[Graeme]

Global oil production will peak in 2030s: Minister

Global oil production is expected to peak in the 2030s, Tengrinews reports citing Kazakhstan Oil and Gas Minister Uzakbai Karabalin.

“Energy consumption is expected to grow 30-40 percent by 2030. The planet’s population will reach 8 billion people and China and India will be home to around one third of the population,” the Minister said at the 8th KAZENERGY Eurasian Forum.

“The competition for access to energy resources will become tougher and regional and other proportions of energy consumption will change. The peak of the global oil production may fall on the 2030s,” Karabalin continued.

According to his forecasts, oil will retain leadership among energy sources, while gas and coal will become equal and gas will gradually take the second place. The share of hydro energy will lower and the one of nuclear and renewable energy sources will go up.

“On a conservative estimate, the global volume of oil production will grow 1.2-fold by 2030 and gas production will grow 1.5-fold,” Karabalin said. Countries like Kazakhstan will be maximizing their production volumes by then, he noted.

Oil prices are growing, the Minister noted. The prices have almost tripled over the last 10 years. “These processes also affect the cost of oil products and oil chemistry. In our opinion, Brent may reach $120 per barrel and higher by the end of this decade,” he said.

Speaking of the global trends Karabalin also named completion of the era of easily extracted oil.

Karabalin also noted that Eurasia project that provides for exploration of the deep horizons of the pre-Caspian basin, both onshore and offshore, at the territory of Kazakhstan and Russia, is aimed at doubling of the resource potential of Kazakhstan and will allow the country to get into the top 10 countries by hydrocarbon reserves. Besides, according to the Minister, KazMunaiGas will strive to join the world’s top 30 leading oil producers in 10 years.

tengrinews

[John_A]

Global oil production will peak in 2030s: Minister

oh brother...we haven't even had the children yet who are going to fight about this one. I wonder how many of them will dismiss the fears of their parents, the horror of the Olduvai Cliff in 2008, the Natural Gas Cliff of America in 2005, Colin Campbell's peak oil in 1989, peaks becoming plateaus, plateaus getting higher and higher. Please Lord let it end!

[copious.abundance]

Oh, so now it's 2030?

Golly gee, I thought it was supposed to be somewhere around 2008.

[AirlinePilot]

You guys honestly believe with all the evidence in front of you there is any way continue to grow oil production until 2030? All of a sudden some dude in Kazakhstan has all the answers?

Seriously? I'm sure Mr. Karabalin has all sorts of wonderful predictions under his belt!

You guys crack me up.

[ROCKMAN]

AP - Come on now...I'm sure Mr. Karabalin has the same online access to the Oil&Gas Journal, Wall Street Journal and all the Big Oil press releases as do our resident experts here. After all, I'm sure he knows they couldn't print such predictions if they weren't true. LOL.

I also suspect that, like me, Mr. Karabalin doesn't give a crap what the PO date actually is as long as he keeps getting top $ for his production.

[John_A]

You guys honestly believe with all the evidence in front of you there is any way continue to grow oil production until 2030?

Not us. An actual oil minister!

Global oil production is expected to peak in the 2030s, Tengrinews reports citing Kazakhstan Oil and Gas Minister Uzakbai Karabalin.

Apparently Uzakbai has decided that after all the evidence presented to him, peak is a ways off yet.

All of a sudden some dude in Kazakhstan has all the answers?

An actual oil minister compared to the likes of ex-web blogs like TOD? Lets just say that those who fell for peak oil in the past have been taking it on the chin as late, and the once discredited EIA call for 2037 appears to be falling back into favor if for no other reason than they knew better than to call the game early.

Seriously? I'm sure Mr. Karabalin has all sorts of wonderful predictions under his belt!
You guys crack me up.

Fair enough. Colin Campbell's 1989 peak oil call still cracks me up.

[dsula]

peaks becoming plateaus, plateaus getting higher and higher. Please Lord let it end!

Isn't that amazing John_A? Who would have thought that the oil is actually infinite and flow can be increased forever. I sure did not expect that. Did you?

[John_A]

AP - Come on now...I'm sure Mr. Karabalin has the same online access to the Oil&Gas Journal, Wall Street Journal and all the Big Oil press releases as do our resident experts here. After all, I'm sure he knows they couldn't print such predictions if they weren't true. LOL.

I also suspect that, like me, Mr. Karabalin doesn't give a crap what the PO date actually is as long as he keeps getting top $ for his production.

