[Enquest]

What should be the global decline rate when it happens. I wonder how this will go.

If many fields go in decline at the same time then the global decline would be far more then 2 or 3% a year. And it looks like most contry's will decline at the same decade. So what would the say for 9 to 10 %???

[linlithgowoil]

there is a fair amount of new oil coming online up until about 2008, but after this there is a problem. it is quite possible that the decline rate will exceed 3% because the large, old fields in the world will have a higher decline % than 3.

a decline rate of 10% doesnt sound very likely though, but if that happened it would be mad max within a few years worldwide.

[RonMN]

It's tough to say...when you consider that advanced technology in pumping oil makes for a quicker decline...but i don't know how many wells are doing things like pumping in water to raise the pressure.

It doesn't seem that 10% is impossible (considering the north sea is off 17% from last year) but it does seem a tad on the high side...Only time will tell.

[Taskforce_Unity]

Well according to the ASPO graph it will be between 1 and 3%. I think that is optimistic though. At first the decline will be around 1 to 2% and later on probably 5-6% (if you look at the ExxonMobil graph). Or maybe 3-4% if you look at Shells decline graph.

10% is total BS to my opinion.

[0mar]

Cheney stated that 3% is conservative.

10-20% is not unheardof. Yibal in Oman went through such a crash. Austraila has as well, and the North Sea (as stated above) has done so as well.

2-3% is the rate of decline in the lower 48 in the United States.

[MicroHydro]

I would guess that the conservatively managed fields will decline at 3% while the agressively exploited (damaged) fields will decline at 7% or more. Overall decline rate of 5% seems quite reasonable. The Saudi embargo of 1973-4 was a 5% drop. Life post peak will be like a 1974 magnitude economic shock every year

[jato]

I have thought about the decline rate as well. My best guess leads me to believe as we discover less and less oil, the decline rates would get steeper in the future. I would think the decline curve would become steeper as more and more mature fields go into decline.

Example: Peak oil happens in late 2005.

2007 decline rate %1.5. Depleting fields are mostly offset by newer production.

2015 decline rate %4. More and more fields are in decline.

2025 decline rate %7 to 15 or steeper. Virtually no new production, most fields are in terminal decline.

[RonMN]

Does anybody know???

If Ghawar ran dry today...what kind of a "percentage decline" would that give the world's production?

[pup55]

http://peakoil.com/fortopic6772.html

The post below suggests that Ghawar pumps about 4.5 mbo/d.
This is a little more than 5% of the global total of around 86 mbo/d.

Good point by MicroHydro

Code: Select all

Life post peak will be like a 1974 magnitude economic shock every year

I think the shape of the decline curve will vary due to geology, and the size and number of oilfields in each nation.

The Aussie/UK decline curves are extreme examples. Most decline curves are not that steep as suggested in the "experience based decline curve" thread elsewhere in this section of the forum.

[pup55]

http://peakoil.com/fortopic5222.html+slide

We composed a model of global oil production in this thread, using a UK-like decline curve.

[Antimatter]

I don't think you can extrapolate global decline curves from the curves of individual production nations or basins. Local production profiles are often influenced by factors other than geology, and moreover peak oil has more to do with the central limit theorem than the production profile of individual fields or basins. I prefer to think of oil production in terms of global gross depletion vs gross capacity addition. Gross depletion is the aggregate decline of fields worldwide that has to be offset. Peak oil occours when gross depletion exceeds gross capacity addition and net depletion sets in. The petroleum industry has had to offset depletion for decades and has been sucessful up untill now. It seems unlikely to me that either gross depletion or capacity addition will suddenly change on a global scale. Rather depletion will begin to exceed capacity addition and net decline begins. I beleive oil production will reach a plateau before going into a slow decline that gradually accelerates. The US 'natural gas cliff' scenario also seems unlikely to me for this reason - it is unlikely that decline rates will suddenly accelerate over a large region, and discoveries don't fall off a cliff either for geological reasons alone.

[pup55]

Gross depletion is the aggregate decline of fields worldwide

You are probably right. That is why the "average decline curve" from the posts above should be more useful than trying to fit the UK or Australia curve to the global production.

More likely (opinion only) the global decline will be more like the US case.

Unless, of course, one of those super-giant oilfields goes dead all of a sudden.....

[khebab]

http://peakoil.com/fortopic5222.html+slide

We composed a model of global oil production in this thread, using a UK-like decline curve.

The decline seems a little too dramatic to me, I was wondering if new discoveries have been taken into account in this graph.

[Enquest]

But if most contry's go in to decline. And opec needs to compensate all the time. Then, when opec goes after peak it must go much faster.

1. opec will damage their fields to compensate.
2. other country's will be much further in decline.

So I gues 1 a 3 % or a region. But you need to put the total productie and all fields in the math.

Well I'm not an expert...

[shakespear1]

Speaking as a Petroleum Engineer, the red curve that I see in KHEBABS post, if that turned out initially to be REALITY then I would expect two things to posibly happen if this were descrining a oil field,

1) If the field production continued on this curve for lets say 24 yrs. then this could only happen if I drilled extension wells because the field was larger than I originally though. And the decline stays moderate and nearly parallel to the historical ( purple ).

2) If I raised the production and 1) was not true, then in a short time I would expect a sharper drop in production then in purple curve. This being due to the agressive rates sucking what was left in the ground much faster. Doing this I likely to be leaving more in the ground by doing this then if I stayed on the lower rate profile ( purple prior to the bump around 2024).

