Still not peak oil (or at least not peak liquid fuels). With the IEA and OPEC both reporting through October (and the EIA through July) it seems reasonably likely that October has pipped the pre-Libya heights of January.
On the longer time frame, this is the biggest bump on the bumpy plateau that's been going on since 2005:
My best guess going forward is that the European situation is going to worsen further and cause a global slowdown that will lead to at least 1-2 mbd drop in production (and a corresponding drop in Brent price down somewhere below $80 in order to get oil producers to cut back in line with demand). Timing is hard to call, but the pace of degradation in Europe does seem to be accelerating. The impacts on the real economy there have so far been modest but I expect that to change.
As has been discussed earlier, while total liquids is an important parameter, perhaps more important is total net energy in the form of liquids. A recent study (Gagnon, N., C. Hall, and L. Brinker, 2009, A preliminary investigation of energy return on energy investment for global oil and gas production, Energies 2009, 2, 490-503) sheds some light on this. My interpretation of data in this article is that global EROI for oil and gas declined from ~35 in 1999 to ~18 in 2006. If this rate of decline is realistic for liquid fuels, and has continued, then the net energy of liquid fuels in 2011 could be comparable to or even less than the net energy of liquid fuels in 2008.
ReplyDeleteStuart, do you have a breakdown of the quantity of sub-fuels that are included in the all liquids quantity? In other words, the individual volumes of crude oil, condensate, natural gas liquids, liquid natural gas, ethanol, refinery gains, etc. that were produced in 2011.
ReplyDeleteScientist says, "Still not peak liquid fuels."
ReplyDeleteUsed Car Salesmen says, "Still not peak oil (or at least not peak liquid fuels)"... and then runs quickly into his sales pitch.
Stewart, you have a PhD. You know better (or should). Would you pull such crap in a scientific presentation?
Can someone explain why we look all liquids production as opposed to crude oil production? Liquid natural gas is not oil. Moreover, liquid natural gas liquids tend to rise as a field ages so it is quite likely that crude oil production is significantly overstated by using all liquids as a proxy.
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