Peak Oil News and Message Boards

In a recent working paper, researchers at the the IMF (International Monetary Fund) attempt to reconcile the Peak Oil debate that whether resource constraints will dictate the future of oil output and prices, or advance in technology motivated by high oil price would eventually provide a solution to more production, as well as higher oil prices.



However, what most forecasts as well as the IMF paper did not discuss is the scarce human capital that's already seriously plaguing the oil industry, which could have serious implication in the future oil production and technology development.

With the aging and retirement of the boomer generations that began their careers in the late 1970s (see chart below), the oil industry is suffering an acute shortage of experienced skilled professionals.


A separate study by the Petroleum Human Resources Council estimates about 39,000 workers will be needed in Canada along to replace those who are expected to retire before 2020 just to maintain the status quo. The industry could need as many as 130,000 new hires by the end of the decade with more bullish oil and gas prices.

Already at least one analyst firm is scaling back its drilling activity forecast for 2012, in part because there aren't enough workers who can drill big, complicated wells. For now, NES Global Talent sees a depletion of skilled workers in oil and gas fields in the United States, Great Britain and Australia, three of the busiest oil and gas regions, will become a major problem.

Graeme wrote: With the aging and retirement of the boomer generations that began their careers in the late 1970s (see chart below), the oil industry is suffering an acute shortage of experienced skilled professionals.

Technology and exploitation of unconventional sources can't defer the long-predicted decline in global oil production

IN 2007 former US energy secretary James Schlesinger claimed the arguments in favour of peak oil - the key theory that global production must peak and then decline - had been won. With production flat and prices surging towards an all-time high of $147 per barrel, he declared, "we are all peakists now".

Five years on and production has risen by 2.7 million barrels per day to 93 mb/d, prices have recently slumped to around $100 a barrel and those who dismissed the idea that the rate we extract oil from the ground must inevitably decline jeer in delight.

Five years on and production has risen by 2.7 million barrels per day to 93 mb/d