Actually, peak oil is a geological/ petroengineering constraint.
Unless you believe in abiotic oil, we ain't making more, so we start with a fixed supply. Time and time again, it's been shown that when a field becomes about 50% depleted, the rate of extraction falls. No matter how many additional wells you put in, no matter which extraction methods get used (pump in water or CO2, horizontal drilling, etc, the rate of extraction of oil falls. It means, that, at some time, the field has passed its peak, and we will never be getting as much out of it as we did.
A good example; Cantarell is now crashing, between 15 and 40%.
UPDATE 3-Mexico's top oil field declining fast - Pemex
Wed Feb 7, 2007 4:46pm ET
By Catherine Bremer
MEXICO CITY, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Mexican state-run oil monopoly Pemex confirmed a gloomier forecast on Wednesday for fast-declining oil output at its aging Cantarell field, but said from now on it could keep total crude production steady.
Chief Executive Jesus Reyes Heroles said the company's official production estimate for Cantarell was for an average of 1.526 million barrels per day during 2007, down 15 percent from an average 1.788 million bpd last year.
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Norway Falls to Fifth Place Among World Oil Exporters (Update2)
By Bunny Nooryani
Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Norway dropped to fifth place among the world's crude oil exporters last year as the nation's North Sea production declined, the Norwegian energy ministry said.
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Same thing is happening with England...
Much the same thing has been happening in the North Sea. New, but unpublicised, official figures buried in the latest issue of Energy Trends - a dry Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) report published on Thursday - show that UK production has been falling sharply for the seventh successive year....
Crucially, it has now fallen so low that Britain, for the first time in a quarter of a century, has become an overall importer of oil.
comment.independent.co.uk
Unless Triff has come across something in the last few months on Saudi Arabia, the 4 largest fields in the world are now past their peak; Ghawar, Burgun, Cantarell, and Da Qing.
They have oil; it just ain't coming out of the ground very easily anymore.
It's physics and geology. Unless you believe in abiotic oil.
Now that wouldn't be a surprise. |
