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Peak Oil The numbers It seems the peak oil controversy is back after a few months of relative peace. I remember it was back early 2004 when I first heard of the term 'peak oil'. Some guy at a radio show was scaring the hell out of me with his talk on oil production not being able to keep up with demand, probably within this decade. In reaction to that interview I did some research and concluded that this person, and others, were probably right. But in the long run I didn't give the peak oil subject that much attention anymore. It's amazing how a good night's sleep can sooth one's mind. Some months after the interview, I noticed that more and more articles were coming out about this oil depletion problem. At the same time articles appeared that claimed peak oil was a 'scam' and that there was plenty of oil, not just to keep us going for maybe 30, 40 or 50 years, but even forever, since it was speculated, oil was regenerating deep below the earth's crust and refilling the existing and sealed off oil fields. In this article I will deal very little with the theoretical process of how, when, and in what quantities oil might be produced. If you want to know that, I'd be happy to refer you to the following articles (as opposed to this, this and this). You can also look at the bottom of this article for more links on this discussion. In this article the case will be made that oil production, regardless of the reason, is increasingly starting to decline all over the world --including Russia and China in the near future. This will put me at odds with several other, better known researchers (both abiotic oil and "plentiful-regular-oil" supporters), so before I get accused for being in one camp or another, I will start out by giving my opinion on different aspects of the peak oil controversy: Oil might also be abiotic, but at this moment regular, conventional oil certainly isn't replenishing fast enough to satisfy our needs. The same goes for the still theoretical abiotic oil. It's likely that constant oil price manipulation takes place. Numerous people have pointed this out very clearly. It doesn't disprove the peak oil theory. It's possible that someone like Lindsey Williams is right. Williams claims that the discovery of at least one giant oil field in Alaska has been covered up. However, the amount of oil hold back -possibly as a strategic reserve- is unlikely to sustain the earth's population for more than a few months. One thing is for sure though, for you and most of the world peak oil will still be happening. The 'peak-oil-is-a-scam' theorists usually imply that the globalist group is just manually tinkering with all the production numbers, is constantly shutting down perfectly good oil wells and manage to keep all the petroleum geologists and engineers fooled. I don't believe that, that's all. Yes, I do suspect that in some deep black program we already have developed very advanced, non-polluting technologies that could bring our consumption of oil down by more than 90%. But that's not the focus of this article here, as there's no way I can prove that. You can find a couple of links on this subject at the bottom of this article. In any case, if this turns out to be the case, you can be sure you're not going to benefit from it. In your world, peak oil will still be happening .
Putting the Communist abiotic oil theory to rest Now that you know my opinions, let's deal with some things I can actually prove. After reading the articles on abiotic oil, I began to doubt. As I said before, first I was told that enough oil would be around for 30, 40 or 50 years, then I was told that oil would peak within a few years, and finally I was told oil would last forever. Since I really liked to know which claim was actually backed by some facts, I began to gather all the available information that had been supplied by the peak oil community and compared it to the
|  | official data as far as possible. I soon learned oil was declining all over the world and was quite amazed to see how discovery rates had been steadily dropping since 1964. One of the first surprises was seeing how the "magic" oil fields of the abiotic oil theorists hardly produced any oil at all. One of them, the Dnieper-
Donets (gas) field in the Ukraine supposedly was developed through this abiotic oil-theory, but up to this day the Russians and Ukrainians have failed to show any evidence of their huge reserves or increased production rates. You can read all the details here. I personally thought the image above is enough to convince anyone that this theory does have some problems when put into practice.
