Author: ASPO-USA

From Dr John Howard Wilhelm. Sir, Your assertion that Peak Oil is dead and that US output of liquid petroleum has regained its previous peak reached in 1970 should not go unchallenged (“ Looking past the death of Peak Oil ”, Editorial, June 17). According to data from the US Energy Information Administration, US field production of crude oil in 1970 was 9.6m barrels a day. For 2013 it was 7.4m b/d. That is, in 2013 US crude oil production stood at 77 per cent of its annual 1970 peak. More IN Letters If one looks at the facts, the situation is far more fraught than implied by your analysis later in the piece. Earlier data from the Bakken oilfield indicated that annual production per well averaged 85,000 barrels a year initially with a decline rate of 40 per cent a year, which implies on a compounded basis 856 […]

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Post Carbon Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg was interviewed on peak oil and energy transition options at RT. 3 Comments on "Heinberg on peak oil and options for energy transition" Davey on Fri, 20th Jun 2014 8:17 am  Energy transition will have to include drastic changes in attitudes and lifestyles. This will “Only” happen with a ground shaking crisis where BAU still functions but at a precarious level. After all we are on a knife edge of collapse from here on out. Collapse means little energy to zero energy in many locations. Last crisis sooner the better spoken objectively. On the subjective side “BAU” if you can hear me I need 2 years please. Obama had a bit of straightforwardness yesterday : “It is in our national security interests not to see an all-out civil war inside of Iraq, not just for humanitarian reasons, but because that ultimately can be […]

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Those of us who have some grasp of the urgent dilemmas posed by climate change and peak oil face a terrible conundrum. The whole system of industrial civilization is moving toward collapse. How can we reverse course to avert an unprecedented series of crises that might entail massive human mortality and the more or less permanent crippling of planetary ecosystems? I can think of two broad strategies: Top down. Convince the folks in charge that it’s in their interest to change direction—that is, to reorganize financial, food, transport, and manufacturing systems on a no-growth, low-carbon model. Advantage: this audience at least theoretically has the power to organize a comprehensive and rapid energy descent. Recall the rapidity with which the US re-organized its economy at the start of World War II. Disadvantages: the elites’ incentives are all in the current direction of growth-at-any-cost, many of the key players remain in […]

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Advances in technology will continue to ensure that there are adequate reserves of oil and gas, as fears over supply recede, according to BP’s head of technology, David Eyton. Addressing the 21st World Petroleum Congress in Moscow, Eyton said that generally speaking the theory of peak oil has had its time. There may be other reasons for demand declines, but technology has enabled an increase in reserves. The industry has an excellent track record to increase production and replace reserves, enabled by a sustained high oil price and technology developments over the last 30 years, he said. The potential to enhance oil recovery from reservoirs is very significant, he said, adding that the average oil recovery rate from reserves in the world today is estimated about 35%. “You […]

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Advances in technology will continue to ensure that there are adequate reserves of oil and gas, as fears over supply recede, according to BP’s head of technology, David Eyton. Addressing the 21st World Petroleum Congress in Moscow, Eyton said that generally speaking the theory of peak oil has had its time. There may be other reasons for demand declines, but technology has enabled an increase in reserves. The industry has an excellent track record to increase production and replace reserves, enabled by a sustained high oil price and technology developments over the last 30 years, he said. The potential to enhance oil recovery from reservoirs is very significant, he said, adding that the average oil recovery rate from reserves in the world today is estimated about 35%. “You […]

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So Peak Oil is dead, yeah? Well, to a point. The Financial Times editorializes that while the “bell-curve” theory of production has been broadly disproved, the oil price remains stubbornly high because Peakists were right about the easy oil having been already found and drilled. North America is on course to produce 20% of the world’s oil supply by the end of this decade, and become a “titan of unprecedented proportions” in oil-products markets. So says the International Energy Agency, which points out that just a decade ago the U.S. was the largest importer of refined products. All this is thanks to that shale revolution, of course. U.S. crude-oil production in 2013 increased by a massive 15% from a year earlier , reaching the highest level since oil tycoons looked like Larry Hagman . In 2015, output should be close to the 1970 historical peak. The effect has been so […]

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With the June 16 release of the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2014, there is some continuing good news. The end of oil and natural gas is still at least a half-century or more away. The reserves-to-production (R/P) ratios for both fossil fuels are well above 50 years. The end of oil is further away than ever. Back in 1980, the R/P ratio (a.k.a., time to depletion at current production rates) for global oil reserves was less than 30 years — now it has increased to more than 53 years. In other words, over the past 35 years we have been discovering new oil reserves at a far faster rate than we have been depleting old reserves. 14 Comments on "End of Oil and Gas Still Many Decades Away" No, we’ve simply been adding things to the list of what we call “oil.” As I said elsewhere, the […]

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Production has not peaked, but prices could be volatile Peak Oil is dead. The news that US output of liquid petroleum has regained its previous peak , reached in 1970, is enough to read the last rites over the idea that a region’s oil production will follow a shape like a bell curve, rising to a peak and then inexorably falling away. Much of the theorising about Peak Oil failed to anticipate technological progress, or understand the power of economic incentives. The US boom in production from previously uncommercial shale reserves has been made possible by advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, and made a reality by oil prices that 15 years ago barely seemed possible. More On this topic Editorial Yet while the strong form of the Peakists’ argument can be consigned to the dustbin of history, they were not entirely wrong. Producing oil has become harder, […]

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Wall Street is the government, and the New York Times is right across town.  Maybe that’s all you need to know to understand what’s happened. In January, 2011, this writer published a four-part article entitled “ The War: Did We Sacrifice a Million Lives and a $Trillion Cash Just to Hand Our Jobs to China? ”  It was long (around 40 pages) and I must admit a little confusing, because the information was so stunning that I had a difficult time understanding what I was reading. The gist of the article was that Big Oil had asked Congress in 1998 to remove the Taliban so as to allow the building of a pipeline that would let Mideastern oil go to “the right markets.”  “The right markets”?  Guess. The US and Europe, of course.  Wrong. India and China. Those, it was explained, were “the right markets” because the oil market was stagnating in the US […]

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