[Pops]

EIA study puts it around 340+ recoverable I believe. The real issue is, just as it was in the US, how much does oil have to cost before the next "revolution" kicks into gear.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=14431

Actually it has to do with lots more than simply price. There are a variety of reasons the US was the first and largest producer of crude and they all apply double to LTO.

Here is what has happened globally so far, again, even after 5 years of the highest average prices ever...

Notable shale resource exploration efforts are underway in several countries, including Algeria, Australia, Colombia, Mexico, and Russia. However, commercial shale development of the type demonstrated in the United States requires the ability to rapidly drill and complete a large number of wells in a single productive geologic formation. The logistics and infrastructure necessary to support this level of activity, including the drilling and completion processes, the manufacturing of drilling equipment, and the distribution of the final product to market are not yet evident in countries other than the United States, Canada, China, and to some extent, Argentina. Other above the ground factors such as ownership of mineral rights, taxation regimes, and social acceptance also play a role in decisions regarding the development of shales and other tight resources.

But let's just say that the EIAs resource number is right; and with a swipe of the magic hand all the listed impediments are swept away, (governments cede mineral and production rights to landowners and make taxes favorable; roads, rails, pipelines water sources spring into existence; manufacturing infrastructures appear from nowhere, protesters vanish, etc);
and let's say the economy has no problem with $1-2-300 bbl prices...
IOW, all that shale could be magically unlocked.

It would delay peak at most 5 years.




My guess is all of that won't happen in a timely enough manner to significantly offset the decline of the giant conventional reservoirs that are 80% of production. It's better than a sharp stick in the eye but then the only real surprise was how resilient the economy was to high price with help from unlimited government credit. The whole peak oil theory is that peak happens somewhere around the half-point of production... the second half has to come from somewhere.

For that matter, I don't necessarily believe LTO has peaked in the US, at least in the sense that it is a physical, geological impossibility for the flow to exceed the prior peak. Given $1-200 prices tomorrow, I have no doubt it would soon surpass last year. But every minute that goes by is another minute of declining legacy production and depleting resource base.

The underlying, most important fundamental of course is conventional depletion. But even more so with the very fast LTO decline. Depletion never sleeps, it continually erodes the $10 shoulders that $100 LTO stands on... even as we tap blather into the eather. That is and always has been the key to delaying peak oil, offsetting continuous depletion.

The question is, how long before decline / depletion of conventional and the LTO sweet spots already tapped makes revisiting the previous peak impossible?
1 year?
3-4-5 years?

Tik-Tok

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.

[Tanada]

But let's just say that the EIAs resource number is right; and with a swipe of the magic hand all the listed impediments are swept away, (governments cede mineral and production rights to landowners and make taxes favorable; roads, rails, pipelines water sources spring into existence; manufacturing infrastructures appear from nowhere, protesters vanish, etc);
and let's say the economy has no problem with $1-2-300 bbl prices...
IOW, all that shale could be magically unlocked.

It would delay peak at most 5 years.




My guess is all of that won't happen in a timely enough manner to significantly offset the decline of the giant conventional reservoirs that are 80% of production. It's better than a sharp stick in the eye but then the only real surprise was how resilient the economy was to high price with help from unlimited government credit. The whole peak oil theory is that peak happens somewhere around the half-point of production... the second half has to come from somewhere.

For that matter, I don't necessarily believe LTO has peaked in the US, at least in the sense that it is a physical, geological impossibility for the flow to exceed the prior peak. Given $1-200 prices tomorrow, I have no doubt it would soon surpass last year. But every minute that goes by is another minute of declining legacy production and depleting resource base.

The underlying, most important fundamental of course is conventional depletion. But even more so with the very fast LTO decline. Depletion never sleeps, it continually erodes the $10 shoulders that $100 LTO stands on... even as we tap blather into the ether. That is and always has been the key to delaying peak oil, offsetting continuous depletion.

The question is, how long before decline / depletion of conventional and the LTO sweet spots already tapped makes revisiting the previous peak impossible?
1 year?
3-4-5 years?

Tik-Tok

.

.

Something we have not spent much time talking about the last year because of low prices relevant to your comment above. For at least the period 2011-2014 I heard the more right knee jerk types complain that President Obama refused to issue any oil drilling leases in the Federal lands where over half of the Bakken shale beds are located. All of the drilling and fracking done in the last seven years has been on private or state lands exclusively leaving something like 60 percent of the Bakken play out of bounds for the drilling companies.

So what will the policy of a President Clinton or a President Trump be with regards to drilling federal lands and fracking the shale beds under it? If the price goes back into the $100.00/bbl range by the inauguration in January 2017 or soon after that federal leasing could be the key issue to the USA once again producing a lot of fracked shale oil. I get the feeling no matter who wins the election there will be enormous pressure to open federal lands to drilling.

[MonteQuest]

That is and always has been the key to delaying peak oil, offsetting continuous depletion.

And LTO has only been able to do that because the high oil prices that granted economical access to it also dropped demand growth from a projected 100mbpd to 96mbpd for 2015. Years ago, on this site, many opined that demand destruction as the price rose would push PO into the future by keeping demand under the declining supply. Instead, demand destruction kept demand well under increasing supply. Thus, the glut.

But this volatility just tells me PO is here, now. Now, the existing peak may well be breached many times yet to come, but the economic effects of PO are here now, today, not some date in the future.

[Cog]

Peak oil doesn't mean what a lot of people thinks it means.

But do carry on with the doom.

[Outcast_Searcher]

More importantly IMO, what will be the first domino to fall and start the chain reaction?

Today, the stock market opened with the biggest drop since 1932. Debt defaults look like the most likely culprit to be the first domino. Can't use low interest rates to check it. Print more money? Blow the bubble bigger?