At the same page I just linked to, another field is discussed, located on Eugene Island. In the early nineties this field was declining, followed by a rise in production rate several years later. Abiotic oil theorists claim this is proof that the oil is coming from an inexhaustible source deep within the earth. However, it could easily be that through an earthquake or the drilling itself, oil from a small reservoir nearby seeped into the one that was being extracted. Since the earth's crust is constantly moving this isn't unlikely, especially not since a few years later production began to decline again. Then we have a pro-abiotic oil article by Joe Vialls. He depicts Communist Russia as the benefactor of the world (I'm not kidding, read the article), which opposes a Zionist/American conspiracy of greedy capitalists who are responsible for all the misery in the world (a little bit too much of a black and white view, if you ask me). I just re-read the article and what can I say about it? Ninety percent of the stuff Vialls mentions is not backed up with any sources. But of course he doesn't need to refer to any sources, since he's an "insider". At least, that's what he claims. According to Vialls, Colin Campbell (one of the first peak-oil experts) proclaims "idiot theories". However, in stark contrast to what Vialls does, Campbell gives a huge amount of data with everything he says. The couple of sources Vialls mentions are more or less unavailable to the general public. Examples are 'The Role of Methane in the Formation of Mineral Fuels (1967)', "more than two hundred Russian papers", his "cheerful Russian drillers and scientists...at Bodra #3" and the "Moscow Drilling Institute". At the very least he could have mentioned this site or this site, so people would have been able to read at least something for themselves without taking a course in Russian or having to fly to Moscow.
One of the "facts" Vialls claims is that the Russians have been drilling about 310 super-deep oil wells in their own country since 1970. And this is the reason they are now,
together with Saudi-Arabia, the largest oil producers in the world. The peak oil community (not to mention the regular oil community) does not agree with this view and as you can see in the image on the right, they show us why. I cannot confirm or deny the accuracy of the entire graph from ASPO, but as I will elaborate later, everything I could double check with official sources turned out to be correct. For a detailed |  |
analysis of Russia, you can check ASPO newsletter #31.
Looking at the oil graph about Russia it seems production increases rapidly began to slow down in the early to mid eighties and decline was imminent. But from 1989 and on, the Soviet Union began to collapse and went into a terrible recession. In 1994 GDP was only half of what it was in 1989, inflation was way up into the three digit numbers, and by this time 70% of the economy had been privatized through Yeltsin's policies. Only after Putin came to power the economy and oil production began to rise again. But when we look at the historic discovery rate, it's likely that Russia will hit its second peak within years from now. Coincidentally, the oil production of Russia went into a serious decline for the first time in five years. Let's hope this decline is caused by the Yukos debacle. And if Russia indeed possesses an unlimited supply of oil, as Vialls suggests, then we will see continuous growth from now on. But why then did Russia's oil production increases began to slow down in the early eighties, when they supposedly were drilling these super-deep oil wells for over a decade? With an unlimited amount of cheap oil, Russia would likely have ended up on top of the world.
According to Vialls, the Russians exported the abiotic oil drilling techniques, mainly in secret, to Vietnam, North-Korea, China and tried to bring it to India. Unfortunately, according to Vialls, in case of India, the evil Americans destroyed the project between the
|  | peace loving Russian government and the desperately helpless Indians (I am not exaggerating his viewpoint). It took some time to find, but on the left you can see the oil production rates of Vietnam, the last two years having been added by the author. Here you can find some very recent
information on the exploration of the Vietnamese oil fields. Here you can find information on North-Korea, which actually doesn't have any oil fields.
Some reasons why it is not very likely Vietnam and North-Korea are relying on Russian invented abiotic oil: Vietnam's oil production fell back in 2002. That's interesting when you have an unlimited oil supply. Official estimates indicate production will fall back again in 2005 (update: it did, as it did in 2006), because the output in the Bach Ho and Su Tu Den fields is decreased to prolong their life. Why micro-manage if you possess fields that produce unlimited amounts of oil? The proven reserves of Vietnam amount to 600 million barrels of crude. Today, oil consumption stands at 83 million barrels every day. You really wonder why a site like Oil Market Report doesn't even mention Vietnam in it's supply database? Vietnam and China argue with each other over who gets to own the potentially oil rich Paracel Islands. The same goes for the Spratly Islands. Why would you have these arguments if you can pump up an unlimited amount of oil from within your own borders? Many smaller oil companies are active in Vietnam. They come from Russia, France, England and the US. If the Russians can drill these inexhaustible oil wells, you'd expect all the other companies would be kicked out immediately. North-Korea still doesn't have any oil. They rely on hydropower, coal and only a little bit of imported oil. As expected, their economy is at a total standstill. So the question is, when will they start to benefit from Russia's abiotic oil drilling techniques?
