[dinopello]

Peak oil is real. Oil reservoirs deplete and so production declines and eventually ends. This will happen to each well, every group of wells, field, region, nation, and finally the planet. There may be drops left, but not economic to drill. Our industrial infrastructure and economic system depends on inexpensive oil.

Back to basics ! The other important thing to understand is constant rate growth.

It's perhaps a nit, but talking about oil 'production' confuses people. Oil 'extraction' would make it clearer what's going on.

[Quinny]

Even given a following wind, the 'catalog' doesn't significantly alleviate the problems caused by the predicament we are in.

[SamInNebraska]

Peak oil is real. Oil reservoirs deplete and so production declines and eventually ends. This will happen to each well, every group of wells, field, region, nation, and finally the planet. There may be drops left, but not economic to drill. Our industrial infrastructure and economic system depends on inexpensive oil. You must understand this unless of course you are a proponent of abiotic oil?

Of course peak oil is real. What does that have to do with the "politics of peak oil"?

The national average price for gas in 2012 was $3.60 per gallon, which is the most expensive annual average on record. The previous annual record was $3.51 a gallon set in 2011, while the third most expensive year for gas prices nationwide was 2008, when the average was $3.25 per gallon.

Spot a trend?

Yes. Current prices are going down. And apparently car buyers are noticing as well.

http://www.freep.com/article/20130103/B ... nav%7Chead

But this isn't the topic, the oil discoveries which you appear to be implying allow this type of purchasing to continue,however, are.

[SamInNebraska]

Interesting. How do we know this? it would seem easy enough to check, do we have any domain tracking software available to show that no .gov, or .citibank, or .doe domains come here?

we did check. it is crap.

What is crap? The idea that anyone with a .gov or .doe domain has ever checked the site just to see what is going on, or the ability to check for that type of information?

[SamInNebraska]

You are partially correct. Among those named only Hubbert actually discovered oil. He always discovered peak oil.

Hubbert never discovered an oil field in his life, he was a scientist. And "always discovered peak oil", what does that mean? Did you mean "also" instead of "always"? And while discovering peak oil is good, I suppose, he also did the same thing Oilfinder2 is doing, which is count and add stuff up. Nothing wrong with Oilfinder2 doing the same, or maybe there is, but it certainly isn't obvious as to why?

[SamInNebraska]

Even given a following wind, the 'catalog' doesn't significantly alleviate the problems caused by the predicament we are in.

I don't think it is supposed to alleviate any predicament. It is just a list of oil discoveries. Is the beef with its very existence because it gives hope to those who want to keep their monster trucks, or because it is ammunition against the idea of "peak oil" itself? I thought peak oil was about price, in which case it does't matter how much is actually being found, only how badly one group is willing to pay for it, and when that matches what another group wants to sell it for.

[rockdoc123]

I'm going to reiterate something I said a few years back on pt 1 of this thread. The contribution of this thread should not be assessed on how good the numbers are. Oilfinder is simply reporting comments from various sources found and the value is in collating that information. Back before I retired I had access to IHS, WoodMac and a couple of other sources for this type of information but no longer due. I find it useful that when I see something posted as a new discovery I can do a bit of digging on the internet and find out whether or not a well was actually drilled (sometimes governments BS about "discovered" hydrocarbons but have only shot seismic and identified potential traps) and what was done (testing, logs etc) which validates or not the number reported. In some cases the numbers reported have come from audited reserve reports and in others they are simply early guesses by the operator or in others speculation by a third party. What is important is that there is activity going on and there still is hydrocarbons being discovered.

This of course has not a lot to do with Peak Oil at this point in our history simply because the time from discovery to production for big pools is actually quite long (10 years is the average for the big fields off west Africa) which means that the treadmill of depletion is running a bit too fast to catch up. What I think is important, as I've said countless times, is that by making the peak a bumpy, extended decline it gives time for governments to actually do something about transition.

I applaud the efforts put forward to get this information into one place.