Rockman you aren't implying you are limited to the O&G Journal and Press Releases are you? IHS for the US and world at least, or maybe DI for the domestic stuff and IHS for the world has always struck me as a bare minimum. Certainly you must use the IHS EDIN database for when you calculate world wide oil field declines and your EROEI calculations? Throw the EIA website into that mix, phone numbers for the subject matters experts there and numbers for the pertinent USGS scientists should questions arise, and then find yourself a excellent geoscience library nearby. Bare minimum I would think for a working professional. Maybe the O&G Journal works okay if you only want their CO2 EOR database.

As far as Mr. Karabalin, who knows. Have you ever talked to some of these guys doing the deals at either the SPE OTC or National Conference? Usually they don't get to that position by being amateurs mucking around in an industry they don't understand.

[ROCKMAN]

Y'all know that after I thought about it a PO in 2030 shouldn't be taken as an optimistic view. I don't think it's very difficult to take it as very bad news if one accepts it as fact. Follow this: so we have another 17 years before the world reaches maximum oil production rate and begins a never ending decline. Thus even with PO that far away we've already seen oil increase 300% in the last decade with the oil consumers spend almost $8 trillion/year to supply their needs. So these current times and all the associated expenses including military adventures going on will be referred to as the "good ole days" in another 17 years?

Bragging about oil production rates is fine as long as one remembers that while the world is producing more oil than ever before it is also paying about $2 trillion/year more for its oil consumption then it was about a decade ago. And the US is also producing more oil then a decade ago and importing less. But we're also paying about $150 billion/year more for the oil we still import compared to what we were spending a decade ago. And paying about 3X as much for all the oil we consume.

So these are the 'good times' that foreshadows the really bad times coming in just 17 years. I feel so much better now. LOL. IOW what's more important: is it that your cup is half full or half empty? Or is it that cup cost you $6.50 at Starbucks?

[John_A]

peaks becoming plateaus, plateaus getting higher and higher. Please Lord let it end!

Isn't that amazing John_A? Who would have thought that the oil is actually infinite and flow can be increased forever. I sure did not expect that. Did you?

Didn't expect it at all. There I was, cheering on the peak oil brigades during the heyday of the idea, suffering through the tripling in prices since the late 90's, socking away the MREs and ammo, hanging onto every word that Ruppert ever spoke as Katrina approached, these global warming monsters ready to smash the country into independent states fighting against one another for their oil and gas resources.

And then it turned out that all peak oil really meant was high prices. Peak oil didn't stop solar panels from continuing to drop in price, it didn't stop the windmills and other renewables from being rolled out, it didn't stop NASCAR or F1 racing or transoceanic shipping or even people flying to and fro from grandma's house on the holidays. It didn't stop traffic jams or tractors from plowing, it didn't stop suburbia as the citizens fled for the country to grow food, or the urban areas to take advantage of mass transit. It didn't stop the onslaught of wildly successful natural gas production and certainly no one even talks about the coolness of the Olduvai Gorge and Cliff and how lack of natural gas was supposed to trigger permanent blackouts....circi 2008.

So I traded the pickup truck for an econobox and cured the gasoline price problem in terms of the family budget, and I now watch grudgingly as peaks become plateaus, plateaus take place at even higher levels, the world reaches new highest in fuel production, and the Japanese have unlocked Pandora's Box by prototyping the production of the largest source of combustible carbon in the history of the world.

It just isn't fair. The world was supposed to bow down before oil and be crushed under the peak juggernaut. By now the old canals system should have been reinstated along the riverways, coal fired trains should be the main interstate transport, we should be living in Amish nirvana after 6 billion folks died off, and instead we've got Ministers saying that peak is decades away? While I am sure that is great for the oilmen and all, guys like me were preparing and figuring life would be much different!

[John_A]

Bragging about oil production rates is fine as long as one remembers that while the world is producing more oil than ever before it is also paying about $2 trillion/year more for its oil consumption then it was about a decade ago.

Prices!! It does always come back to that, doesn't it? Of what value is oil if it costs too much!! You hit that one right on the head Rock.

So how about we extend the concept a little bit?

price of gasoline from here:

http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html


national wage index from the feds:

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/AWI.html

Looks like since about 1986 (the price crash following the global peak in oil production in 1979 or so) the wage index gas gone from 17,321 to 42,979 in 2011. Gasoline has gone from about $1 to $4 in the same time period.