It's also highly doubtful that China has any abiotic oil fields, as Vialls claims. At this moment
China is scouring the globe, looking for oil --its economy absolutely exploding. As far as I have read in the past year they have been or are negotiating with Russia, Iran, Colombia, Venezuela, Sudan and Canada for oil contracts. Several large deals have been struck with most of these countries, but China keeps on looking. China is also working to improve nuclear plants, coal plants (just like the US and other countries again), hydro-electric power sources, and |  |
anything else that might solve their energy problem. They are even experimenting with low power nuclear reactions (cold fusion).
The Chinese wouldn't need to do all these things if they had an unlimited amount of oil right in their own backyard. In fact, China still has regular brownouts in some of its major cities in the east, even now the country has become the 6th largest oil producer in the world. As with Russia, in the next few years we will find out if these countries indeed have abiotic oil wells. Personally, I am quite confident this will turn out not to be the case.
Reserves, discovery and confirmation If we go back to Russia for a moment, something that surprised me was that Colin Campbell doesn't shy away from mentioning the connection between the Rothschilds, Khodorkovsky, the robber Barons and Israel (ASPO Newsletter #36), so the claim that he's acting on behalf of the oil cabal, as Vialls implies, is kind of hard to sustain. Personally,
I see the opposite. At this moment, western companies and politicians are keeping the peak oil concept from reaching to the public, since a serious economic decline could follow when all the details appear on the front page of the largest newspapers. I believe the reason that some not-so-detailed articles (maybe 200 articles worldwide, which isn't that much at all) have appeared in the press is because it's not such an incredibly touchy subject to write on. If I were a journalist, I would be much more careful to write about, let's say, the holes in the 9/11 story, than I would be about writing on oil production and demand. It's an easier subject for most people to grasp, so automatically you'll see more journalists willing to write about it. But I'll bet that without the internet very few of us would have ever heard of the term "peak oil". Three of the first four graphs used in this article come from ASPO, just as all the production and discovery data. The problem is that I wanted this data confirmed via mainstream sources. Unfortunately, |  |
Peak oil advocates
Colin Campbell
Matthew Simmons
Samsam Bakhtiari
Jean Laherrere
Dale Allen Pfeifer
Mike Ruppert
Julian Darley
Richard Heinberg
Kenneth Deffeyes
James H. Kunstler
Chris Skrebowski
Kjell Aleklett
this proved to be only partially possible. In the regular media you might find the oil production of a country compared to the year before, but that's about it. It's very hard to find any information on long term developments. After a bit of searching I found a table in which the production data over the past 20 years from many countries was recorded It was buried somewhere on page 69 or so of a lengthy OECD rapport. I checked all the countries and although you will always see small deviations, 95% was dead on. The other 5% were only very minor deviations, which didn't make any difference to long term forecasts. Now, I have to say I have some trouble finding that pdf document now that I am writing this article 6 months later. As soon as I find it, I will put a link to it.
If you want a reliable source of information on new discoveries, don't even bother searching them through official databases. I suggest you grab a copy of Petroleum Review. Chris Skrebowski, the editor, has recently joined ASPO and keeps a close look at all the discoveries made in the petroleum industry. For the total amount of discoveries in the past,
|  | the 2004 BP chart on the left does an excellent job in confirming the information ASPO has been giving for many years. See the problem? That gap between production and discovery is growing awfully fast. Another very important thing the left part of this BP chart shows, is that in the late eighties and early nineties the reserves of OPEC have been drastically increased, without any significant findings in the area that would explain such an increase. Isn't it a
coincidence that during this time it was decided that OPEC countries could only export a certain amount of oil related to their reserves? The more reserves they had, the more they were allowed to export. So obviously they found a creative solution to their export restrictions. It's just ridiculous that these numbers have been accepted and presented to the public at face value.