[MrEnergyCzar]

Since we peaked globally over 50 years ago, of the good stuff, shouldn't there be some sort of multiplier to discount the poor resource discoveries i.e. oil in shale rock, Tar oil etc..? Is there an adjusted discovery graph to reflect this discounting?

Thanks,

MrEnergyCzar

[Quinny]

It's way beyond me (most things are), but I agree that a 'net' useful energy figure would be useful to help understand what's happening. I know someone's bound to scream that this is built into pricing, but IMO that is not a direct enough link.

Even if it could be done historically on actual production data it'd be interesting. It may even show us already on the downslope if EROEI is taken into account.

[SamInNebraska]

I applaud the efforts put forward to get this information into one place.

There it is! I was wondering why that isn't the exactly the attitude to display towards this particular list. I was beginning to get the impression that daring to even ask the question "gee, how much is the world still finding" was enough to get the asker pitched into the gulag.

[SamInNebraska]

Since we peaked globally over 50 years ago, of the good stuff, shouldn't there be some sort of multiplier to discount the poor resource discoveries i.e. oil in shale rock, Tar oil etc..? Is there an adjusted discovery graph to reflect this discounting?

Thanks,

MrEnergyCzar

The one one taking a crack at that question that I've seen is here:

http://netenergy.theoildrum.com/node/5500

[rockdoc123]

Since we peaked globally over 50 years ago, of the good stuff, shouldn't there be some sort of multiplier to discount the poor resource discoveries i.e. oil in shale rock, Tar oil etc..? Is there an adjusted discovery graph to reflect this discounting?

simply put it is price. The reason unconventionals became economic was due to dwindling ready supply of cheaper conventionals and resultant price rises. An interesting bit of trivia in this regard, however, is that certain unconventionals are now cheaper to extract than remaining conventionals (eg: liquid rich shale gas versus deepwater GOM gas).

In terms of Peak Oil all it refers to is having reached the peak in production....the idea that this represents half of the reserves is complete BS and can be shown to be wrong historically. Whether it is oil from conventional reservoirs or unconventional reservoirs doesn't make a difference as long as we are talking about production of a fungible commodity. There are finer points to argue regarding how fungible some of the liquids produced are, however.

[kublikhan]

Since we peaked globally over 50 years ago, of the good stuff, shouldn't there be some sort of multiplier to discount the poor resource discoveries i.e. oil in shale rock, Tar oil etc..? Is there an adjusted discovery graph to reflect this discounting?

simply put it is price. The reason unconventionals became economic was due to dwindling ready supply of cheaper conventionals and resultant price rises. An interesting bit of trivia in this regard, however, is that certain unconventionals are now cheaper to extract than remaining conventionals (eg: liquid rich shale gas versus deepwater GOM gas).

This is a good suggestion. Price is a good metric to look at as it captures many factors. Notice how much higher the price of oil is today compared to historically. This is a good indication how much more difficult it is today to get at the oil.

[kublikhan]

It's way beyond me (most things are), but I agree that a 'net' useful energy figure would be useful to help understand what's happening. I know someone's bound to scream that this is built into pricing, but IMO that is not a direct enough link.

Even if it could be done historically on actual production data it'd be interesting. It may even show us already on the downslope if EROEI is taken into account.

Here's the best post I found thus far on net energy:

I took your suggestion and used the new EIA data to make the following graphs.

I used these assumptions:
C&C yields 5.9 MBTU/bbl;
NGPL yields 3.8 MBTU/bbl;
Other Liquids yields 4.0 MBTU/bbl;
EROEI declines linearly from 25:1 in 1980 to 15:1 in 2011.





The story is quite clear: net energy from liquid fuels plateaued in 2005, and net energy per capita has been dropping rapidly ever since.

