[Revi]

Based on this estimate, looks like 2016 may come in below 2015. Then Dennis is predicting a big jump up in 2017. Been some oil fields bombed this week in Iraq and Iran; also, have those production cuts that may/may not happen. Hmmm... I don't see 2017 exceeding 2015.

http://peakoilbarrel.com/iea-oil-market-report-december-2016/#more-14372

That blob that takes us to a peak in 2018 is assuming we can start up the tar sands and heavy oil in Venezuela when the price goes up. What happens if the price doesn't go up enough to make it happen? If so, we hit peak in 2015, and we are going down from here on.

[ROCKMAN]

Revi - "What happens if the price doesn't go up enough to make it happen?" As pointed out before one cannot call PO as it happens or even for many years afterwards. Look how close US PO more then 40 years came to being incorrect. Had prices collapsed we could have had a US PO in 2016. It will take many years, if not decades, to prove when global PO was reached. Folks are certainly free to project argue it however they want. But there's no way for anyone to PROVE they are correct.

[Tanada]

In the meantime we pour more and more CO2 into the atmosphere and it does decrease the alkalinity of the sea water and it does increase nighttime temperatures and mid winter temperatures and it does encourage gross level climate change. I had once hope Peak Oil would alleviate CO2 emissions but I have long since concluded we clever apes will burn everything burnable.

I am also coming around to the POV that conventional peak oil when at the same time we have a couple TRILLION barrels of recoverable heavy, extra heavy, liquid oils plus another TRILLION or two of Bitumen Oil Sands that we can process is less of an issue than I once thought it was. Converting a barrel of extra heavy liquid oil into gasoline is a tough chemical manipulation, but feasible with technology on our shelf for decades. Using liquid extra heavy crude directly to provide energy for large boilers or marine diesel engines with properly adjusted systems is much simpler and we can do that; and people do that every day of the week right now.

So sure Conventional Peak was 2005 or 2008 or 2012 or 2015. So what? Unconventional has a long run ahead of it before it peaks, be that 20 or 80 years hence. I am now in the peak is price dependent camp more firmly than ever before, if the economy can pay $100/bbl for oil and stumble on we shall have much greater 'reserves' than we have at $50/bbl. The longer we spend at $100/bbl the more the consumer economy adapts to higher prices. The more we adapt the economy the higher the price can creep because the efficiencies add up.

When we were hit with the shock of 2007-08 and zoomed all the way to $147 from $60 over about 18 months it crushed a lot of people who could not adapt fast enough. But then prices crashed and recovered back to $60/bbl by late 2009 and by 2010 they were in the +$75/bbl zone that quickly went to $80-$110/bbl and stayed there from late 2010 to late 2014. During that four years the economy stumbled along and people adapted by getting more energy efficient both in the personal transport choices they made and in long distance freight. Rail traffic through this area went way way up along with the diesel price because trains can haul cargo three times as far on a gallon of fuel as can a semi-truck.

When prices recover that level I expect the same exact thing to happen, at $4/gallon for gas people buy the most fuel efficient vehicle that will meet their driving needs, and they do less driving as well, when compared to $2/gallon like we had summer 2016. This makes 'PEAK' a relative term because the higher the price the economy supports the more we can afford to pull out of the ground and the more strange technology we can use, like making synthetic fuel from electricity and CO2 and H2O, or Natural Gas to Diesel, or powdered coal water slurry as diesel fuel replacement.

[onlooker]

Yes, agree with Pstarr. Your not going to be able to maintain the oil price higher for any length of time given the degree to which now less Net Energy is entering the non energy producing part of the Economy. Also, because of the endemic and systemic problems worldwide in the robustness of Economies given all the Debt burden, the unemployment and underemployment abounding and the increasing substitution of the human labor force with AI and robotic systems. So I just do not see the Economies and especially the consumers being able to finance or pay for this higher oil price.