Probably to best source to verify the numbers ASPO has given are the always up-to-date supply charts of Oil Market Report. They go back the years at most, but that's more than enough to see if a country is in decline or not. Below you will find a summary, in which I'll try to show that a worldwide decline in oil production is really just around the corner. Most charts come from ASPO or people you'll see in the list on the right. Some other charts come from Oil Market Report, which, as usual, doesn't give any discovery rates, but production levels are consistent with those given by ASPO. A look at the oil production per continent
Europe Europe only recently crossed its peak in oil production. In 1999-2000 everything still seemed fine, but since 2002 production has steadily begun to fall. From 7.3 million barrels
|  | a day in 2000, Europe went to 5.9 million barrels a day in 2005 --a 19.2% decrease in just 5 years and about a 4% decrease in production every year. This decline began in 1999-2000 when the United Kingdom peaked and this rate is likely to increase in the coming years as Europe's other oil producing giant, Norway, will start to decline faster. On top of that, Denmark, a much smaller
producer, but the only one who has been rapidly increasing its production rate, will probably start to decline too. And that will mean that every country in Europe is in decline.
There are more oil producers in Europe besides those in the OECD, but Norway and the United Kingdom are by far the most important.
Oceania Australia peaked in 2000 and its production rate is now declining faster than probably any
other country in the world. It's going down at a staggering 11% a year. Indonesia is also declining at about 4% a year after a second peak in 1996. New Zealand peaked in 1997 and the subject is starting to be discussed in some of their political parties. Brunei peaked way back in 1977 and Malaysia will reach its peak somewhere in the following years, which means the |  |
whole region will be in decline soon.
North America North America as a whole probably peaked in 1998, even though it has been climbing a
|  | bit since January 2001. Production in the Lower-48 states of America has been declining since 1972, Canada's regular oil peaked in 1973, Alaska peaked in 1987 and Mexico's production curve is nearly flat now, especially since 2003. The only increases in North America's oil production come from deepwater oil, which is estimated to peak somewhere
around 2010, and Canada's massive amounts of tar sand, which could last for a few decades. Tarsands are very heavy on the environment and total production is likely not to exceed a meager 3 million barrels a day.
So, I guess we can all agree that the western world's oil production has begun to decline like mad. That might not be such a problem as long as we can get our oil from other regions of the world. But can we? The following three graphs were put together in 1997 (no idea anymore from which site I got them). They seem to be quite accurate, but the exact year a region is going to peak is impossible to tell beforehand. It's also hard to get any numbers on declining continents, besides North-America, since there is usually no focus on individual continents. Official oil industry websites and the news media usually only focus on individual production data of a certain country or on OPEC/OECD production as a whole.
South and Central America South America and Central America have serious oil problems. Venezuela peaked in 1970, but is still producing a lot of oil. Trinidad peaked in 1978, Peru peaked in 1983,
Argentina peaked in 1998, Colombia peaked in 1999 and Ecuador is about to peak. Chile has peaked a long time ago, has little reserves and is importing most it's oil. Suriname produces extremely little oil. Uruguay and Paraguay have no known reserves and I don't know about the reserves of Guyana and French Guiana, but at this moment they aren't producing anything. Regular land-based oil peaked in Brazil in 1997, |  |
but their deepwater oil will last to around 2012 and their total production rate might reach 2.5 Mb/d at that time. This makes them the most important oil producer in South-America, together with Venezuela. Bolivia is producing about 50.000 barrels a day and with a some investments they can become a reasonable oil producer, but they will not even come close to offsetting all the declining countries surrounding them. Central-America (besides Mexico) and the Caribbean only have very small amounts of oil.
Africa The most important countries in Africa in terms of oil production are Libya, Algeria, Nigeria and Angola. Libya peaked in 1970, but still produces about 1.5 Mb/d. Algeria will
probably peak in the following years at about 1.5 Mb/d. Nigeria's regular oil probably peaked in 1977, but with their deepwater production, which is set to peak around 2009, they might reach a total production rate of about 3 Mb/d. Angola's land based oil is peaking at this moment, but deepwater production is likely to last up to around 2020. Total production at that time will probably be just below 2 Mb/d. Many smaller |  |
producers have already peaked: Tunisia in 1980, Cameroon in 1984, Benin in 1986, Ivory Coast in 1986, Egypt in 1995, Gabon in 1998. A country like Sudan might become an above average oil producer, but their total reserves are just a week's worth of oil for the world if produced all at once. Most other countries in Africa have even less reserves.