Thus OPEC saying they will get aggressive in production actually could result in damage to their Ultimate Recovery if they do not have wells which have been cut in rate to keep as spare capacity. IN GENERAL.

As a rule we try to always do EOR ( Enhanced Oil Recovery ). The most common is water flooding which is there to provide a mechanism to maintain reservoir pressure ( ENERGY ) which drives the oil ( water and gas ) to the wells. THIS DOES HAVE ITS LIMITS of effectiveness. You use water as a PISTON to displace the oil, but water is anything but an ideal piston. Thus we typically have problems doing it OPTIMALLY. The reservoir is 2000m under the ground, hard to tell what is happening!!!!

Thus from what I read of Simmon's critic of Ghwara Field I share his sceptism of the numbers from there.

[seahorse]

shakespear1,

As a lay person, I would very much like to hear your assessment, as a petroleum engineer, of the pessimist vs optimist debate on peak oil. As a petroleum engineer, do you fall in the Simmons (pessimist camp) or the Michael Lynch (optimist camp)? Or somewhere in between? If you have reviewed the ASPO depletion tables, what are your thoughts on their data and models? Also, if you are in the pessimist "crowd", when do you see world oil prediction peaking? Last, what do people in your industry think about this issue of peak oil? are they generally optimistic or pessimistic? Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

[shakespear1]

Seahorse

There is a lot of good information on this WEBSITE. LOTS

For you as a layman it might be good to read where I started to contribute on this site as I was explaining my side of equation. I look at fields,wells an dproduction data. SO I have a better understanding from where the data comes and what is says and POTENTIALLY does not say.

Look here to see some of this discussion

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic7566-0-asc-15.html

As to where I fall on this subject. I am with Simmons. The Arabs are very likely inflating what they say they have. THEY ALL DO IT ( Oil Comp. ), some less than others.

World Production will decline in a simlar way to a single field. It goes up and then goes down. The best example is UK - North Sea. You can find the paper on the web showing how discoveries slowed down ( no more new reservoirs ) and then with a 10 -15 yr. lag production starts to come down.

There are too many self serving interests in Arab countries causing them do play shell games and obscure the reality. We will see it. With every passing year it will become more obvious. So where is the PO point is anyones guess but it is close. If there was more to give they would have given it.

Also there is excellent explanation of something that MANY that are not in the business do not understand, OIL IS FOUND IN SPECIAL ENVIRONMENTS.

Do here and read what "rockdoc123" says about this condition.

http://www.peakoil.com/post109732.html#109732

This in effect eliminates many places where one could think one should look or expect to find anything.

Hope that helps.

[seahorse2]

Shakespear1,

Thanks, it does help. I've been following this site and issue for a little over a year now. Not being in a position to analyze numbers, I've been forced to sit and let time tell where the truth lies. Over this past year, bottom line is, gas and oil prices keep rising, and the Arabs, oil companies, etc can't seem to do anything about it.

[shakespear1]

Part of the problem is speculation but the rest is simply due to not being able to supply what the maket wants.

Don't forget that another issue that has created a problem is the fact that the refineries were designed to process more of the Ligth Sweet Crude and not the heavier crudes that are being brought to the market. To increase handling ability of the refineries they need to invest and build/install the equipment. THAT TAKES TIME and $$$$. So they are behind an 8 ball this one, creating a situation such as we have today.

However the PO WILL happen. That is the supplly side of the equation. The only thing that can DELAY it is reduce consumption , DEMAND.

[Antimatter]

I was browsing old threads on this forum today, and found Soft_Landing had explained what I was trying to get across in my previous post better than I could:

Don't forget that the fastest decline rate achieved by world production *must* be the maximum of the weighted average of maximums for local productions all over the world. So, even though the decline rate in Alaska might reach 7%, the decline rate in other parts of the world would not necessarily be 7% at that time. The *world* consists of oil fields in various stages of production, some at decline rates of 7%, some at decline rates much lower (e.g., Venezuela).

If this isn't yet clear, consider just the Alaskan fields. If overall decline is 7%, then surely, some parts of Alaska are at greater decline than 7%, and some parts are at lower decline than 7%. The reason that decline can reach 7% in Alaska is because various fields in Alaska all came on around the same time frame, so the weighted average of depletion can get to a high level.

In contrast, this situation cannot be extrapolated to world production and decline. The variation in terms of age of fields (and complexity etc.) throughout the world is much higher than variation just in Alaska. Therefore, the weighted average of depletion rates throughout the world would never be expected to match that of Alaska.

This is one of the virtues of using the 'normal' curve or gausian curve to predict production rates. It reduces the temptation to extrapolate (incorrectly) from local trends to the much larger 'system as a whole'.

There's a theorem in statistics known as the "central limit theorem" which provides good reasons why the shape of world production should end up looking something like a 'normal' curve. Of course, politicking in the 70's messed that up. That normal curve, however, can still give us guidelines as to how fast world depletion can be on the tail side of the curve.

The point is that the occurance of 7% depletion in one mature zone cannot be extrapolated to the possibility of 7% depletion for world. You should expect that the 'world as a whole' should have a lower maximum depletion rate than that of it's parts.

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic576-0-asc-15.html

btw is Soft_Landing still around?