[Pops]

I noticed that Ron at PeakOilBarrel used our primer on his "What is PO" page and it is looking pretty dated. I've tried this before and not received much response so here is an update for your review and comment. I've tried to be succinct, but to be honest, my understanding of the whole deal is much less cut and dried than it was a dozen years ago.

To save yourself time, go to the end of this thread to read the latest version and comment on that one. Of course you can go through and read the revision process and arguments along the way if you like.

Be sure to proof grammar as well as substance.

Peak theory proposes that a finite resource such as oil will have a beginning and an end of production and at some point the extraction rate will reach a maximum. That point of maximum flow is the “peak” in Peak Oil.

In 1956 M. King Hubbert, a geologist for Shell Oil, predicted the peaking of US Oil production would occur in the late 1960s. He asserted that oil discovery, and therefore extraction, typically follows a bell shaped curve whether in an individual well, a particular region or presumably the world. His success in forecasting the first US peak caused this method and the resulting curve to be named the Hubbert Analysis and Hubbert Peak.

The 1970s peak in the US may turn out to be the true US maximum but the shortfall in the single bell-shaped curve idea is evident in the very large and fast second maxima produced in the early 20-teens using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing of tight formations that had previously been passed over for more permeable formations where oil had collected in so called reservoirs.

Other estimating methods start with a plot of past oil discoveries and shift that trend forward some number of years and predict the result to be the path of extraction based on the premise that you can only extract what you've discovered and that it takes time to develope new discoveries. This method for estimating the peak time frame using the discovery curve is complicated by “reserve growth” which is when the amount of oil in a particular location turns out to be greater than originally thought. If all the corrections to all the discoveries are backdated, that is, credited to the date of the original discovery rather than the date the addition is noted, the discovery curve appears to peak earlier than if the additional discoveries are credited to the date they are discovered.

The obvious problem with these methods is they rely on current estimates of how much oil there is in existence (Original Oil In Place) and further, how much of that total can now, or will ever in the future, be technically and profitably be extracted.

Current estimates of profitably extractable oil
using existing technology : 1.7 trillion Barrels
Consumed to date: 1.4 trillion Barrels
Consumption per year: 34 billion barrels
Remaining reserves at current usage: 52 years
Source: BP Statistical Review 2015

[Subjectivist]

The third paragraph needs some work, how about,

The 1970s peak in the US may turn out to be the true US maximum but the shortfall in the single bell-shaped curve idea is evident in the very large and fast second maxima produced in the early 20-teens using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing of tight formations that had previously been passed over for more permeable formations where oil had collected in so called reservoirs.

Currently the whole paragraph is one long sentance.

The current peak in U.S. Production in 1970-71 may be exceeded by the shale Fracking boom of the 20-teens. The short coming of the bell curve estimation method is when higher prices and new technology support extraction from previously discounted formations. Geologists have known for many decades that there is oil in tight shale rock, but only sweet spots in within the formation were worth exploiting at low sale prices. When oil prices climbed above $50.00 a barrel it ignited interest in horizontally drilling and Fracking these formations because it became profitable to do so. This may even lead to a new peak in U.S. Oil production, however fracked shale wells are very different from conventional wells. In a regular resevoir rock the oil fills tiny spaces between the grains in the rock, and these void spaces inter connect with one another. In tight shale rock the void spaces filled with oil are much smaller and usually do not interconnect over long distances. Fracking creates cracks connecting many of these voids together and allows the oil to flow out. Because the paths are made by Fracking they drain quickly so wells in these formations only produce a lot of oil in the first five years after they are fracked. Fracking is a valuable method for extracting hard to get oil, but it is ten or more times as expensive as getting oil out of conventional reservoirs.

[ralfy]

I'm not sure, but I think Hubbert was referring to conventional production, with shale, etc., discussed in another section of the report.

[ROCKMAN]

ralfy - Actually even that's not entirely correct. Hubbert clearly points out he was modeling production from a specific set of US oil producing trends including some that were unconventional. And those were all rather well developed trends. He was predicting the peak production from those trends...not the US per se. And his model has been proven to be very accurate to date.

But none of these facts will stop some folks from mischaracterizing his work to forward theirarticular agendas.

[Pops]

Sub, trying to stay as general as possible, but you are right, fracking is important, how's this:

The simple bell curve trajectory may turn out to be correct for global production but energy prices, technology, politics, global demand and many other factors affect energy markets and make simple modeling difficult. The 1970s peak in US oil extraction may turn out to be the true US maximum or it may yet be exceeded. High oil prices in the 2000's enabled improved techniques to extract oil from previously discounted "tight" formations using precise horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing or "fracking". These technologies target rock that contains oil but because of the small pore space, prevent its movement. Creating artificial fractures in the rock extending from the actual wellbore allow the oil to be extracted. The future of these techniques is unknown, the potential resource is large but many factors of production that are common in the US are not present elsewhere.