Asia As for Asia, China, Taiwan, Russia, Kazakhstan, India and in the immediate future Azerbaijan are the larger oil producers of this region. Of these countries China, Russia and India are expected to go into decline before 2010. Azerbaijan might last a few years longer and Kazakhstan will certainly last longer. There's very little info available on Taiwan. Vietnam and Thailand are modest producers and both don't have any major reserves. But I have no clear data on when these two countries are expected to go into decline. Vietnam might have already peaked in 2004 though. Japan hardly has any reserves, just as most other Asian countries not mentioned here. North and South-Korea have no oil at all. No graph from Asia has been included here, because I don't know which parts of Asia the maker of the graph (same style as the two above) included, or didn't include.
Middle East It seems that all our hopes for a constant supply of oil after 2010 are settled on the Middle-East. In the Middle-East the following peaks already occurred: Turkmenistan in
|  | 1974, Dubai around 1990, Syria in 1995, Oman in 2001, and Qatar is about to peak. Officially, Iran peaked in 1974 and is expected to make a second, but lower peak around 2009. Kuwait also had it's official peak in the early 1970s and is expected to peak again around 2010. It's really tough to get a good estimate on the situation in Saudi- Arabia. It is true they have increased
their oil supply quite a bit in the last year, but it is not often mentioned that this extra oil has a lot of sulphur in it, which worries people who were already speculating that Saudi-Arabia is having trouble with its largest (totally unique) oil fields. For more information on Saudi-Arabia or the giant oil fields in the Middle-East I'd rather refer you to Matthew Simmons. Either read one of these papers or look here for multiple interviews with him.
One thing is for sure, if Saudi-Arabia goes into decline, the world goes with it. Q4, 2004 – Countries that produce more than 500.000 barrels a day. (Bold text are countries that have already peaked)
Rank | Country | Prod. barrels/day | Peak prod. |  | Rank | Country | Prod. barrels/day | Peak prod.
1. | Russia | 9.500.000 | . |  | 17. | Algeria | 1.230.000 | soon
2. | Saudi Arabia | 9.500.000 | . |  | 18. | Kazakhstan | 1.210.000 | .
3. | US & Alaska | 7.800.000 | 1970 & 1988 |  | 19. | Angola | 1.100.000 | .
4. | Iran | 3.950.000 | . |  | 20. | Indonesia | 950.000 | 1977
5. | Mexico | 3.800.000 | soon |  | 21. | Ukraine | 850.000 | 1970
6. | China | 3.500.000 | soon |  | 22. | India | 800.000 | soon
7. | Norway | 3.200.000 | 2001 |  | 23. | Malaysia | 800.000 | soon
8. | Canada | 3.100.000 | . |  | 24. | Qatar | 800.000 | soon
9. | UAE | 2.480.000 | . |  | 25. | Oman | 750.000 | 2001
10. | Nigeria | 2.450.000 | . |  | 26. | Argentina | 720.000 | 1998
11. | Kuwait | 2.370.000 | . |  | 27. | Egypt | 700.000 | 1995
12. | Venezuela | 2.250.000 | 1970 |  | 28. | Colombia | 540.000 | 1999
13. | UK - north sea | 2.100.000 | 1999 |  | 29. | Ecuador | 530.000 | soon
14. | Brazil | 1.900.000 | . |  | 30. | Australia | 500.000 | 2000
15. | Iraq | 1.790.000 | . |  | 31. | Syria | 500.000 | 1995
16. | Libya | 1.590.000 | 1970 |  | *** | Taiwan | 1.000.000 | very little info
Total oil production from these 31 countries is 73.260.000 barrels per day. Total world production in the 4th quarter of 2004 is about 82.500.000 barrels per day, so this list
accounts for 89% of the total world production. In the table on the right you can see that the majority of the countries will soon be in decline. Even at this moment, a minority of the countries is able to increase it's production with any |  |
Top 31 countries 2004/2005:
Rising | 11 | 35.5%
On the edge | 7 | 22.6%
Declining | 13 | 41.9%
significance.
