I see stuff written all the time about how much the shale "revolution" is going to produce and how much tar sands are going to produce ad nauseum. But I've never seen a really deep, critical review of the decline projections or any sort of "margin of error" analysis associated with them.
I searched this forum for a post on this topic, but was surprised not to find one. Has this been discussed elsewhere on this site? Does anyone have links to any critical analysis of the accuracy of "wedge of hope" decline projections?
sparky wrote:.
3- the shift in consumption , cars are way more efficient ,oil is no more used for power generation as a routine ,
most products now use less energy and materials
rather than a fall down a cliff It seems to me societies will over the course of decades manage somewhat a succession of crisis and depressions to lower level
There is just too little data. There are maps like this:ErikTownsend wrote:I see stuff written all the time about how much the shale "revolution" is going to produce and how much tar sands are going to produce ad nauseum. But I've never seen a really deep, critical review of the decline projections or any sort of "margin of error" analysis associated with them.
The people originally creating those charts usually say that their source data takes into account the eventual drilling out and reworking of the known existing sources. The question is what price is assumed in the future years which would determine how much re-drilling and secondary fracking will occur? At $400/bl there are a lot of now played out fields in the lower 48 that would look like Swiss cheese before the quite trying to squeeze more out of them.Pops wrote:I'm no expert but the problem I see with forecasts that show very steep overall decline rates, is they assume no new wells will ever be drilled again, no new tar sands will be mined, no new or old wells fracked, no deepwater horizons to be crossed.
If the average decline rate worldwide is say, 6% as long as there are still a few new wells to be brought online, the overall decline rate will be something less than 6% until there is absolutely no new production to be had.
I've said it before, the "peak" image in our brain is misleading, peak is a result of production not increasing - of new production falling below decline, not new production going to zero.
Have you seen this? :ErikTownsend wrote:Hence why I see it as essential to better undstand the margin for error in the decline forecasts associated with the giant CONVENTIONAL oilfields that make up most of our current supply.
Can anything be confidently stated about the average rate of conventional oilfield decline?
A commonly quoted global decline rate is from CERA: 4.5%. This figure was calculated from an analysis of 811 large to giant size fields, covering ~66% of global production.
CERA notes that most production is from large fields, and that these fields tend to produce on-plateau for longer and to decline at a slower rate than smaller fields. Additionally, they state that offshore fields decline faster than onshore fields.
CERA calculate that 41% of modern production comes from fields that are in build-up or on-plateau. They use complex averaging with the 59% of fields that are in decline to create the future 4.5% decline rate.
The IEA 2008 World Oil Report concentrated on defining future decline rates. They published a production-weighted average decline rate worldwide of 6.7% as of 2007. This is predicted to rise to 8.6% by 2030 as more and more old giant fields pass their plateau and start to decline, and the long tail of global production shifts to smaller more rapidly depleted oilfields. As of the IEA 2010 World Oil Report (the latest freely availble) the IEA stood by these predictions.
IEA uses IHS data. Decline rates are calculated for all fields in the database (including 798 “giants”). The overall decline prediction method may over-state decline rates, as pre- plateau fields have an assumed rate.
The IEA differentiate between Natural Decline (9%) and Observed Decline (6.7%), the difference being attributed to field interventions such as infill drilling. In total they calculate a 5.1% decline for 580 fields post-peak, and 5.8% for 479 fields post-plateau. The total is adjusted to account for thousands of smaller fields not included in their dataset to reach the 6.7% number.
IEA observe that Non-OPEC fields, with fewer Giant and Super-Giant fields, decline at a faster rate than OPEC fields. Additionally, offshore fields decline at faster rates than onshore, and deep-water fields decline at a faster rate than shelfal fields.
http://grandemotte.wordpress.com/oil-an ... ine-rates/
rockdoc123 wrote: My prediction at that time was somewhere between 2013 and 2017 if memory serves, but that was made before the shale revolution which would possibly delay a couple of years and likely make the peak look even more undulating and long-winded.
rockdoc123 wrote:OK, now that you clarify it is not shales you are interested in (which your post didn't make clear)
ErikTownsend wrote:if it were to turn out that the existing producing projects represented in this chart are still producing 83mmbpd in 2030 as opposed to the 43mm projected, then Peak Oil would indeed have been proven to be an unfounded scare and nothing more.
RED QUEEN'S RACE
The precise impact of decline rates on the 90 million barrels per day global oil industry is hard to calculate because some fields are still ramping up, while others are declining at different rates depending on age and type and the amount of sustaining investment.
In its 2013 World Energy Outlook, the IEA assumed an actual decline rate of 2 percent per year across all current conventional fields, rising to 4 percent per year in the 2020s.
But that projection was produced when oil prices were averaging well above $100 per barrel and expected to remain at that level throughout the second half of the current decade and into the 2020s.
In a world where oil prices are expected to average just $50-$70 per barrel over the next few years, actual decline rates could easily reach 3 percent or even 4 percent per year.
For fields which have passed their peak, observed output declined on average by 6.2 percent per year, according to the IEA ("World Energy Outlook 2013").
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