[AdamB]

Based on this estimate, looks like 2016 may come in below 2015. Then Dennis is predicting a big jump up in 2017. Been some oil fields bombed this week in Iraq and Iran; also, have those production cuts that may/may not happen. Hmmm... I don't see 2017 exceeding 2015.

http://peakoilbarrel.com/iea-oil-market-report-december-2016/#more-14372

That blob that takes us to a peak in 2018 is assuming we can start up the tar sands and heavy oil in Venezuela when the price goes up.

See those numbers back in 2008? That was when oil production was supposed to stop growing because of all the other things that peak oilers didn't know. I'm betting that all the things they still don't know are still around, so maybe yet another round of peak hysteria comes up, or doesn't, over the indicated time frame. Or peak demand does, as real energy experts are discussing, and the entire subject is irrelevant, as price is then driven by structural demand change rather than this fixation over supply that only proved people don't understand the supply/demand relationship.

What happens if the price doesn't go up enough to make it happen? If so, we hit peak in 2015, and we are going down from here on.

If the price doesn't go up, it is because those energy experts talking about peak demand were right.

[AdamB]

Tanada you still seem to deny or ignore our thermodynamic oil-production predicament: we were unable to produce Green River shale at $100/barrel. How will we at $53?

At $53/bbl, we don't have to.

[GoghGoner]

Looks like 2017 supply has taken a big hit right off the bat. Since this is not geological constraints, it violates the spirit of peak predictions. Oh well, still an annual peak for now.

Russia Claims Global Oil Output Down By 1.4M Bpd

[AdamB]

Looks like 2017 supply has taken a big hit right off the bat. Since this is not geological constraints, it violates the spirit of peak predictions. Oh well, still an annual peak for now.

Russia Claims Global Oil Output Down By 1.4M Bpd

Oh well is right. And again. When are people going to discuss the only oil rate production model that to date has worked, needing only to know how many more peak oils an area might achieve?

[onlooker]

Adam, seem to totally have missed the 800 pound Gorilla. Depletion.

[AdamB]

Adam, seem to totally have missed the 800 pound Gorilla. Depletion.

Haven't missed it at all. It didn't stop the US from peaking again after the first or second times, or the world from repeaking again after the 1979 peak. It obviously matters, but depletion is just a measure of what the next round of change in incremental recovery factor looks like, or the next dive into the resource pyramid.

How much of the Orinoco extra heavy as been depleted? Next to none. Hydrates? 0. US oil shales? 0. Canadian tar sands? A very small percentage. The USGS put some tens of billions of barrels of reserve growth (incremental change in recovery factor to the rescue!) on the North Slope, Prudhoe being about the only field that has suffered any significant depletion, the Lisburne pool is still sitting there, just waiting. So no, haven't forgotten about depletion, just recognize that it has stopped Ohio from peaking like 3 different times now, the US at least twice, the world probably more than twice. So...someday it will matter, and in the meantime...how many more peak oils? The sine wave model rocks!

[JV153]

That would about describe what alternating current looks like on an oscilloscope. Yes, it is a sine wave.

Edit > take necessary precautions before using it to measure high voltage, just in case you are stupid.

[onlooker]

Hahaha

[ROCKMAN]

pstarr - We actually use a drill bit that looks a lot like that sandworm. Used to cut whole cores of the reservoir rock:

https://www.nov.com/Segments/Wellbore_T ... rrels.aspx

[GoghGoner]

Hmmm... OPEC cuts, Libya disruptions, Canadian oil sands fire, etc... Looks like Ron's prediction is safe until 2018.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/oilsands-syncrude-1.4058066

She did not specify the reduction in crude volume, but combined with the Syncrude outage, up to 490,000 bpd, or nearly one fifth, of the oilsands' 2.5 million bpd of supply is potentially off the market.

On top of that Suncor Energy's 180,000 bpd Firebag thermal plant is also undergoing planned maintenance this quarter, adding to the shortage of heavy crude.

[rockdoc123]

Syncrude just can't make money at $50/barrel.

According to their presentations the breakeven for an un-upgraded barrel is $43/bbl (USD) and $47/bbl for upgraded crude.