So, 42979/17321 = 2.48 and 4/1 = 4.

So certainly wages haven't matched the increase in nominal gasoline price increase. But we can't just look at the increase in gasoline prices without the accompanying effects of wage increases and inflation and whatnot.

What were you being paid in 1986 Rock? Compared to today? Certainly my income has increased by....enough. And gasoline has only increased 4X? So while $4/gal looks pretty bad as I lament the days of $0.50/gal gasoline during my errant youth in the 70's, taken as a whole, maybe it isn't as bad as it appears?

Even minimum wage has maybe nearly tripled since the 80's? So the poorest among us have also seen a rise in income while not matching, certainly making a dent in, the rise in gasoline prices.

So a few trillion here, or a few trillion there, it is only a number. How much larger are the world economies today, compared to then? Increases in gasoline prices aren't happening in isolation.

So these are the 'good times' that foreshadows the really bad times coming in just 17 years. I feel so much better now. LOL. IOW what's more important: is it that your cup is half full or half empty? Or is it that cup cost you $6.50 at Starbucks?

These aren't the "good times", they died out when gasoline crashed through the $0.50/gal barrier and I bought a Honda Civic to save money commuting to work. Like you mntion with POD, this has been going on for much longer than people realize, but the WAY it has gone on for 4 decades now certainly might be the same WAY it continues for another 4. It isn't as though running out has anything to do with debate at all nowadays, it really is just all about the economics.

[SeaGypsy]

Talk about appeal to 'authority' Wonder how many thousand dollar barrels there are left after we run out of $900 dollar barrels? No problemo- just keep printing cash, raising debt ceilings and invading anyone who f%#ks with the Petrodollar! $10,000 barrels? Anyone hellooooooooooooo? How many million dollar barrels are there under Zimbabwe lol!

[ROCKMAN]

John - I know I get boringly redundant but it's difficult to let any sense of optimism over the US streaking towards "energy independence" pass without comment. I'm not a doomer per se but it's damn hard to ignore how current oil prices are effecting our national economy despite our increased domestic production. My economy is doing great...thank you very much. Everyone else...not so much.

[John_A]

Talk about appeal to 'authority' Wonder how many thousand dollar barrels there are left after we run out of $900 dollar barrels?

The IEA has told us that the 6 or 7 trillion they can add up are certainly below those kinds of numbers, so fortunately we don't have to worry about needing them!! The good news in this of course is that all those trillions of <$150 barrel oil are enough to make sure your kids don't have to worry about much in the way of any large step increases in price...short of geopolitical events of course.

No problemo- just keep printing cash, raising debt ceilings and invading anyone who f%#ks with the Petrodollar! $10,000 barrels? Anyone hellooooooooooooo? How many million dollar barrels are there under Zimbabwe lol!

I don't think Zimbabwe has much. It is Venezuela, Russia and Canada you have to wonder about though. Unless the Japanese keep up their experimenting, then we can just develop the GOM and sell the GTL from the hydrates to the rest of the world and won't need anyone elses oil for century or 5.

http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/oi ... ring08.pdf

21000 TCF is like what....2.1 trillion barrels of synthetic crude? Those Greenpeace folks are trying to stop the wrong folks, and for the wrong reasons. Stop the Japanese hydrate experiments, let the damn whales DIE, otherwise the GOM becomes one big industrial operation (not that it isn't already) but everyone else will take Americas exceptionalism example, and go produce their own synthetic crude, and then we all melt!

[John_A]

John - I know I get boringly redundant but it's difficult to let any sense of optimism over the US streaking towards "energy independence" pass without comment.

I understand. I have a beef with it myself. It does tend to reflect ignorance on the part of those pretending to understand resource availability and economics at the same time.

I'm not a doomer per se but it's damn hard to ignore how current oil prices are effecting our national economy despite our increased domestic production. My economy is doing great...thank you very much. Everyone else...not so much.

I understand. And those depending on the rigs running aren't doing so badly, back hoe operators, dozer operators, survey crews, truck drivers, steel manufacturers, domestic pickup truck sales. It isn't just the oil field doing okay but you know that.

I take a different moral angle though, it strikes me as pay back to America for what they did to your industry and occupation in the 80's. And 90's. It is about time honest oilfield professionals get to say "I told you so!" at the same time they make a mint for themselves.