By Ryan McGreal
Published April 29, 2006
At yesterday's Peak Oil presentation to Hamilton City Council, Richard Gilbert mentioned a little-reported event that may mark the day that the earth tipped past its oil production peak.
Amazingly, a search of news reports turned up virtually nothing. I eventually tracked down the original report from Platts Oilgram News: Saudi Aramco announced on April 10, 2006 that Saudi Arabia's mature oilfields "are expected to decline at a gross average rate of 8 percent a year without additional maintenance and drilling."
The Aramco spokesperson explained that the company is attempting to offset those declines with "remedial activities" including drilling new wells in existing fields and opening up new fields.
But get this: the spokesperson went on, "This maintain potential drilling in mature fields combined with a multitude of remedial actions and the development of new fields, with long plateau lives, lowers the composite decline rate of producing fields to around 2 percent."
The last time I checked, a two percent decline is still a decline. If this is correct, then Saudi Arabia may be past its peak in oil production. Saudi Arabia is responsible for approximately one eighth of the world's oil; as Saudi Arabia goes, so goes the world.
By norme2 (anonymous)
Posted April 30, 2006 15:54:22
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By jim (anonymous)
Posted April 30, 2006 21:15:59
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By anonymous (anonymous)
Posted May 01, 2006 07:32:34
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By Aramco employee (anonymous)
Posted May 01, 2006 09:14:59
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Dear Aramco employee: If Saudi Aramco has all these vast untapped oilfields, then why is it going to such herculean lengths to squeeze more production out of the aging and declining Ghawar, Safaniya, Abqaiq and Berri fields? Basic market incentives virtually require a company with such options to grab the low-lying fruit first.
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By MB (anonymous)
Posted May 01, 2006 10:26:45
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By Tony (anonymous)
Posted May 01, 2006 20:06:12
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By Tony (anonymous)
Posted May 01, 2006 20:31:45
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By Reid Vinette (anonymous)
Posted May 01, 2006 21:08:09
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By Tom (registered)
Posted May 03, 2006 07:48:22
Reid,
Nice summary post. As our economies are set up to best run on 2-3% expansion per year, a decrease of available cheap energy will necessarily provoke a recession that will grind on and on until things get worse. We're going to have to develop an alternative to the "expand or die" motif for our businesses and everything else.
One small detail on your depletion examples. Your depletion calculations are a tad off because a constant "rate" does not apply to the original number, but to the successive remaining amounts.
An example: a 10% annual depletion rate starting from 100 units. First year you lose 10 (10% of 100). Now you have 90 units left. Second year you lose 9 (10% of 90) and you have 81 units left. Third year you loose 8 units (8.1 actually) and you have 73 units left. Etc.
So a 2.5% depletion rate will not yield 0% remaining in 40 years (as in your calculation 2.5% x 40). Instead it will leave about 37% of the original amount.
It helps - but only marginally. Our economies are not geared to run backwards.
Again - nice summary, especially the links and references.
Cheers,
Tom
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Further to Tom's point about the depletion rate, here's a graph plotting a 2.5 percent per year decline: http://www.raisethehammer.org/decline.ht...
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By reidvinette (registered)
Posted June 08, 2006 03:03:34
June 7, 2006
The world is now at Peak Oil for the United States with the five supergiant oil fields supplying this country now in decline as of March 16, 2005. It takes one year to realize an oil field is in decline.
Beginning on March 16, 2006 the energy crises for the United States began ... or did it.
If there is an energy crises, it is a crises which has been created by the oil companies and industrial governments like the United States and Canada.
There is an energy solution to power modern day vehicles and it is called on demand water fracturing into hydrogen and oxygen.
www.waterpoweredcar.com www.waterfuelcell.org
This technology is so powerful that industrial governments are trying to keep a lid on it.
Why?
Money.
Industrial governments cannot tax the water it takes to fill your water tank in your car.
Oil companies cannot profit from the sale of water it takes to fill your water tank in your car.
Discover water fracturing technology and begin experimenting in your garage.
The energy crises I believe is a myth now.
Water fracturing technology can preserve valuable oil for petro-chemical products, and agricultural uses. Water fracturing technology can be used for vehicle transportation, and energy to power electrical generating plants now dependant on natural gas.
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By reidvinette (registered)
Posted June 10, 2006 00:38:06
Ryan and Tom
Thank you for the corrections on my oil depletion figures. They were just quick and dirty to get the point across and to satisfy my own curiosity. I will be incorporating your data into my email letter to the PTA Groups across the US and Canada.
Reid Vinette
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Hi reidvinette,
It's always important to remember that percentage changes are always subject to the fact that the base changes before the next iteration.
As for your post about water power, I've replied elsewhere, but here's another summary:
This is almost certainly a hoax. Stanley Meyer, the inventor behind the water fuel cell, was convicted of "gross and eggregious fraud" in swindling his investors.
Water certainly does contain hydrogen, and hydrogen certainly does contain energy, but converting energy from one form to another always carries a net energ loss.
A water powered car would have to use electrolysis to separate the hydrogen and oxygen, and electrolysis is very energy intensive. Quasi-scientific descriptions about inducing vibrations simply begs the question: what energy will you use to produce the vibration?
Finally, big corporations would be delighted to get their hands on a cheap, abundant energy source. That's why we use petroleum so widely in the first place.
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By luis (anonymous)
Posted October 09, 2006 14:04:13
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By anonymous (anonymous)
Posted April 30, 2006 15:24:51
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