any finite resource, (including oil), will have a beginning, middle, and an end of production, and at some point it will reach a level of maximum output
Probably should have quit right there.
Oil production typically follows a bell shaped curve when charted on a graph,
Not a bell...
with the peak of production occurring when approximately half of the oil has been extracted.
This was the idea that fixed in my brain. Peakers remember "geology trumps economics." A nice platitude but geology only puts the oil there, in the human world, politics, technology and economics control if and how it comes out and the shape of the curve.
oil becomes more difficult and expensive to extract as a field ages past the mid-point of its life.
I'm not sure about this broad generalization but along with the bell it was central to my view. There is certainly a wide range of cost based on location and geography and as cheaper oil fails to meet demand, more expensive oil becomes viable. Not as catchy tho...
Lots of colorful cost pictures here
In the US for example, oil production grew steadily until 1970 and declined thereafter, regardless of market price or improved technologies.
...
The amount of oil discovered in the US has dropped since the late 1930s.
40 years later, US oil production had peaked, and has fallen ever since.
World discovery of oil peaked in the 1960s, and has declined since then. If the 40 year cycle seen in the US holds true for world oil production, that puts global peak oil production, right about now; after which oil becomes less available, and more expensive.
There's the money quote. Shifting the discovery curve forward 40 years to find the production curve seemed perfectly simple to my little brain. The problem is you can't put a number to "discovery" until the knowledge about what was actually discovered is perfected. Over time both the geologic and non-geologic factors that determine actual production come into play. And of course "discoveries" themselves are a slippery item, part marketing, part balance sheet asset, part political pawn.
Call it "Reserve Growth." Which I admit was not in my vocabulary and was anathema here and in most po venues (iirc, we banned a user named ReserveGrowthRules in fact).
Dennis Coyne does a good job explaining
How much oil can be extracted from known oil resources profitably? This depends on many factors, the price of oil and technological progress in oil extraction methods are the chief factors, but improved knowledge gained through the development wells drilled and the corresponding output and geological data as known reserves are developed is important as well. Oil reserves do not grow, they deplete as the oil is produced. With increasing knowledge, oil price, and improved technology and production methods, the estimate of oil reserves changes over time and on average these estimates tend to increase, this is what we mean by reserve growth.
Turns out the hard part of predicting the future is predicting the future
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