[ar]

I have been following the Peak Oil debate with great interest and have been reading plenty and I also try to engage others in discussions of the impending crisis. I have a problem with one basic fact.
Having studied several sites, I find the following data on global oil production over the past several years:
2002: 77million bpd
2003: 79.5 million bpd
2004: looks like being about 83 million bpd

How can I argue the fact the we are apporaching a plateau when confronted by this data?!
Many references say that we are presently in the peak years and therefore production should be flattening-out......for goodness sake.....its up, up and away!
(I realise that this means the steeper the fall, once we are over the hump)

How do I answer those that don't believe peak oil is upon us?

[trespam]

How do I answer those that don't believe peak oil is upon us?

I suggest starting with the ODAC numbers. [link].

They do a nice job of analyzing production that will be coming online in next six years or so. They don't see how production will keep up with consumption.

[Guest]

How can I argue the fact the we are apporaching a plateau when confronted by this data?!

Why 'argue' that? Peak Oil (energy) has so many other things to point out. Like the backing of our food infrastructure with hydrocarbons. Like oil is a limited resource that took millions of years to make and we're using it up in a far shorter time while not making provisions to replace that energy consuption level wiith a source that does not take millions of years to make.

[2007]

I also think it depends on which numbers you look at. The BP annual review (published july each year) has lower numbers than most others, including IEA. If you look at BP, the annual increase hasn't been so big.

2007

[0mar]

Plus we really don't know how much oil many countries are producing. Analysts use tanker travel to gauge how much oil is leaving the persian gulf because Saudia Arabia (among others) don't publish verifiable data.

[spot5050]

ar, could those figures be down to demand increasing? There's been a lot of talk about China's oil consumption.

[gluc0se]

Isn't the whole concept of peak oil that we will, and are, going up in oil produced until we peak (between 2005-2010)? So, a rise at this point isn't really inconsistent to the idea of peak oil, from what I understand.

[TWilliam]

Isn't the whole concept of peak oil that we will, and are, going up in oil produced until we peak (between 2005-2010)? So, a rise at this point isn't really inconsistent to the idea of peak oil, from what I understand.

Quite right gluc0se. That seems to be a point that many miss, namely that until the actual peak, production will continue to climb (subject to minor fluctuations due to politics, temporary supply disruptions, etc.). So what happens is that those who only look at "the numbers so far" scoff and say "whaddaya mean we're running out of oil? Just look at the numbers! We're producing more now than we ever have!" Only after the fact will we be able to look back and say "oops, that was the most we'll ever produce"...

Peak oil doesn't mean "we're out of oil". What it means is that we've hit the point where we will no longer be able to increase production, regardless of how much demand may continue to increase, and that in fact production from here on out will continue to decrease (from the peak onward).

[MonteQuest]

Also look back to the figures of US production in the late 60's prior to domestic production peak here in 1970. Same run-up to the peak.

[RonMasters]

One good way to convince people is just to show them the graph of historical oil production that shows on the link to topic6 from the home page of this site, and in a larger black & white version on the Houston Peak Oil[url=http://www.houstonpeakoil.org/]site.

Can anyone suggest where one should go to get a personal copy of that graph?

Of course, new technology and discoveries continue to expand production, but nevertheless, peak oil occured about 1970 in the US lower 48 as predicted. 35 years later some people still don't know that we can't have "energy independence" without radical change. Radical change does not necessarily have to be painful--nobody in America had a PC or a cell phone when we passed peak oil--but I am afraid that we will encounter disruptive, painful changes even before the dialog reaches the general public.

[Zardoz]

...Can anyone suggest where one should go to get a personal copy of that graph?

I can't determine exactly which one you're referring to, but this one is great:

http://www.oilposter.org/

BTW, the IEA charts are illuminating, as well:

http://omrpublic.iea.org/world/wb_wosup.pdf

I like to keep track of "World Oil Supply" and "World Oil Demand":

http://omrpublic.iea.org/balances.asp

For the record, comparing those two makes you wonder what's going to happen this winter or perhaps next spring.

[Lighthouse]

Also look back to the figures of US production in the late 60's prior to domestic production peak here in 1970. Same run-up to the peak.

Monte can you post this data? I would be interested in seeing how the US reached peak.

[MonteQuest]

Also look back to the figures of US production in the late 60's prior to domestic production peak here in 1970. Same run-up to the peak.

Monte can you post this data? I would be interested in seeing how the US reached peak.

Notice the increase in yearly production in the last 5 years before the peak.

1960 7,035
1961 7,183
1962 7,332
1962 7,332
1963 7,542
1964 7,614
1965 7,804
1966 8,295
1967 8,810
1968 9,096
1969 9,238
1970 9,637 peak at 9.6 mbpd

Also look at the data here for "Average Productivity per Day per Well":

1960 11.9
1961 12.1
1962 12.3
1963 12.8
1964 12.9
1965 13.2
1966 14.2
1967 15.6
1968 16.4
1969 17.0
1970 18.1

Crude Oil Production and Crude Oil Well Productivity, 1954-2005