The realization that there are fewer and fewer countries in the world that can produce the ever increasing demand for oil is only one aspect of the problem. These countries with
Fastest decliners last 5 yrs:
Australia | -11%
Colombia | -7.5%
North Sea | -7%
Indonesia | -6%
Oman | -5.5%
Fastest risers last 5 yrs:
Kazakhstan | +13.5%
Brazil | +13.5%
China | +12.5%
Algeria | +10%
Russia | +8%
|  | rising production numbers also need to compensate for the ever increasing loss of supply from countries that are already in decline. At this moment, early in 2005, all the declining countries in the world produce about 1.1 million barrels a day less, every year. (In fact, I just did a lookup and it's now definitely over 1.1 Mb/d) This means when world demand rises with a record 2.68 million barrels a day, like in 2004, the remaining non-peaked countries need to increase their supply with not just 2.68 million barrels that year, but with 3.78 million barrels just to compensate for the loss of production from all the peaked countries. Interestingly, depletion of natural resources is something economists never really seemed to have taken into account. "Project slippage",
like demand, is rising exponentially. Only a few years back declining countries were only losing 0.2 million barrels each year in total.
If the above data is available then how is it possible we hear on television that we still have oil for 20, 30 or even 50 years into the future? That's quite easy. You simply take the amount of oil you estimate is left in the ground and divide it by today's production or by an estimated production. And of course you can vary the amount you expect to find. On the right you see the total reserves estimates that are supported by many people in the traditional and peak oil community. In the examples below I have taken 2500 Gb just to avoid being too "bearish". Note that about 1000 Gb has already been produced: |  |
Estimated ultimate reserves:
Middle East | 820
Latin America | 270
US / Canada | 250
Africa | 220
FSU | 215
Asia | 145
Europe | 115
World | 2000
GigaBarrels (Gb)
When increased oil demand is not taken into consideration: 1500 billion in reserves : depleted at 83 million barrels a day = about 50 years of oil. When increased oil demand is taken into consideration (example): 1500 billion in reserves : average depletion at 120 million barrels a day = about 34 years of oil. Of course, these calculations do not take into account that there is a phenomenon called 'production peak'. The people who stand behind these estimates seem to suggest that oil extraction is exactly the same as emptying a glass of water through a straw --you won't notice the glass is running dry until you hit the bottom. This certainly isn't the case with oil and you constantly need to keep the pressure high, usually by pumping in seawater. This means the longer you are drilling out of a particular oil well, the higher the percentage of water is going to be you pump back up (water cut). The result is that effective production starts declining after a while. Improvements in technology like horizontal drilling can extract the oil in a much later phase of production, (and much faster) but it won't perform any miracles. The only thing that can offset a peak in world oil production is the fact that more oil needs to be discovered. The problem is that we don't find that much oil anymore, as you can see in the BP graph located several pages up in this article. Oil discovery in the past decades has been headed by the discovery of so called 'megafields', which accounted for about 80% of the total amount of oil found. Megafields are oil fields with a reserve of 500 million barrels or more and an estimated production capacity of more than 100.000 barrels a day. By today's standards it's hard to think of a field of 500 million barrels as 'mega', since the world consumes this amount of oil every 6 days.
In 2003 we found exactly 0 (yes, z.e.r.o.) new megafields for the first time in about 80 years. As you can see on the left, the amount of these fields we found, was already
Megafield discoveries
1999 | ?
2000 | 13
2001 | 6
2002 | 2
2003 | 0
2004 | 1*
2005 | ?
No pure natural gas fields
Megaprojects online
2003 | 9
2004 | 11
2005 | 18
2006 | 11
2007 | 3
2008 | 3
2009 | 0
No pure natural gas fields
|  | declining for a number of years. These discoveries mean that in 4 to 6 years, almost no new projects are going to come online. That's the time that problems are likely to arise. From 2007 and on, it seems that very few projects will come online and on top of that, it is very likely that some of the great oil producing countries of today will be in decline by then. At the same time, demand will keep rising and rising, the greatest portion of that rise can be attributed to India, and especially China. If we take all the above facts into account, we can make a calculation of when worldwide oil production is probably going to peak. Early in 2004 that calculation was made by Petroleum Review and looked like this:
Back then, they assumed world demand would rise about 1-1.5 Mb/d each year. Unfortunately, that number seems to have been well over 2 Mb/d in 2004. Back in Jan. of 2004 it was speculated we'd be |  |
well covered up to 2007, but if demand keeps rising like this that might not be the case.
