Peak Oil at 2014?

323 wrote: »

This has been around for some years but no one really wanted to believe it, much to frighting.

A very intresting read is Mat Simmons, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy

www.twilightinthedesert.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDgiYXWSjaE

" The critical oil and natural gas producing region that we fought so many wars to try and protect
our economy from the adverse impact of losing that supply or having it available at very high prices
"

A 34 minute animated documentary about resource depletion and the impossibility of infinite growth on a finite planet.
Here is an excellent new animated short that ties resource depletion, environmental destruction and the end of growth into a single tidy package. For those of you already versed in this subject matter, this might still be good review; for those of you who don't, PLEASE DON'T PANIC! And when introducing this to people, please remind them that they will need a couple of years to come to terms with this, and should try to not panic in the meantime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOMWzjrRiBg

http://www.news-press.com/article/20120826/BUSINESS/308260019/Energy-expert-says-world-s-oil-production-has-peaked?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Home|s
Every year in August there is a weeklong event, the Oil & Gas Conference. It’s in Denver and draws an international audience. By most accounts EnerCom is the best on the schedule.This year 121 companies were scheduled to make presentations. If I were allowed to hear only one presentation, and attend one breakout session, I’d choose Core Labs — hands down.
“The maximum yearly oil production of the planet is taking place now!” That came from the CEO of a Netherlands-based company that has 70 offices in 50 countries worldwide. Their business is analyzing drilling results for all major companies and hundreds of smaller firms in the global energy-finding industry.
The company, Core Labs (NYSE: CLB $121), has a unique view of the big picture that few, if any, others could envision. As a byproduct of their normal business activities, CLB accumulates data about the current status of all major oil and gas basins on the planet. Annual revenues are $1 billion.
While an exploration company is drilling, CLB evaluates the rock samples and evaluates the potential of finding oil and gas below. After an oil or gas field is producing, CLB helps the well operators to extract the maximum amount of hydrocarbons from the reservoir. Information that extensive about all the major energy basins in 50 countries is a unique collection of data.
Never very bashful in the breakout session, CEO Dave Demshur readily offered his thoughts about the big energy picture. When queried about predictions of increased oil availability he took the under in most cases. Basically he looks for flat, or lower, future oil generation from Mexico, Iraq, Iran, North Sea, Russia, and the shocker — Saudi Arabia.
Demshur is a “peak oil” proponent, meaning that at some point the oil production of the planet will maximize, flatten, and then diminish. For the first time I can recall, he said we have reached the peak. His estimated planetary oil production in 2012 is an average 88 million barrels per day.
If anyone is more informed about the future supply of oil I haven’t found them. Let’s hope that his calculations are low, but if not — the 1970s may look like a picnic. By my pencil this is not a drill.

The world isn’t going to run out of oil anytime soon. But there’s still concern among various geologists and analysts that our oil supply won’t grow as quickly or as easily as it used to. We’ll have to resort to harder-to-drill oil to satisfy our crude habits. More expensive oil. That would push prices up. And high oil prices could act as a drag on growth.

V.
Conclusion
The scenarios developed in this paper highlight that the extent to which persistent oil
scarcity could constrain global economic growth and current account imbalances depends
critically on a small number of key factors. If, as in our baseline, the trend growth rate of
oil output declined only modestly, and if the economy was adequately represented by a
standard production function in capital, labor and oil, world output would eventually
suffer, but the effect might not be dramatic. If the substitutability between oil and other
factors of production was increasing in the oil price, the effect would be even smaller. But
if the reductions in oil output were more in line with the more pessimistic studies in the
scientific literature, the effects could be extremely large. The same could be true if, as
claimed by several authors in the scientific literature, standard production functions miss
important aspects of the economic role of oil under conditions of scarcity. We discussed
three possibilities. First, if the economy attempted to substitute away from oil, it might
encounter a lower limit of oil use dictated by entropy. Second, the contribution of oil to
output could be much larger than its cost share, because oil is an essential precondition
for the continued viability of many modern technologies. Third, the income elasticity of
oil demand could be equal to one third as in some empirical studies, rather than one as in
our model. And if two or more of these aggravating factors were to occur in combination,
the effects could range from dramatic to downright implausible.

Macha wrote: »

Markets at work: oil price goes up, more oil fields become economically viable to explore and exploit. More oil found.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-09/wti-crude-increases-a-second-day-as-stockpiles-decline-in-u-s-.html

West Texas Intermediate jumped to its highest level in 14 months amid declining crude stockpiles in the U.S., narrowing its discount against Brent to less than $3 a barrel for the first time since 2010.

Futures climbed above $105 a barrel for the first time since May 3, 2012. Crude inventories fell by 9 million barrels last week, said a person with knowledge of data from the industry-funded American Petroleum Institute. A government report later today may show that supplies dropped by 3.2 million barrels, according to a Bloomberg News survey. OPEC forecast lower demand for its crude in 2014.

“That was the second straight week of huge draws in U.S. crude inventories,” said Amrita Sen, an analyst at Energy Aspects in London. “Continued large inventory draws in the U.S. are fueling further optimism about the U.S. economy and reflect that production there is starting to flat-line.”