of the
petroleum industry
Why worry after all production is up?
Oil Production Increases '02-'03
OPEC 1.654 M b/d (6.7%)
Russia 0.83 M b/d (11.2%)
Other 0.063
World 2.55 M b/d (3.9%)
Of course these fields are subject to up to a +5% useage depletion per year & decline rates
are likely to rise significantly in the long term, from an average of 6.7% today to 8.6% in 2030
Oil Capacity Increases '09
Saudi Arabia 1M b/d
Brazil 0.4 M b/d
Russia 0.5 M b/d
USA 0.3 M b/d
Note that the average recovery factor for the world fields is about 33%.
But that just means there is less left in the ground and we all run out sooner.
Saudi fields see no increases till 2013 at the soonest many think an oil crunch will hit before then. World oil production peaked in July 2008 at 74.74 million barrels/day (mbd) and now has fallen to about useage 72 million barrels of oil per day (mbd). It is expected that oil production will decline at about 2.2 mbd per year. The world now consumes 85 mbd, or 40,000 gallons per second the numbers are obvious.
Hubbert's curve is typically shown as a symmetrical bell curve, but that's an old assumption.
We have been pulling the oil out in such a way that the curve is skewed to the right by eaking out the last possible drops left. New production techniques cause rates to stay high longer so the peak occurs later but the cost of this could be a faster decline post peak.
Since '02, China now has overtook Japan as the worlds second-largest consumer of oil, and Klare predicts that China's consumption will triple over the next 20 years - as will India's.