* Preliminary data given by Chris Skrebowski of Petroleum Review in an email in March 2005. It refers to an oil field of more than 500 million boe. Two new fields had been found of over 400 million boe, but officially these are no megafields. Info of years before 2000 were not available (even) to him. Chronological order of countries that have already peaked
Poland | 1930 | Chile | 1981 | Gabon | 1998
Austria | 1955 | Morocco | 1981 | Argentina | 1998
Bulgaria | 1967 | Peru | 1983 | Colombia | 1999
Germany | 1969 | Albania | 1983 | United Kingdom | 1999
Ukraine | 1970 | Spain | 1983 | Australia | 2000
Libya | 1970 | Cameroon | 1984 | Oman | 2000
Venezuela | 1970 | Ivory Coast | 1986 | Yemen | 2000
Bahrain | 1971 | Hungary | 1986 | Syria | 2001
Israel | 1971 | Benin | 1986 | Norway | 2001
United States | 1972 | Greece | 1986 | Denmark | 2003?
Canada | 1973 | Alaska | 1988 | Vietnam | 2004?
Iran* | 1974 | Netherlands | 1989 | Malaysia | ?
Turkmenistan | 1974 | France | 1989 | India | ?
Romania | 1976 | Russia- | 1990 | Qatar | ?
Indonesia | 1977 | Turkey | 1991 | Ecuador | ?
Trinidad | 1978 | Pakistan | 1992 | Mexico | ?
Brunei | 1979 | Egypt | 1995 | China | ?
Kuwait- | 1980 | Italy | 1997 | Algeria | ?
Tunisia | 1980 | New Zealand | 1997 | Azerbaijan | ?
My guess is that most of you didn't know peak oil was such a common phenomenon. The thing is that most countries already experienced a peak in their oil production and are
producing less each year. Most of these countries, but certainly not all, are relatively small producers and some of them barely produce anything at all these days. One of the most extreme examples is Israel, which produced only 80 barrels of oil a day in 2001. This means it will take them approximately 350 years of continuous production to reach the amount of oil Saudi-Arabia is pumping out in one day. In the end, all these countries with rising and declining oil productions via typical bell curves show that the science behind peak oil is very reliable. However, keep in mind that the exact moment a peak in oil production is going to |  |
Top 31 countries - peak est:
Iran* - true peak in 1974 | 2009
Nigeria (deepwater) | 2009
Kuwait* 1979 | 2010
UAE | 2011
Brazil (regular) | 2012
Saudi Arabia | 2012
Russia * | 2012
Iraq | 2015
Kazakhstan | 2020
Angola (deepwater) | 2020
Canada (tar sands) | 2020+
* Officially their second peak.
occur is impossible to predict. It doesn't really matter that much whether the world peak is reached in 2007 or in 2011. The message is, that no matter what the reason is, oil will peak...and a lot sooner than we always thought it would.
What to expect in the near future The table is about the Top 31 countries I named above The conclusion of Samsam Bakhtiari, which is supported by calculations done by Petroleum Review You can read these calculations here and here. Original graph can be found here. References The oil industry's official data and the views of the peak oil proponents
Oil Market Report | For the most up-to-date production numbers of the major oil producers, you need to be here.
PeakOil.net | ASPO main page.
ASPO News | Very thorough monthly newsletter from Colin Campbell and a few others. They are free and you should read them.
Energy Information Administration | One of the best sources for getting production numbers from all the smaller countries.
Countrystudies.org | Sometimes you'll find here information on the oil industry of a particular country, that you won't find on the above sites.
Petroleum Magazine monthly articles | If you can't get the magazine, then read the monthly summaries. It focuses a lot on new discoveries and project slippage.