[Pops]

But none of these facts will stop some folks from mischaracterizing his work to forward theirarticular agendas.

I'm not sure, but I think Hubbert was referring to conventional production, with shale, etc., discussed in another section of the report.

hmm, and exactly what "agenda" might that be?

Fact is, Hubbert said this in the "Nucs and Fossils" paper:

On the basis of the present estimates of the ultimate reserves of petroleum and natural gas, it appears that the culmination of world production of these products should occur within about half a century, while the culmination for petroleum and natural gas in both the United States and the state of Texas should occur within the next few decades.

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006- ... ssil-fuels

Looks pretty cut and dried to me; no prevarication, no hair splitting, no qualification, no agenda.

.

[Pops]

This then is the current revision to date

Peak theory proposes that a finite resource such as oil will have a beginning and an end of production and at some point the extraction rate will reach a maximum. That point of maximum flow is the “peak” in Peak Oil.

In 1956 M. King Hubbert, a geologist for Shell Oil, predicted the peaking of US Oil production would occur in the late 1960s. He asserted that oil discovery, and therefore extraction, typically follows a bell shaped curve whether in an individual well, a particular region or presumably the world. His success in forecasting the first US peak caused this method and the resulting curve to be named the Hubbert Analysis and Hubbert Peak.

The simple bell curve trajectory may turn out to be correct for global production but energy prices, technology, politics, global demand and many other factors affect energy markets and make simple modeling difficult. The 1970s peak in US oil extraction may turn out to be the true US maximum or it may yet be exceeded. High oil prices in the 2000's enabled improved techniques to extract oil from previously discounted "tight" formations using precise horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing or "fracking". These technologies target rock that contains oil but because of the small pore space, prevent its movement. Creating artificial fractures in the rock extending from the actual well-bore allow the oil to be extracted. The future of these techniques is unknown, the potential resource is large but many factors of production that are common in the US are not present elsewhere.

Other estimating methods start with a plot of past oil discoveries and shift that trend forward some number of years and predict the result to be the path of extraction based on the premise that you can only extract what you've discovered and that it takes time to develop new discoveries. This method for estimating the peak time frame using the discovery curve is complicated by “reserve growth” which is when the amount of oil in a particular location turns out to be greater than originally thought. If all the corrections to all the discoveries are backdated, that is, credited to the date of the original discovery rather than the date the addition is noted, the discovery curve appears to peak earlier than if the additional discoveries are credited to the date they are discovered.

The obvious problem with these methods is they rely on current estimates of how much oil there is in existence (Original Oil In Place) and further, how much of that total can now, or will ever in the future, be technically and profitably be extracted.

Current estimates of profitably extractable oil using existing technology : 1.7 trillion Barrels
Consumed to date: approx 1.4 trillion Barrels
Consumption per year: 34 billion barrels
Remaining reserves at current usage: 52 years
Source: BP Statistical Review 2015

[Keith_McClary]

Peak theory proposes that a finite resource such as oil will have a beginning and an end of production and at some point the extraction rate will reach a maximum.

That is a mathematical fact, not something that was invented by Peak Oil theorists.

Peak Oil is not a "theory". As I have tried to argue over at Wikipedia, it is not "based on" Hubbert's work. Taking this (incorrect and US-centric) historical approach is an opening for idiots who say "PO is just a 'theory' and it is debunked because Hubbert's predictions were not exactly right". You can see a lot of this in the wiki article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

[Tanada]

Good job Pops, you have a way with words. We want to inform but not overwhelm people seeking information, and this newest version gives them keywords to search if they want a deeper understanding.

[Tanada]

Peak theory proposes that a finite resource such as oil will have a beginning and an end of production and at some point the extraction rate will reach a maximum.

That is a mathematical fact, not something that was invented by Peak Oil theorists.

Peak Oil is not a "theory". As I have tried to argue over at Wikipedia, it is not "based on" Hubbert's work. Taking this (incorrect and US-centric) historical approach is an opening for idiots who say "PO is just a 'theory' and it is debunked because Hubbert's predictions were not exactly right". You can see a lot of this in the wiki article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

Gravity is also a mathematical theory. Actually all of science is based on theory that has not been proven to be incorrect. Just because the average person does not understand that we should not ignore how science works.

[Pops]

Peak theory proposes that a finite resource such as oil will have a beginning and an end of production and at some point the extraction rate will reach a maximum.

That is a mathematical fact, not something that was invented by Peak Oil theorists.

Peak Oil is not a "theory". As I have tried to argue over at Wikipedia, it is not "based on" Hubbert's work. Taking this (incorrect and US-centric) historical approach is an opening for idiots who say "PO is just a 'theory' and it is debunked because Hubbert's predictions were not exactly right". You can see a lot of this in the wiki article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

I hear ya, Keith.

