1. The 95-100 MMBOD plateau is all liquids
2. I am taking into account political aspects
3. The global production, barring sudden catastrophies, is like an aircraft carrier. It is pedictable for abotu five years and to make a change in trend requires time. There are many projects on the books that are now taking place, such as the Saudi expansion to 12 MMBOD, the Azerbaijan push to 1.2 MMBOD and many deep water projects in West Africa and the GOM. However, after about 2011, there is much less on the horizon which is why it is hard to see how the increase in production could continue past that point. There are enough other factors out there, such as Iraq finally coming on stream to its potential and reserve growth from exsiting reservoirs, that I predict a plateau instead of a peak.

Ray

Hi Piers, The OilWatch report (link in my earlier post above) was also referring to all liquids at 85 mbd. (Actuals data from the IEA and EIA)

I understand that the 95 – 100 mbd prediction that Ray Leonard reported was looking purely at the geological limits. If you plug in geo-political constraints that’ll bring the number down a bit. Then if you plug in staff recruitment problems, oil services equipment (rigs etc) shortages, technical problems and other project delays and cost overruns (manifestations of reduced EROI?), I’d guess that you probably come down close to the current 85 mbd for the next few years. So, in the real world, we are looking at a plateau up to 2011 or so, perhaps with a small bump in the middle. Unless the crazies in Washington and Tehran decide otherwise or a hurricane takes out too much critical oil production infrastructure.

The market will continue to push the price up in order to destroy enough demand in the poorest countries to make up for the continuing growth in demand in the richer ones, particularly China.

In short, I am curious if Mr. Leonard mentioned how little (or much) the oil majors have been ramping up their tech research spending in this era of huge profits. Too often the two sides of this debate appear to be speaking straight past each other without especially trying to refute each other’s arguments.

Rob,
Excellent presentation. Keep up the good work!

oil+koolaid –> 100 mbpd

It probably does not take into account the possibility of increasing frequency/likelihood of over-ground problems (politics, terror attacks, refinery mismatch, outright war on Strait of Hormuz, etc).

If Iraq was ‘fixed’ overnight and production ramped up, if Iran was heavily re-invested and local consumption unsubsidized, if Venezuela production problems were dealth with, if, if, if…

I’m of the opinion, based on not somewhat thorough reading of the news, that the error margin on the downside remains much greater than on the upside.

If a lot of over-ground problems are realized, we may never hit 100Mb/d, who knows?

At least the IEA public 120 Mb/d projection looks at this stage more like a fairy tale, but let’s hope things turn for the better over-ground.

http://www.peakoil.nl/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/oilwatch_monthly_september2007.pdf

Ray Leonard’s estimate of a 95 – 100 mbd plateau presumably only takes into account the geological constraints. Is the apparently lower plateau seen so far because geo-political factors are further constraining production below what is geologically possible?

Stephen