THE International Energy Agency (IEA) Thread pt 3 (merged)

[meemoe_uk]

Yay! It's that time of the month again! The time when anyone interested in oil supply goes to the IEA website, and anyone whose a peaker blocks out reality - i.e. they insist only yesterday's method for oil extraction is valid. A Quadrilllion barrels found in some rock formation? Peakers insist it doesn't count, because we'll use at least todays tech to extract it.

Anyway, lets pretend there's some yet undiscovered reason why a barrel of oil doesn't count if we extract it with todays bucket and spade, rather than a bucket and spade bought last week.
Let's have a separate thread to celebrate the new long and golden age of oil of the 21st century. Also, its hard to keep track of all the new oil production records that are being set, its happening every other month!

peakers say all liquids is not at all like C&C, even those A.L.s is an excellent proxy to C&C, to within about 6%.

http://omrpublic.iea.org/omrarchive/11may12full.pdf
page 61

According to the IEA, the world set a new all time monthly oil production record in April 2012
at 90.96Mpbd this beats the previous record set just 2 months prior in February of 90.82Mbpd. ( The intial figure for Feb wasn't a record but has been revised UPWARDS, making it the high record, except now April is higher )

<------- peakers

<------ cornys

This evidences what I say about the IEA making 2 contradictory statements, their figures say peak oil hasn't happened yet, yet they will publish assertions of peak oil being 4 years ago. Still waiting for Pops to get back to me on that one.

next, have to dump this in response to the popular protests from peakers...

List of Preemptive peplys to tired old PO religion objections about new oil production record set
1.- The new oil is from filthy dirty dried up tar.
Nope, most is high quality conventional crude.
2. - It's record high oil prices that will cause society to collapse
Nope. For most of history, oil prices have been increasing, forcing the market to adjust. Never been a problem before. The world economy has grown fast during the history of oil.
3. - New oil sources are unconventional, so dont count
1st, wrong, most of the current oil supply is conventional, 2nd why shouldn't the small fraction of unconventional supply count? It's oil. Aren't we allowed to identify new sources of oil and exploit them? Who says? Was it written in the 12 commandments? If new sources aren't allowed, then peak oil happened 150 years ago when bucket and spade from the surface seep oil supply peaked and was being superceded by this new fangled 'dig down thru rock with a pick axe' oil.
4. -Oil demand is meeting supply, so that invalidates any new record oil prodcution, meaning peak oil has happened.
By that logic, peak oil happened 8000 years ago, when babylonian oil demand met supply. Also, anyone who tries this protest insinuates that demand meeting supply is some new thing that hasn't effectively happened before. By that logic, after over 8000 years of oil supply being higher than demand, we'd have a strategic petroleum reserve the size of a small sea by now. Dumb.


So what you peakers think to that eh?
My predictions - plenty of oil records will be broken in the next few months, next couple of years. The only cloud on the oil horizon is that in a few years TPTB might decide to crash the oil boom by contracting world money supply and crashing oil prices, like they did last time in late 1970s and early 1980s, then peakers will have something to hype about, at least on paper. In reality it would just be another man-made peak rather than the geological limit.

[vision-master]

There's oil in them rocks.......

[dsula]

Is that a good thing? 90Mbps. I'm sure 95Mbps is even better. What about 100Mbps? Will that make a better planet? Or 500Mps, I'm sure 500Mps will finally make paradise on earth a reality, or won't it?

[meemoe_uk]

Why not call this site the peak shifting the goal posts site? That's all the members seem to do here.

No peak oil? shift the subject to peak conventional oil, no peak there? shift the subject to demand vs supply, no anomaly there? shift subject to whether more oil is better.

Hi dsula,
In terms of more prosperity for more people, yes, more oil production is better.
Your question is alluding more about world population and its ideal number to fit the planet. It's pretty off the mark wrt the direct question of peak oil, but I understand its hard being a doomer during a golden age of oil, you gotta clutch at any straw you can get.

You lot don't mine making a show of squirming in desperation do you?

[dsula]

Hi dsula,
In terms of more prosperity for more people, yes, more oil production is better.
Your question is alluding more about world population and its ideal number to fit the planet. It's pretty off the mark wrt the direct question of peak oil, but I understand its hard being a doomer during a golden age of oil, you gotta clutch at any straw you can get.

You lot don't mine making a show of squirming in desperation do you?

Yeah, you see I'm not a doomer (actually I WISH doom would come swiflty, but I don't think it will). For me the important matter is QUALITY of life, which does not have much to do with material prosperity (of course within limitations). And as my general rule, quality_of_life = 1/population, you can see that I'm anxious to reduce the population.

