That they know who their major contributors are.

From the premier opponent of Peak Oil, one of the best argument to really worry

“To address this key question, we undertook a substantive analysis of the most extensive field production database in the world, developed and maintained by IHS, covering 811 separate fields that account for about two-thirds of current global production and half of the total proved and probable conventional oil reserve base,” according to Jackson. “The resulting analysis demonstrates that the aggregate global decline rate for fields currently in production is approximately 4.5 percent per year,

* Aggregate decline rate - The 4.5 percent per year aggregate global decline rate among fields in production (FIP) is much lower than the eight percent rate cited in many studies and projections. This pessimistic estimate may be a function of the generally more rapid decline rates observed in small fields – increasingly being developed in mature non-OPEC countries – and the rise of deepwater projects, which tend to flow at high rates as a requirement of commerciality, but which also decline rapidly.
* Fields in decline stage - Only 41 percent of production is from fields in the data base that are beyond the plateau stage and into the decline phase of their production lives.
* Low decline rate, longer lives - Annual field decline rates are not increasing but, as a result of increased investment, improved planning and technology, can be maintained at low decline rates in many fields for prolonged periods, and field life is very often longer than originally projected.
* Offshore vs. onshore fields – Individual offshore fields are declining at a 10 percent annual rate compared with six percent for onshore fields, and deepwater fields decline at 18 percent annually compared with 10 percent for shallow-water fields. Non-OPEC offshore fields decline five percent per year compared with 12 percent for those in OPEC.

Pity the deep and /or small fields are exactly the one's being developed now. CERA

[edit - shortened link - markl]

So, there is no peak oil...yet, we are past peak

What exactly constitutes the "plateau" stage of production that CERA so desperately tries to advance to create obfuscation in the energy markets? And more importantly, is what is the fundamental distinction between "plateau," as defined by Yergin, et. al., and merely a broad peak?

the big question is how much of an effect on demand is the coming global depression going to have

because if this thing hits as hard as i think it will there's a good chance they'll be able to stretch that plateau out another 5 years

Simple, while it's quite easy to have more supply than demand, by definition there cannot be more demand than supply, the balancing mechanic is price in a free trading market or rationing in a managed one ( usually with some black market on the side )

The coming economic slow down is going to barely dampen demand don't forget that the U.S. has ludicrously low gasoline price at less than 70 euro cent a litre, while in Europe they pay three times that easily , more in other places and people still want more !

I hate to break the news to the good citizens of U.S of A but all the whining about gasoline price is like a guy in the inquisition cellar complaining that the rack is cold to the skin .... before the screws start turning.

CERA is funny. They just don't get it. Do they? We're all ******. Every last one of us!

In this press release, CERA are now suggesting that US gasoline demand may have peaked in 2007.

With gasoline prices are much lower than in Europe and elsewhere (and so a likelihood that the pain of higher prices will become less over time), is it possible to acknowledge a peak in gasoline usage without acknowledging a peak in oil production? If production will rise as much as CERA has previously claimed, wouldn't they expect the US to claim some of that increased production? Wouldn't they expect a population growth of almost 1% per year to ultimately produce a higher demand, long term, unless oil has peaked, or will likely peak in the near future?

I can't quite figure out why CERA would make such a bold claim, if it still believed in the optimistic forecasts it was putting out only recently (for the medium term production of oil).

He's drawing a pretty clear distinction between the two:


CNN Money

CERA. I don't take seriously much these guys have to say. They're the anti-ASPO - endlessly optimistic. This is just the most optimistic spin they could put on this situation.

Yes. I'm not sure why that is difficult to understand...

Here's another example. EIA statistics show that oil consumption in Japan peaked in 1996 -- 12 years ago -- and has been declining ever since. "Peak oil" in Japan was a demand driven phenomenon.

Can that be read an anything else than US economy and/or Dollar is going down the drain but possibly other nations wont?

Japan's population has been static or declining for a long time. Not so, the USA's. That's partly why it's so difficult to understand. Another is the population density and the apparent aspirations of American citizens. To expect gasoline use in the US never to rise again, ever, especially with a rising population seems to be an unlikely belief, unless you think that oil production will, at least, lag demand from now on.

UK oil and energy use has been pretty flat or even slightly down over the past 40 years too. Is this because we don't need oil anymore? No! It is because we have exported our industry and manufacturing to the far East and instead run our economy on people typing in spreadsheets, football clubs and people suing each other. Our oil demand hasn't peaked, it's just been exported somewhere else so it doesn't show up on our figures. I imagine it's the same for Japan.

Peak oil...it is just a theory. That is what my wife's lady friend stockbroker told her.

Dismissing peak oil as 'just a theory' is an easy and quick way to rebut PO.

If the question is when we will peak - yes we can only theorize.

If the question is if we will peak - then it is not a theory and only a question of time.

No one knows the exact peak date for world oil production, but we do know that time will come in the not so distant future. But finding the peak is not hard problem once we can look back on it by a few years...but we need some time to do it...again, only time will settle this debate.

And the possibility may be that we find another big discovery and the peak dates look more like a double top stock market chart than the drop over a cliff.



But all this does not really matter. The bottom line is we are running out of crude no matter how the hard the spin doctors try to masturbate the facts.

The fact that 'we have to estimate' reserves or useful life of anything says that the item in question does not have an infinite supply or life span.

I never argue with persons claiming that we have peaked already or others that claim the peak is 20 years away. To me they are both on the same page, just looking at different paragraphs.

But the person that thinks that the world can go on forever using 31,000,000,000 barrels a year of crude and never have to pay the bill with the eventual depletion of fossil fuels is just plain wrong.

"If the public does think briefly about future oil supplies, the question usually asked is, "How long will oil last?" This is the wrong question. Oil will be extracted in some insignificant quantity perhaps 200 years from now. The critical question is: When does the peak of world oil production occur?" ~ Richard C. Duncan