Peak oil, prices, and supplies – Oct 20

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Supply and Debate
Kjell Aleklett and Matthew Simmons, Foreign Policy
Daniel Yergin muses that oil, celebrating its 150th birthday this year, has never been in better shape (“It’s Still the One,” September/October 2009). He argues that the world’s endowment of oil is larger than ever, despite a century and a half of constant use and a world consumption of more than 85 million barrels daily.

How terrific the world’s outlook would be if Yergin’s argument had even a touch of reality! Sadly, however, if one ignores opinion and simply adheres to well-documented facts, it quickly becomes clear that his assertions are utterly without substance… (Matthew Simmons)

…As Daniel Yergin suggests, there is indeed a “new world of oil.” But instead of describing the landscape in detail, he lays out a smoke screen that lulls his readers into a false sense of security.

Yergin’s company, ihs Cambridge Energy Research Associates, as well as the iea and my own group, Global Energy Systems (GES), have analyzed the world’s giant oil fields, and all have drawn approximately the same conclusion: Those fields that provide today’s production will, in 20 years, have lost production equivalent to five times the current production of Saudi Arabia. This oil is required for economic growth over this period. Even if Yergin’s cited oil resource base were to prove correct, ges has shown that this base cannot replace lost production fast enough. The world has reached the oil era’s maximum production capacity: peak oil… (Kjell Aleklett)

…The question of the future of oil supplies is a very important one, and discussion and different perspectives are welcome and valuable. The view on future supplies expressed in my article is based on analyses by IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, drawing on the data collected by our parent company, IHS, which has the largest and most complete databases on the world’s oil fields, including reserves and production history. We draw on these data for our recent analysis of more than 800 major oil fields.

Those data are widely used. In fact, both the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the IEA studies that Matthew Simmons refers to make significant use of them. The IEA has specifically acknowledged its reliance on a subset of these databases: “Our analysis of oil supply is based on a vast amount of field by field data,” its latest World Energy Outlook states. “The primary source of this was IHS Energy, without whose assistance we would not have been able to carry out this work.” We will be using the data in a new analysis of the future of the world’s oil supply, which we will make available to the readers of Foreign Policy… (Daniel Yergin)
(November/December issue 2009)

The Next Oil Crisis is Just Ahead
Chris Nelder, energy and capital
I have just returned from the annual conference sponsored by the U.S. contingent of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO-USA) with a wealth of new information and perspective to share, so this will be the first of a series of reports.
I look forward to the ASPO-USA conferences all year, because they consistently deliver good, solid data on the state of energy and afford an opportunity for vigorous and stimulating discussion with some of smartest and up-to-date experts in the world-particularly over dinner and drinks late into the night. This year was typically outstanding.

As usual I took detailed notes, which will be uploaded in the weeks to come. But I’ll begin with some high-level updates on the key aspects of the peak oil study.

Past the Peak?

Perhaps the thing that struck me most was how much the outlook on peak oil has changed since the first conference in 2005.
Those who thought conventional oil had probably peaked back then were considered extremely pessimistic, where the consensus view saw the peak another 5-10 years off, and the optimists put it 20 years away or more. Some thought the peak rate of “all liquids” would be around 100 million barrels per day (mbpd), up from 85 mbpd at the time. Most thought non-OPEC production would increase up through 2010. Biofuel boosters were sunny about their future.
Four years later, the view on oil and biofuel has grown considerably worse.

We now know that conventional crude did in fact hit its peak-plateau in 2005, having remained around the 74 mbpd level ever since. The expected growth from non-OPEC mostly failed to materialize, as depletion of mature fields took its toll and the cost of new projects soared—especially for deepwater and production from marginal sources. More pessimistic observers now think the 87 mbpd all liquids peak recorded at the height of the 2008 boom was the peak, and the more optimistic ones have cut their expectations to under 100 mbpd, with 90 mbpd looking more likely.

…With the end of growth in the rate of global oil production now either in the past or looming in the next few years, attention is progressively focused on the depletion rates of mature oil fields and the rate and date of overall decline.

Most observers believe the globally averaged depletion rate has risen from 4.5% per year in 2007 to about 5 – 5.5% now, which will accelerate to around 6.5% per year by 2014. This is more or less in line with the average rates from IEA’s report last year. Petroleum geologist Chris Skrebowski pointed out that a 5% per year decline rate means a loss of 4 mbpd per year, equivalent to all the volume of biofuels, tar sands and heavy oil combined, or losing the entire North Sea in about 14 months, and that it would be a huge challenge to replace those lost volumes…
(16 Oct 2009

Oil prices hit high but report warns of supply crunch
Ashley Seager, The Guardian
World oil prices hit their highest point for a year yesterday, as a major new report urged governments around the world to take drastic action to head off an approaching oil supply crunch.

US light crude futures pushed above $79 a barrel, supported by the view that a recovering world economy would raise demand for crude. Oil prices have more than doubled from the low point they hit in the spring, but are still around half the all-time high of nearly $150 a barrel they reached in early summer last year.

Analysts have been surprised at the recent resilience of oil prices given the impact on energy demand of the global recession. In spite of this year’s volatility in the oil price, the underlying trend for a decade has been for it to rise steadily.

A report from the non-governmental organisation Global Witness – famous for its exposé of so-called “blood diamonds” – pointed to an impending supply shock that could be so severe that many of the world’s poor countries would simply be shut off from the world of energy by sky-high prices.

Two years in the preparation, Global Witness’s report, Heads in the Sand, accused governments of ignoring the fact that the world could soon start to run short of oil. This would lead to huge consequences in terms of price shocks and much higher levels of violence around the world than last year’s food riots…
(19 Oct 2009)

Anthropological Field Guide to Common Peak Oil Debate Participants (humor)
Ari, The adventures of sailing vessel macha blog
This post was inspired by the now infamous Michael Lynch piece in the New York Times.

Rather than a point-by-point scientific rebuttal of every point in his op-ed (which is hard because it’s relatively “content-free”), I decided to answer the more pressing question: “Who the heck is this idiot and what’s his angle?” To help, I compiled a field guide to the types you’re likely to encounter while reading about Peak Oil.

(Spectrum is from total denial to extreme paranoia)

Abiotic Oilers…

…FUD Peddlers…

…BAUers…

…Drill Baby Drillers…

…Not Yetters…

…Government Softpedalers…

…Free-Market Cornucopians…

…Techno-Utopians…

…Peak Oil Liters…

…Just the Facts Ma’am’ers…

…Mainstream Gentle Nudgers…

…Locavore Mafia (a.k.a. Bike-Lane Fundamentalists)…

…Long Emergency Preppers (a.k.a. Kunstlerians/Orlovians)…

…Neo-Malthusians…

…Doomers…
(31 Aug 2009)

submitted by KP, who wrote:

This piece was especially welcome after what has already seemed like a very long week of Peak Oil denial frenzy and increasingly gloomy climate change news, not to mention the never-ending expansion of the “Long War”. -KS