The idea of using a very simplistic, obviously logical statement as the opener was intentional. But even the bland theory I posted is not a "fact" except in the strictest sense of a single numeric maximum. I deleted the whole bit about how typical production is bell shaped and has only one peak and then terminal decline; the US, Former USSR and KSA are three fairly well known examples where this is wrong. The US is within a few percent of having 2 maximums—what is the margin of error applicable?

Kind of hard though to take the "Peak" out of peak oil tho.

As well, I don't think I credited PO to Hubbert, just the bell curve. Is that not right? Maybe since the bell curve has been shown to be wrong in the 3 highest producing regions we shouldn't mention Hubbert at all?

The original primer used the "mathematical fact" that US oil production had peaked and declined as the primary example of the rightness of the bell shape—correcting that mistake of mine is the primary reason I want to rewrite the article.

[Keith_McClary]

Peak theory proposes that a finite resource such as oil will have a beginning and an end of production and at some point the extraction rate will reach a maximum.

That is a mathematical fact, not something that was invented by Peak Oil theorists.

Peak Oil is not a "theory". As I have tried to argue over at Wikipedia, it is not "based on" Hubbert's work. Taking this (incorrect and US-centric) historical approach is an opening for idiots who say "PO is just a 'theory' and it is debunked because Hubbert's predictions were not exactly right". You can see a lot of this in the wiki article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

Gravity is also a mathematical theory. Actually all of science is based on theory that has not been proven to be incorrect. Just because the average person does not understand that we should not ignore how science works.

I also argued this on wiki. wiki does not say Gravity is a thing based on Newton's Theory. It makes as little sense to say that PO is based on Hubbert's theory.

People before Newton knew there was gravity. They also understood long before Hubbert that finite resources must peak.

[Pops]

I'm pretty sure Hubbert was the first to use the Hubbert Linearization to predict ultimates.

[Subjectivist]

Sub, trying to stay as general as possible, but you are right, fracking is important, how's this:

The simple bell curve trajectory may turn out to be correct for global production but energy prices, technology, politics, global demand and many other factors affect energy markets and make simple modeling difficult. The 1970s peak in US oil extraction may turn out to be the true US maximum or it may yet be exceeded. High oil prices in the 2000's enabled improved techniques to extract oil from previously discounted "tight" formations using precise horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing or "fracking". These technologies target rock that contains oil but because of the small pore space, prevent its movement. Creating artificial fractures in the rock extending from the actual wellbore allow the oil to be extracted. The future of these techniques is unknown, the potential resource is large but many factors of production that are common in the US are not present elsewhere.

Looks good to me

[Pops]

Slight revision

Peak theory proposes that a finite resource such as oil will have a beginning and an end of production and at some point the extraction rate will reach a maximum. That point of maximum flow is the “peak” in Peak Oil.

In 1956 M. King Hubbert, a geologist for Shell Oil, predicted the peaking of US Oil production would occur in the late 1960s. He asserted that oil discovery, and therefore extraction, typically follows a bell shaped curve whether in an individual well, a particular region or presumably the world. His success in forecasting the first US peak caused this method and the resulting curve to be named the Hubbert Analysis and Hubbert Peak.

The simple bell curve trajectory may turn out to be correct for global production but energy prices, technology, politics, global demand and many other factors affect energy markets and make simple modeling difficult. The 1970s peak in US oil extraction may turn out to be the true US maximum or it may yet be exceeded. High oil prices in the 2000's enabled improved techniques to extract oil from previously discounted "tight" formations using precise horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing or "fracking". These technologies target rock that contains oil but small pore space prevent its movement. Fracking creates artificial fractures in the rock extending from the actual well-bore that allow the oil to be extracted. The future of these techniques is unknown, the potential resource is large but many factors of production that are common in the US are not present elsewhere.

Other estimating methods start with a plot of past oil discoveries and shift that trend forward some number of years and predict the result to be the path of extraction based on the premise that you can only extract what you've discovered and that it takes time to develop new discoveries. This method for estimating the peak time frame using the discovery curve is complicated by “reserve growth” which is when the amount of oil in a particular location turns out to be greater than originally thought. If all the corrections to all the discoveries are backdated, that is, credited to the date of the original discovery rather than the date the addition is noted, the discovery curve appears to peak earlier than if the additional discoveries are credited to the date they are discovered.

The obvious problem with these methods is they rely on current estimates of how much oil there is in existence (Original Oil In Place) and further, how much of that total can now, or will ever in the future, be technically and profitably be extracted.