321energy | An absolutely amazing site, which keeps track of geopolitical issues with a particular focus on the stock and energy market.
From The Wilderness articles | A must-read. Very good geopolitical analysis.
Ruppert's speech to the Commonwealth | Great introduction to the subject of peak oil.
Global Public Media | Loads of interviews with very interesting guests. Ecology, peak oil, economy and geopolitics are it's main focus.
Life After The Oil Crash | This site has a great oversight on the peak oil topic. Personally I don't believe we're going to the Stone Age, as he suggests, but I highly recommend you read the articles.
Richard Heinberg's museletter | Author of two books on the oil peak. Very articulate.
Simmons & Company International | I think Matthew Simmons is one of the best speakers on the topic of peak oil (and natural gas). An expert on Saudi-Arabia.
Energy Statistics manual | Great ebook to read if you want to know the basics of the energy market. (Free)
Oil field mega projects 2004 document | Read it.
Peak Oil articles by experts | No description.
Hubbertpeak.com | No description.
Dale Allen Pfeiffer personal homepage | No description.
Samsam Bakhtiari personal homepage | No description.
PeakOil.org | Great collection of links to peak oil sites. Haven't seen any news updates in while though.
Tegenlicht Dutch TV on peak oil | Only the first 20 minutes are interesting as a lot of the known peak oil advocates are filmed during a conference. After that, the hydrogen-peptalk starts.
Surviving the peak | For the persons who like survival.
The World Oil Supply Report 2004-2050 | Only 3200 pounds.
Abiotic oil theory There isn't much real information on this theory, but because of Rense and Alex Jones' sites continually pushing these theories, they have ingrained them into the conspiracy community to some extent.
Gas Resources | Official publications of the modern Russian-Ukrainian theory. The only site with professional documents.
911 dossier | Mike Ruppert's response to some of the abiotic oil theories.
Joe Vialls | Vialls' piece about abiotic oil. I like to read his articles for some of the insights you get from it. On the other hand, a lot of it is pure speculation, which is usually presented as if you're dealing with proven facts.
7th fire articles | Great site with loads of articles. Of course, I don't agree with the abiotic oil stuff.
Alternative Energy
Nano Solar Technology | You might want to keep an eye on the developments surrounding this company.
ICP Solar | A diverse collection of solar energy products.
Zonnepanelen in de praktijk | For Dutch visitors.
Home Power Magazine | If you register yourself you can download their latest issues for free. (At least, that was the case the last time I checked)
JLN Labs | Cold fusion didn't work? Well...guess again.
Infinite Energy magazine | Unfortunately the editor, Eugene Mallove, was shot to death in early 2004, but the quest continues.
Blacklight power | They probably have developed some unique so called 'free energy' device, since there are some serious people on it's board. The question is if we'll ever hear about it.
Stanton Friedman | Worked for 14 years as a nuclear physicist for such companies as GE, GM, Westinghouse, TRW Systems, Aerojet General Nucleonics, and McDonnell Douglas on advanced, classified, eventually cancelled, projects as nuclear aircraft, fission and (I believe) fusion rockets, and nuclear power plants for space travel. I have heard him talking about the achievements made in the nuclear propulsion business and how all these projects were eventually terminated for reasons unknown. Stan is a UFO researcher and you might want to take a look at what he has to say. You can also find him here.
David Sereda | He produced the video "Evidence: The case for NASA UFOs". I personally thought it was an amazing video, but the reason I post it here, is because he also mentions 2 or 3 scientists who have been working on the same type of projects as Stanton Friedman, also in the mid to late sixties, and they are saying the same thing; Successful prototypes of advanced nuclear fusion propulsion systems were developed and then cancelled. It might be worth checking out.
Steven Greer | Of the Disclosure Project. He and his team interviewed close to 500 people from government, black projects and intelligence agencies. Also briefed heads of the CIA, DIA and the British MOD on the ufo/energy subject.
Oil Market Report's latest update Author: Joël van der Reijden Original: March 15, 2005 Last update: September 29 , 2005 Major HTML and syntax update: September 9, 2007 (done before moving the article to PEHI) Version: 1.5