Looking Back 10 Years After Peak Oil

This is a guest post by Verwimp Bruno.

All views expressed here are those of Verwimp Bruno and do not necessarily represent those of Ron Patterson.

1. INTRODUCTION

Introduction

Peak Oil is the moment in time when, on a global scale, the maximum rate of oil production is reached. The moment after which oil production, by nature, must decline forever. Since Earth is a closed system, next to this production (supply) event, there must be an equal demand event: Peak Oil Consumption. Since there are no substantial above ground deposits, Peak Oil Production and Peak Oil Consumption must coincide. The world consists of a lot of different countries, some of which are already far beyond peak oil production That leads to the assumption the world as a whole reaches peak oil production. On the demand side, it is worth looking, because different countries have different economies, different degrees of development, and so on, if, while some countries still experience significant growth in oil consumption, some countries are already well beyond Peak Oil Consumption by now. Read More

Texas Oil and Gas Decline in August

The Texas RRC Oil and Gas Production Data with production data for August is out. 

Texas C+C

The RRC data is always incomplete but if this month’s incomplete data is less than last month’s incomplete data then that’s a pretty good indicator that production this month is down.

The EIA data here is only through July. They have Texas production peaking in March at 3,644,000 barrels per day and declining by 197,000 bpd to 3,447,000 bpd in July.

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Open Thread, Any Energy Related Subject

Data for the below chart is from the Weekly Petroleum Status Report.

Daily Price Chart

Here we have a three year WTI price comparison chart. You can see that the 2014 price collapse began at almost the exact same time of the year as the 2008 price collapse. The 2008 collapse was a lot more dramatic and fell faster and slightly lower than the 2014 collapse. The 2008 collapse bottomed out around Christmas of that year and the 2014 did not pause until late January 2015. However by late October 2009 the WTI price was already in the $80 range. This time however we are still stuck below $50.

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OPEC Crude Little Change

The OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report is just out  with the crude only production numbers for the 12 OPEC countries. The data below is in thousand barrels per day and the last data point is September 2015.

OPEC 12

OPEC 12 crude only production was up 109,000 barrels per day in September but that was after the August production numbers were revised down by 82,000 bpd. OPEC crude only production now stands at 31,571,000 pbd. That is just 12,000 bpd above June production but still 100,000 bpd below their peak in July of 2008.

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