Current estimates of profitably extractable oil using existing technology : 1.7 trillion Barrels
Consumed to date: approx 1.4 trillion Barrels
Consumption per year: 34 billion barrels
Remaining reserves at current usage: 52 years
Source: BP Statistical Review 2015

[/quote]

[Pops]

So lets do away with "theory".
Another mistake I made on the original primer was to say Hubbert plotted discoveries to find future production and ultimate. Actually he used linearisation of past production. So how about this

A finite resource will, by definition, have a beginning and an end of production and at some point the rate of production will reach a maximum. That point of maximum flow is the “peak” in Peak Oil.

In 1956 M. King Hubbert, a geologist for Shell Oil, predicted US Oil production would peak in the late 1960s. He used a form of logistics curve to plot past production in order to predict both the rate of production growth and the total amount that would eventually be produced. He asserted oil production would follow a bell shaped curve if not influenced by outside forces. His success in forecasting the general date of the first US peak caused this method, and the resulting curve, to be named the Hubbert Analysis and Hubbert Peak.

The simple bell curve trajectory may turn out to be correct for global production in the long term but has fallen short in many areas, including the US where a second "peak" is imminent. The 1970s peak in US oil extraction may turn out to be the true US maximum (by a small amount) or it may yet be exceeded. High oil prices in the 2000's enabled improved techniques to extract oil from previously discounted "tight" formations using precise horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing or "fracking". These technologies target rock that contains oil but where small pore space prevent its movement. Fracking creates artificial fractures in the rock extending from the actual well-bore outward that allow the oil to be extracted. The future of these techniques is unknown, the potential resource is large but many factors of production that are common in the US and these formations are not present elsewhere.

Other estimating methods start with a plot of past oil discoveries and shift that trend forward some number of years and predict the result to be the path of extraction based on the premise that you can only extract what you've discovered and that it takes time to develop new discoveries. This method for estimating the peak time frame using the discovery curve is complicated by “reserve growth” which is when the amount of oil in a particular location turns out to be greater than originally thought. If all the corrections to all the discoveries are backdated, that is, credited to the date of the original discovery rather than the date the addition is noted, the discovery curve appears to peak earlier than if the additional discoveries are credited to the date they are discovered.

The obvious problem with these methods is they rely on estimates of how much oil there is in existence (Original Oil In Place) and further, how much of that total is now, or at some time in the future will be technically and profitably extracted.

Current estimates of profitably extractable oil using existing technology : 1.7 trillion Barrels
Consumed to date: approx 1.4 trillion Barrels
Consumption per year: 34 billion barrels
Remaining reserves at current usage: 52 years
Source: BP Statistical Review 2015

[ralfy]

ralfy - Actually even that's not entirely correct. Hubbert clearly points out he was modeling production from a specific set of US oil producing trends including some that were unconventional. And those were all rather well developed trends. He was predicting the peak production from those trends...not the US per se. And his model has been proven to be very accurate to date.

But none of these facts will stop some folks from mischaracterizing his work to forward theirarticular agendas.

Sorry, I was referring to Figs. 20 and 21 on p. 22 of this report:

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/1956/1956.pdf

I think they refer to crude oil reserves for the U.S. (land area + offshore) and for the rest of the world given on p. 16. I am not sure if they include unconventional production.

Oil shales and tar sands are mentioned on p. 19.

[ROCKMAN]

ralfy - Thanks for posting the link. Folks should read his exact words instead of listening to the spinmeisters. For instance:

Folks who like to argue against Hubbert’s prediction of global PO always skip over his exact words in order to support their particular spin. But if one wants to understand what he was actually predicting they should read pg 22:

“..the ASSUMPTION (my emphasis) that the max rate of production will be about two and one-half times the present rate, which places the peak at 2000. As in the case of coal, variations of the assumed maximum rate will advance or retard the date of the culmination.”

IOW based upon the ASSUMPTIONS he makes Hubbert allows that his predicted date of global PO may be off should those assumptions not be met. He also mentions that the oil shales and the offshore reserves can’t be included in his prediction because of their very limited (or non-existent) production history. IMHO given he made his predictions more than HALF A CENTURY AGO I would say he did a pretty good job to come as close as he did. Hubbert wasn’t wrong to a significant degree IMHO. His assumptions proved to not be perfectly accurate…a possibility he clearly points out.

Some of the production data base Hubbert draws from did include some unconventional oil trends most notably in W Texas. But those were the minority at the time.Yes: Eagle Ford Shale wells were drilled and produced before Hubbert wrote his report.

[Pops]

Do you have a suggestion to make regarding the primer?

[ralfy]

I also viewed this clip from 1976:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImV1voi41YY

I think I heard him say that world crude oil production would peak in 1995 (0:15), but because several countries had been curtailing production (0:50) then the curve would shift to the right by around ten years (1:00).

I'm guessing that the peak would also move to after 2005 (1995 + 10 years).