The original data was provided by the EIA. Total Oil Supply, World: International Energy Statistics

The numbers were then adjusted based on their energy content. The EIA also provides data on the heat content of various fuels by year: Heat Content

Finally, all 3 categories were adjusted based on declining EROEI over time. I am not sure where the author got his EROEI data from, but I don't think it came from the EIA. However it matches up with other estimates I have heard for EROEI. For example: Fossil Fuels-Energy Return on Energy Invested

You can see the original EIA data graphed as well as intermediate graphs in the original post: World Gross Liquid Fuel Production

One thing noted in a follow up post is that even though our per capita energy from liquid fuels is dropping, our total per capita energy use is still rising. In other worlds, our declining energy from liquid fuels is more than offset by rising energy from other sources:

Glider--what you have shown is net energy from oil and other liquids, per capita per day.

Energy use from coal, natural gas and hydroelectric is rising to offset this decline, even on a per capita basis.

This is my image of long-term world per capita energy consumption from my post World Energy Consumption since 1820.

World per Capita Energy use since 1820

[kublikhan]

The national average price for gas in 2012 was $3.60 per gallon, which is the most expensive annual average on record. The previous annual record was $3.51 a gallon set in 2011, while the third most expensive year for gas prices nationwide was 2008, when the average was $3.25 per gallon. Spot a trend?

Yes. Current prices are going down. And apparently car buyers are noticing as well.

I think you might be drawing the wrong conclusion from that article. The article notes people are migrating to more fuel efficient vehicles. High gasoline prices are encouraging high sales of fuel efficient vehicles.

“We were again one of the fastest growing automakers in the country,” Reid Bigland, Chrysler’s head of U.S. sales said in a statement. “Seven of our vehicles recorded their best ever annual sales in 2012 demonstrating how the quality, design and fuel efficiency of our product line up continues to resonate with consumers.”

"Ford finished 2012 strong, with retail sales showing improved strength as more customers returned to dealer showrooms," said Ken Czubay, Ford vice president, U.S. marketing, sales and service. "Ford's fuel-efficient cars and hybrid vehicles showed the most dramatic growth for the year.

Auto industry's 2012 sales

U.S. Automobile sales in August increased by nearly 15 percent over last year, even with gas prices rising at the end of the month to $3.80 a gallon. The New York Times highlighted the trends driving strong vehicle sales:
“Although trucks had a solid month, the small-car performance is what’s most impressive about G.M.’s numbers today” The Ford Motor Company said its August sales increased 12.6 percent, to 196,000 vehicles. It reported its biggest gains in the Focus compact car and the new Escape, its smallest sport utility vehicle. Focus sales were up 35 percent compared with the same period a year earlier, and Escape sales rose 36 percent.
“As fuel prices rose again during August, we saw growing numbers of people gravitate toward our fuel-efficient vehicles,” said Ken Czubay, Ford’s head of United States sales and marketing.

An executive from Chrysler called the U.S. auto market “incredibly resilient” due to the surge in demand for fuel-sipping cars. Chrysler saw a 14.1 percent increase in vehicle sales, partly due to its new compact sedan, the Dodge Dart.

In May, the Congressional Budget Office issued a report concluding that the only way to protect consumers from oil price shocks is to use less petroleum — not more drilling: “Policies that reduced the use of oil and its products would create an incentive for consumers to use less oil or make decisions that reduced their exposure to higher oil prices in the future, such as purchasing more fuel-efficient vehicles or living closer to work.”

Driven By Fuel-Efficient Vehicles, U.S. Auto Sales Are ‘Incredibly Resilient’ In Spite Of High Gas Prices

[SamInNebraska]

In terms of Peak Oil all it refers to is having reached the peak in production....the idea that this represents half of the reserves is complete BS and can be shown to be wrong historically. Whether it is oil from conventional reservoirs or unconventional reservoirs doesn't make a difference as long as we are talking about production of a fungible commodity. There are finer points to argue regarding how fungible some of the liquids produced are, however.

You sound like you are making quite a good argument for fuel manufacturing as well. If it is only a matter of price, then whatever it costs to manufacture fuel from pureed poor people to natural gas, the world can soldier on even without the "easy" stuff. Whatever "easy" means.