Chris Skrebowski, Energy Institute, London - Skrewbowski is the best analyst I know of in terms of empirically looking at oil supply going forward. Follow his work. Determining the actual liquid fuels peak is much harder after 2008 as demand has changed. OECD demand has shrunk will developing demand is still growing. OPEC has extra supply but its hard to tell how much. The EIA show 2012 as the peak not counting "unidentified projects". Skrewbowski thinks late 2014 is the peak (THAT's JUST 4 YEARS AWAY!!!). Skrebowski goes with 4.7% depletion of all existing production based on 3/4s of EIA's 6.7% depletion for post-peak fields. Skrewboski is expecting no production growth for 2012 with a little growth in 2013 and 2014. EIA is predicting demand growth of 1.2 Mbpd/year with no double-dip recession. Only half of oil demand is now the OECD. The peak will be around 93.8 million bpd. Current spare capacity is around 4 mbpd with the Saudis, Kuwait and UEA having 2/3s of spare capacity. Takeway: The Saudis control the price of oil. They have been targeting successfully a price band of between $70 and $80/barrell for years and should be able to continue to control the price of oil for another 2 years. Iran, Ecuador and Venezuela oil production is in a sustained decline. Iraq is a real wild-card. Apart from political/security concerns they could produce a lot of oil and shift the peak a couple of years. Takeway: Watch Iraqi oil production closely. The real (inflation adjusted) price of oil is higher now than in 96 of the last 100 years. $100/barrel price is needed to bring on new Arctic, Deep-Water, oil-sands, etc. The U.S. economy goes into recession whenever its oil expense exceeds 4% of GDP. Takeway: Find a way to graph and watch this.
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