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Do you believe in Peak Oil?

As the members here are probably the best source to tackle the much debated issue of Peak oil, I would like your opinion. Most Peak Oil discussion seems to be driven by economists and statisticians but at these forums there is a good population of the people that actually find and produce the hydrocarbons. I’ve added a poll so we can get a good overview of your opinions.

Furthermore, below are some discussion starters:

Peak Oil refers to the point in time that the the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached after which production rates are anticipated to start declining (according to Wikipedia). By this definition global demand seems to plays no role in Peak Oil. I personally don’t believe global demand can be taken out of the equation as this drives oil price and thus available technology and economic incentive to extract more oil. Isn’t it all about how much we want to pay?

Should recoverable volume calculations of other non-renewables like shale gas and methane (coalbed, sub-sea, etc) also be included in the Peak Oil prognosis or should theses be seen as different energy sources?

Are the Saudi oil reserves, and our poor insight in them, a serious impedance to assessing Peak Oil?

Is the common metaphor: “the Stone age did not end because we ran out of stones” really applicable?
…and if this implies that a global rate in production decline is sourced by less demand (due to an alternative), will it still be referred to as Peak Oil?

How can breakthroughs in the poorly explored Artic regions going to change our prognosis?

Would love to read your opinions!

I think you propose a lot of valid points of concern that are often forgotten by the Peak Oil fanatics. Indeed the 'new' Shale gas volumes may help us. The Saudi volumes may or may not be overestimated, but it's likely that large volumes of HCs are below the poles. Technology and a large budget will allow us to get it out... However I do think alternatives will come up as soon as there will be a cheaper source of energy. It's all about the money.

I voted option 4...

The good old peak oil theory raises its head again, and appears to be still misunderstood. I voted option 3 because I believe that we are close to reaching the highest historical production due to a lack of exploration and technology investment between 1995 and 2005, which slowed down technical progress. However, I think we are far away from any sharp decline in global oil (and gas) production as unconventional resources are hardly drained and only slowly kicking in.

Just a few words on the history of peak oil:
- in 1956, Hubbert proposed that within a confined geological theme (a field/reservoir or a play, or a basin) the ultimate recovery can be estimated by extrapolation of the production profile. The highest point in the production profile was thus called the Hubbert peak. Hubbert's theory was closely related to the creaming curve method, and assumed that creaming would happen with largest volumes explored and developed first, and that all volumes would be accessible to the producer from an early point onwards (no new major reservoirs or plays to be discovered later). Hubbert further assumed that price and technology would remain unchanged or small in impact.
- in the early 70s, the Club of Rome applied Hubbert's theory to world resources for minerals, and thus came to the conclusion that we will run out of natural resources in near future. Their report "Limits to Growth" made a real hype and influenced major political decisions, such as the creation of national oil companies to ensure the nation has its share of the shrinking reserves and profits. The report was of course a load of rubbish as it assumed no further progress in technology or science would happen. In reality, we have by now produced the proposed remaining reserves several times over, and we are still left with more reserves than predicted by the Club of Rome.
- By the late 70s the North Sea and other major areas had been discovered and it was obvious that reserves were not declining, but rather increasing. In an interview with a large popular science paper, my professor at the time therefore published his opinion that we will never technically run out of oil, but only reach a point at which production costs will exceed the costs of alternative fuels and thus oil (and gas) will be substituted. This theory is still valid today, but needs to be refined to account for the subsequent rise of the spot market for oil, which makes it very difficult to predict for decision makers when substitution is profitable and investment should be re-directed into other resources.
- In the early 90s, when Campbell published his book about peak production, he used the same method as Hubbert and the Club of Rome and thus fell back into the mistake that the Club of Rome made by assuming that historical production and technology are a sign for things to come. Unconventional resources as well as changes to price and technology (and with it changes to recovery factors) were insufficiently accounted for.

At the end, Hubbert was completely right but, like creaming curves, Hubbert peaks can only applied to well defined geological themes and not used to predict world oil as a whole, at least not now when unconventional resources are outclassing conventional resources by a huge margin.

Very interesting discussion going on here!! Thanks for all your insights.

In the mean time oil prices seem to have increased again and this brings even more incentive to go after difficult hydrocarbon resources.