And as alwyas I'm flabbergasted by people like you who blindly promote and cheer growth. It is then that I realize we're really DOOMED (but not fast enough).

[Ferretlover]

Record production, certainly. The top reason, you must admit, Saudi Arabia trying to break Iran text deleted by pumping an additional two million BBs' per day. You guess what happens if KSA keeps that up for another 90 days?

(between brothers, fights can be the worst) When a world's top two producers effectivly locked in a battle to the death, it could end badly.

KSA's feat, all the more remarkable as Iranian, Russian, Nigerian, Syrian, S. Sudan, oil deliveries are either missing in action or slowing dramatically. (Russia either cut production siding with Iran and Syria or simply trying to drive prices higher).
At the end of the day, only Iran will have surplus oil, (stored in tankers scattered across the Gulf) Even if it doesn't come to blows, when European sanctions go into effect in July, KSA's super efforts could, by then, endanger 'normal' production, forcing cut backs. Reasonable people might agree, KSA can't go on like this much longer. Don't forget how hot summer months are in SA. Exports will slacken, no matter.

While a financially wounded planet is adequately supplied today, where's the glut?

Fact: Saudi Arabia is taking delivery on its largest (Germany, US) military hardware orders in history.
Iran: digging in, refusing to budge on refining nuclear materials. Exports halved. Economy hurt.

Meanwhile, Israel's extreme right wing leaders can't wait, as (they feel) Iran stalls
for time, Perhaps, on the verge of developing N. warheads. Aftermath of a nuclear war in the ME will be the subject of a hundred books. (attacking nuclear infrastructure, even with conventional bombs, constitutes a nuclear war). Millions downwind will in the badness of painful time, perish.

Define 'Peak Oil': "How much oil can we afford to burn?" Saudi Arabia, Iran, are shelling out Hundreds of Billions for weapons they feel as are important as drill rigs for survival. How much a N war will add to a barrel of oil is unknown. Anyone who quotes a number is guessing.

Late news: President Obama dispatched nuclear experts to Israel. Pray for mankind but ask yourself, What If Iran and Saudi Arabia did not have oil and why, if it is not in short supply, are we fighting over it?

[Ferretlover]

Put things in perspective:
Desperation is the energy wasted to run those trucks (in VM's post above) to haul around a bunch of rocks, then more energy wasted to squeeze a few gallons of oil out of them. Then, more energy used to transport the oil, etc.

[AdTheNad]

List of Preemptive peplys to tired old PO religion objections about new oil production record set

You missed number 5. The peply(?) you always miss because you have no comeback. What is the net energy of the new total oil production record? Do you leave that out since it doesn't show a new peak and actually highlights the real problem?

[pstarr]

NGL (counted by the liars at EIA) is not oil, but rather a minor subset that may replace some gasoline. This is why (among several reasons) diesel prices remain historically high. You can gin up the gas supply with fake gasoline substitutes, but not diesel which is made from real oil

Including ethanol as oil is equally disingenuous. It ruins engines. My 2-stroke and 4-stroke lawn tools are in the shop because the corn liqueur destroyed parts. What is that doing to the expensive volvo and tacoma? It is also has a negative EROEI and so is double counting. The natural gas, coal, petroleum that goes into farming and distillation should be debited from the IEA numbers.

Real oil is in decline.

[Revi]

They are putting out a foul brew. It is a combo of tar sand, ethanol and NGL. It all sounds good, but it isn't the same stuff as we got before. Look at the octane of gas nowadays. It's all much lower than the gas we used to get. We may have hit a new high, or maybe it's a new low.

[dsula]

NGL (counted by the liars at EIA) is not oil, but rather a minor subset that may replace some gasoline. This is why (among several reasons) diesel prices remain historically high. You can gin up the gas supply with fake gasoline substitutes, but not diesel which is made from real oil

Including ethanol as oil is equally disingenuous. It ruins engines. My 2-stroke and 4-stroke lawn tools are in the shop because the corn liqueur destroyed parts. What is that doing to the expensive volvo and tacoma? It is also has a negative EROEI and so is double counting. The natural gas, coal, petroleum that goes into farming and distillation should be debited from the IEA numbers.

Real oil is in decline.

Engines can be engineered to work with ethanol, no problem. Same way as engines changed when lead was omitted from gas. Bio-diesel is made from real vegetable oil. And it's profitable, too.

[pstarr]

NGL (counted by the liars at EIA) is not oil, but rather a minor subset that may replace some gasoline. This is why (among several reasons) diesel prices remain historically high. You can gin up the gas supply with fake gasoline substitutes, but not diesel which is made from real oil

Including ethanol as oil is equally disingenuous. It ruins engines. My 2-stroke and 4-stroke lawn tools are in the shop because the corn liqueur destroyed parts. What is that doing to the expensive volvo and tacoma? It is also has a negative EROEI and so is double counting. The natural gas, coal, petroleum that goes into farming and distillation should be debited from the IEA numbers.

