: 1997
• Indonesia: 1991
• Japan: 1932 (assumed; source does not specify)
• Libya: 1970
• Mexico: 2003
• New Zealand: 1997
• Nigeria: 1979
• Norway: 2000
• Oman: 2000
• Russia: 1987
• Syria: 1996
• Tobago: 1981
• Venezuela: 1970
• UK: 1999
• USA: 1970

Peak oil production has not been reached in the following nations (these numbers are estimates and subject to revision):

• Iraq: 2018
• Kuwait: 2013
• Saudi Arabia: 2014

In addition, the most recent International Energy Agency and US Energy Information Administration production data show record and rising production in Canada and China. While conventional oil production from Canada is listed as 1973 oil sands production are expected to permit increasing production until around 2010, see table Canadian Oil Production.

See also

• Hubbert's peak
• Petroleum
• Hubbert Linearization