High prices *did* bring on additional production - eventually. It does take some time for it to come online. Note the rise beginning the middle of last year:



Illogical. At one time our biggest source of energy was coal. Does the decline of coal as our primary energy source mean that total energy declined? No. Therefore, it does not follow that if oil declined that total energy would also decline.

Furthermore, your statement concerning natural gas was also randomly pulled out of thin air with no factual backing. It so happens that natural gas makes a perfectly good transportation fuel. You simply threw in the word "constraints" without having the slightest clue whether NG had such constraints or not. NG is as fungible and versatile as oil, and as discussed in this thread, it is abundant.


Ah yes, standard doomer response - throw in the word "limits" without even reading the information provided in the article. But yes, you are correct: There could be "limits" to the amount of electricity provided by nuclear power - a "limit" which is likely hundreds or thousands of years away. Not much of a "limit" if you ask me.

I suppose there is also a "limit" on the amount of energy we can ultimately expect to be provided by the sun: Another billion years or so 'till we hit the "limit."


An utterly off-topic, strawman reply. The last time "this sort of shakeout occurred " in the early 80's (deep recession, oil price rise then crash) was followed by 17 years of economic expansion and only 1 year of contraction. So much for the "sluggish economic growth" you complained about. And last time I looked the oil companies are still around and doing fine, thank you, rather than being "in decline" as you claimed. Having shown you these facts, you are left to reply with some nonsense about class struggle, evil greedy rich people and other such leftist tripe.

Oh - but wait! Since you seem to guage the health of an economy on how well the middle class does, the economic collapse and decline in energy availability you advocate will make their plight even worse! Beware of what you ask for, you just might get it!


Such an effective debating tactic!


The deflation you speak of will lower the costs for the needed energy projects, thus lowering the investment needs. You can read about it in JD's blog for starters. I can also show you declining prices for steel, polysilicon for solar panels, and a whole host of other cost inputs to energy projects. It all evens out.


In your dreams!

Oil at $46 pb.

I'll hold on that oil demand for 2009. Not wanting to be cynical but you can throw all the respected opinion and statistics around as much as you like, but we are living in a world economically different to that of the 80's even the 90's, and peoples economic activities are different. Sure people are having to tighten their belts, but when they see something going for next to nothing (or similar to the good ole days), you can bet the cash registers in the forecourts will be Kaching-chinging. Whether you accept it or not, we are a society that exists only to derive pleasure from spending, and as oil gives us a false sense of liberation and freedom, you can expect the general populous to want their fix. Signs of Cold Turkey started to happen this Summer with oil at $150, but at $46!!!!!

Please, a few hundred thousand additional barrels over the course of 4 years is hardly a stellar result given the huge price incentive to bring on more production. More like squeezing blood from a stone. But I grant that it is not conclusive whether we've peaked yet. But I'm sure its close.



Coal was supplanted by oil because it was a superior fuel source. What is the primary source of energy which can substitute for oil for all its net power, versatility and cheapness?


You don't know what you're talking about. NG suffers from a much greater logistical burden to bring it to market. More so, those markets are for the most part regional, unlike oil which is much cheaper to produce, deliver and store - this makes it a fuel ideal for the purposes of international trade.



No even non-doomers recognise that some things are either not worth the effort, or physically impossible to exploit. Shit, even economists know this.


The sun will last another 5 billion years, and there are always other limits besides energy, but that's the doozy.





You are utterly clueless. Most of this wealth was accumulated using debt, which is yet to be be paid back. Many people have been forced to borrow, or required their partners also bring home an income, to maintain their lifestyles. This chart shows the decline in household equity over the decades as Americans' have been transferring the ownership of their homes to the banks, in an effort to keep up appearances..


Yep the economy was real swell for the average American...

During the decades of the 80's and 90's western oil companies made little new investment in refineries, personnel (with many lay-offs) or exploration. Low oil prices saw to that.


What I want or say is immaterial, same goes for you - our power to influence reality is limited. The trajectory of human events makes it virtually certain that substantial doom awaits us, and probably not before too long. The cracks are already appearing, with the bust
up of the economy, the appearance of resource constraints, massive ecological destruction and accelerating climate change.



If the shoe fits.



Yep, you hit it home there Curly, trillions of dollars lost in home equity is just no match for the few millions saved by making more efficient solar panels. What could I have been thinking?



Wait and see super-cornucopian. Wat and see. The earth is no magic pudding, and we are not exempt from the laws of nature. Burning stuff to produce energy is not that clever. Producing your own energy from scratch, well that's something different. Oh, but then again - in your dreams.

New IPM is out showing production data through November. The peak of May, 2008 remains, and it seems that it could well be the all-time peak as this recession/depression is deepening and oil projects are being canceled all over the world even as production from old fields is declining.

The plateau lingers on, but for how long?

>>> LINK <<<

Now it's even less.

>>> Link <<<

The latest STEO has some revisions but is still showing a significant gap between consumption and production, with consumption having been 3.44 mbpd, 1.51 mbpd and 2.83 mbpd above consumption, in the last 3 months.

From a quick scan, every month in 2007 saw stock draws and, since then, stock draws look to easily have the edge on stock builds, if totalled up.

Here's some charts based on the data in the International Petroleum Monthly just released last week. The data is through December, 2008 so we can get quarterly and yearly averages as well as the monthly.

First, the monthly. Apparently July, 2008 is holding it's own as the top month of oil production by about 500,000b/d over May, 2005.


Now the quarterly averages. The second quarter of 2005 holds its record as the most prolific quarter of oil production in world history 74,061 to 1q2008's 74,048


The plateau holds. I still think it's amazing that for 4 years world oil production has remained on a plateau within about 1 1/2 million barrels a day, even in the face of an incredible price rise.

And the yearly averages. 2008 seems to be the winner so far, pending further revised stats. Still not very impressive in the face of $100+ oil.

>>> LINK <<<

BIG NEWS, 2005 is still the peak year. Crude oil production peaked in 2005!

Hear that Robert Rapier? The EIA International Petroleum Monthly is just out with revisions. Oil Production. Click on spreadsheet 4.d. The figures are average production for the entire year in thousands of barrels per day.

2005 73,728
2006 73,446
2007 72,989
2008 73,709
2009 71,847 First five months average.

Actually I am not too excited about this because I have always maintained that the peak plateau was 2005 thru 2008. Actually it is mid 2004 thru mid 2008. The peak month is still July of 2008.
Ron P.

[new] westexas on August 12, 2009 - 2:58pm
I suspect that the current decline in demand is masking an accelerating decline rate in production. Based on the HL models, world conventional production in 2005 was at about the same stage of depletion as the US Lower 48 in 1970 and as the North Sea in 1999. And the initial three year declines in the Lower 48 and North Sea were quite low, then accelerating in the fourth year.

60 months of data is conclusive IMO

Newman, can you post the annual production rate (bpd)for all the years from 2000 through 2004?

1997 65,744,000
1998 66,966,000
1999 65,922,000
2000 68,495,000
2001 68,099,000
2002 67,158,000
2003 69,433,000
2004 72,481,000
Presently we are running at a rate that is similar to 2004.

Very good info. Thanks

Oilfinder2 care to step in and try to debate this?

Like many of us have been saying all along. 2005. Peak oil was Four Years Ago! It's downhill from then on, as we can all clearly witness.

Dwindling oil suplies are precisely why humans are desperately searching around for Other Things to Burn, such as (but not limited to) our corn and wheat crops, as well as converting the dwindling remains of our rain forests into horribly destructive and 'green' oil substitute crops such as sugar and palm.