Real oil is in decline.

Engines can be engineered to work with ethanol, no problem. Same way as engines changed when lead was omitted from gas. Bio-diesel is made from real vegetable oil. And it's profitable, too.

Not the point. IEA assumes equivalence, a 1:1 replacement. Cars are not engineered that way. Those 2 mbpd ethanol are used as a fuel additive, like lead. If IEA said wood waste (a carbohydrate like corn) is oil would you believe them? Theoretically wood waste (any carbo material) can be converted (via thermodepolymerization) into liquid petroleum. Likewise NGL's (ethane pentane butane etc.) could theoretically be changed into oil. But they are not. They are used as chemical feedstock, lighter fluid.

The crucial point on all these newly defined "oils" are very expensive to distill, use lots of energy, are ultimately an energy sink. That is what net-energy analysis tells us, that if you use too much energy to make energy than the energy will be too expensive and then the society has no energy or money left over to do important stuff, like fix things or educate people.

[Pops]

This evidences what I say about the IEA making 2 contradictory statements, their figures say peak oil hasn't happened yet, yet they will publish assertions of peak oil being 4 years ago. Still waiting for Pops to get back to me on that one.

What is it you don't understand?

Conventional oil production volume hasn't increased in half a decade – the $20/bbl kind we've been burning for 150 years can't meet demand regardless of the record prices.

So we're substituting whatever else we can find that will burn, just like the economists said we would – we're up to the $80-$120 kind so far.


Kind of like burning the furniture to keep warm because the firewood shed is empty, LOL.


Did I mention Brent in April was at an all-time 12 month average of almost $120/bbl, the highest in real terms in the history of oil?

[OilFinder2]

Conventional oil production volume hasn't increased in half a decade – the $20/bbl kind we've been burning for 150 years can't meet demand regardless of the record prices.

I do believe meemoe already addressed this:

If new sources aren't allowed, then peak oil happened 150 years ago when bucket and spade from the surface seep oil supply peaked and was being superceded by this new fangled 'dig down thru rock with a pick axe' oil.

Any time a new technology allows production from new sources, doomers find a way of invalidating it. It's like saying the "good" oil peaked when you could scoop it off the ground from surface seeps, but once we had to resort to - gasp! - drilling a hole in the ground, doomsday was just around the corner.

Sorry, meemoe is right. Doomers are constantly shifting the goalposts. We're using new technology to extract new oil. Been going on for 150 years.

[Lore]

Sorry, meemoe is right. Doomers are constantly shifting the goalposts. We're using new technology to extract new oil. Been going on for 150 years.

Sounds like you're looking to strike it rich in the Klondike gold rush 113 years too late.

[ralfy]

Also, if we look at production per capita (which is more logical as we need to factor in increasing population as we consider increasing production), then we see that that peaked back in 1979.

Thus, any "record" in total production won't be enough until we go back to that peak and exceed it.

And then there's oil demand, which we are meeting with non-conventional sources. A better scenario would be seeing major increases in conventional sources similar to those of the past.

[dorlomin]

Sorry, meemoe is right.

Is that the first time on PO.com that someone has publically supported him on any issue?

[sparky]

.
I supported some of his stuff on the solar cycle 24 thread

His numbers are basically correct
so are the objection on including ethanol in the total , completely different stuff

as for tar sand shale oil and pre-salt oceanic oil ,
things must be pretty bad to go so far , so deep and wring oil out of a stone
it illustrate very well the problem , good cheap oil is pretty much gone
with the conventional giant fields going in irreversible decline

a side comment ..... the crisis is on oil Exports, what is available on the world market
all the producers increase their need faster than world production
politics get nasty when the exporting countries governments try to limit local consumption

The present drop in prices is due to slack demand due to the depression and Saudi Arabia waging economic warfare against Iran
and no they are NOT brothers.

[dorlomin]

.
I supported some of his stuff on the solar cycle 24 thread

His numbers are basically correct

Good to have it out in public. I had assumed even the skeptics had given up on him as a complete crank.

[Pops]

Sorry, meemoe is right. Doomers are constantly shifting the goalposts. We're using new technology to extract new oil. Been going on for 150 years.

So since he is "right" I guess it's all settled so I can go down and fill up at 25¢ a gallon?

No?

Debates about "goalposts" or calling it "new oil" or Magic Pixie Pee or what have you on some obscure website mean less than nothing. In the real world, easy, cheap oil has plateaued and what is left is much more difficult and expensive to extract/manufacture. Full Stop.