What stock market? The Shanghai market closed nearly unchanged on Tuesday. World markets look relatively quiet overall.

The US S&P 500 index is quiet today, and opened a little higher according to Yahoo Finance. On CNBC, the latest S&P 500 quotes are hovering around unchanged.

If you're going to spread doom, at least just don't make stuff up.

[EdwinSm]

The Shanghai market closed nearly unchanged on Tuesday. World markets look relatively quiet overall.

Yes, Shanghai closed level, but

China's security regulator also injected some $19.94bn (£13.5bn) into the money-market system, and said it might restrict share sales by major shareholders.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35230135

So not doom yet, but neither is the market doing well.

[MonteQuest]

What stock market?

The US stock market. "The index fell 467 points, or more than 2.5 percent, temporarily on pace for its largest percent decline on the first trading day of the year since 1932."--CNBC

[MonteQuest]

Peak oil doesn't mean what a lot of people thinks it means.

Peak oil means the end of economic growth. You disagree?

[ennui2]

Only because demand destruction has dropped projected consumption from 110mbpd to 96mbpd. Otherwise, demand would be exceeding supply. And now, the low ROI is going to shutter much of that production.

Demand destruction != doom. It's not always a direct result of peak-oil either (2008 argument of cause and effect of the credit crisis vs. the oil spike ad infinitum).

Low ROI is due to low prices. Price goes up, ROI returns. All remaining shale gets fracked, providing a new ceiling on oil prices. How far will it kick the can down the road having two fracking booms instead of one? Time will tell.

[MonteQuest]

Low ROI is due to low prices. Price goes up, ROI returns. All remaining shale gets fracked, providing a new ceiling on oil prices. How far will it kick the can down the road having two fracking booms instead of one? Time will tell.

But shale didn't close the gap. Demand destruction closed the gap. 110 mbpd projected and 94.6 mbpd was consumed instead. If not for the recession, LTO would not have closed that gap of almost 16 mbpd.

[AdamB]

Yes, I remember the most popular graphics were those charts that had a big wedge for unconventional taking up the slack and everyone swearing up and down that unconventional flow rates and ROI would not be able to pull it off. Well, so far it has. How much longer, we don't know, but so far it has vindicated those charts. The wedge for future discoveries, though, that one is pie in the sky.

Well, considering that the scientists who do those kinds of estimates never fell for the entire collapsing oil production meme, I'm more inclined to think their geologic knowledge isn't as pie in the sky as it appears to us amateurs. They were one of the groups that was claimed to have put the nail in the coffin of peak oil, if I recall some of the backbiting exercises that accompanied the implosion of the oil drum.

[AdamB]

Peak oil doesn't mean what a lot of people thinks it means.

Gail thinks it means even cheaper prices to solve the horrors of the current low prices! Not quite sure I buy the entire peak oil = cheap oil routine, but hey, it sure didn't turn into expensive oil either. And more folks will enjoy the cheap oil consequences than the expensive oil consequences.

http://ourfiniteworld.com/2015/12/21/we ... to-fix-it/

[AdamB]

But this volatility just tells me PO is here, now.

Nah. We've had volatility going back to the Civil War, I don't think anyone uses simple volatility measures to determine peak, it just doesn't work.

[ennui2]

I don't think anyone uses simple volatility measures to determine peak, it just doesn't work.

Sure they do, when they're die-hard peakers clutching at straws.

[vtsnowedin]

Consider that the very day peak oil happens will be a great day in America. Some 95 million barrels of oil will be produced and sold at very favorable prices and the USA will with just four percent of the worlds population burn through twenty percent of it. We will kick ass.
It is the months, years and decades after the peak that will really bite the USA as being such oil pigs today we will have the hardest time of any people on the planet learning to do without it.

[MonteQuest]

But this volatility just tells me PO is here, now.

Nah. We've had volatility going back to the Civil War, I don't think anyone uses simple volatility measures to determine peak, it just doesn't work.

You mean the actual peak of production? No, no one does.

What I said was: "But this volatility just tells me PO is here, now. Now, the existing peak may well be breached many times yet to come, but the economic effects of PO are here now, today, not some date in the future."

Peak oil is an economic crisis, and that crisis is here now.

Funny. You quote me out of context and then use a straw man argument to refute it.

[MonteQuest]

I don't think anyone uses simple volatility measures to determine peak, it just doesn't work.

Sure they do, when they're die-hard peakers clutching at straws.

Now you support straw man arguments?

[MonteQuest]

It is the months, years and decades after the peak that will really bite the USA as being such oil pigs today we will have the hardest time of any people on the planet learning to do without it.

No, I think it is the months and years pre-peak that will make the years after the peak the hardest. We will have the hardest time of any people on the planet accepting the peak is coming. We will deny reality all the way to the day of terminal decline, rather than power down in any way, until we are dragged, kicking and screaming into the harsh reality of the limits to growth in a finite world.

Of course, in a world where the financial system is one of a debt-based currency that demands infinite growth to exist, what else could one expect? Foresight? Planning for the future? Guess not.

We won't learn to do without; we will fight over the resources.

[Pops]

The only thing sure about the period before peak is that on average production will not be declining, mostly. Demand might be big or small, rising or falling; price might be high or low, rising or falling; surplus might be large or small, rising or falling; production itself could be going in any or no particular direction... until it does.

Or all of the above for that matter.

The one thing I've learned here in 10 years is that attempting to fit headlines to opinions pretty well fails at predicting tomorrow's headline.

[MonteQuest]

World markets look relatively quiet overall. If you're going to spread doom, at least just don't make stuff up.

Ok. China's stock market dropped 7% and was only open for 30 minutes. This morning, the Dow dropped 250 points in 15 seconds upon opening.

So much for being quiet.