Help with deconstructing the EIA 2037 peak curve?

Sparaxis · Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 7:37 pm Post subject:

That's good stuff Khebab..thanks for the post. I hadn't seen the USGS scenarios--except the mean one--in a typical depletion case since EIA appears to prefer to keep the peak year as far out as possible (which I interpret as any year beyond their forecasting mandate for demand, which is now 2035).

EIA explains their R/P=10 rationale based on the US experience of having had a R/P=10 for several years in the 1990s. The problem of course is that it is a ratio, so both the numerator and denominator can both change. And given the US SEC reporting requirements for reserves (i.e. no backdating), the annual incremental of "reserve extension" shifted the numerator while production (and thus reserve reduction) shifted the denominator, and only coincidentally stayed at 10 for these years. If the reserve extensions were properly backdated, I doubt we would have seen this phenomenon. But it has absolutely nothing to do with geology or depletion or any dynamic process.