Record US and World Oil Supplies in 2019 and 2020 and Crazy Peak Oilers

Peak Oil was a very popular idea from about 2000 to 2013.

The idea was that world oil production or a nations oil production would reach a maximum level and then go into permanent decline.

US crude oil production set a new record back in February, 2018 to surpass the previous oil production peak set in the 1970s. US Oil production will be setting more record highs in 2019 and 2020.

US total all liquids oil production set a new record in 2014.

There was a 2012 Harvard forecast of oil production by Leonardo Maugeri.

This report drove the Peak Oilers crazy in 2012 and 2013. The report predicted that world oil production would reach 110 million barrels per dayin 2020 if the price of oil was $70 per barrel or higher.

The World is on track to be very close to that oil production level in 2020.

World oil production is at 100.75 million barrel per day in 2018Q3.

In 2018, IEA is predicted world oil supply to increase to 103 million barrels per day by the end of 2019. World oil supply will be about 105 to 106 million barrels per day in 2020.

US crude oil production should surpass 12 million barrels per day in 2018 and reach 14 million barrels per day in 2019 and 16 million barrels per day in 2020.

In 2018, Iraq is forecasted to boost production to 5 million bpd by 2028, and to 6 million bpd by 2036. Iraq has the potential for 7 million bpd of production. Iraq’s production is 4.46 million bpd.

Oil Production Drops IF there is no Further Investment

In 2018, German Dr. Harry Brinkmann and the Association of Study of Peak Oil and Gas believe an IEA chart represents a forecast of peak oil.

On Page 159 of the IEA World Energy Outlook 2018 (WEO 18) there was a chart that oil production would rapidly decline IF there was no further investment.

The Peak Oilers have been reduced to grasping at a pathetic misinterpretation of a graph.

55 thoughts on “Record US and World Oil Supplies in 2019 and 2020 and Crazy Peak Oilers”

  1. The lowered production demand has several factors. While still a slow growth, a few million more EVs were added to the roads including buses where it really matters. China’s economic growth has slowed greatly in the last 18 months. The max production rate is probably over 130 mpbd, depending on price, but we’ll never need all of that. Shale reserves it turns out are all over the world. Australia, Bahrain, many more. And China has barely started its own shale recovery, which they’ll be expanding by several mpbd. OPEC+ members are voluntarily withholding a couple million per day now of conventional, US sanctions are keeping Iran’s levels down by a few million from a conservative potential. And there’s conventional oil that is being left untapped (mostly offshore) around the world for environmental concerns because it won’t be needed. Again, thankfully we’ll never need all of what can be tapped. Peak demand is probably before 2030. In the early 2020s it will grow around 1 million mpbd each year and by the late 2020s it will almost certainly have plateaued. Which specific year will depend on the upcoming batteries in EVs, and if long haul trucks become electric in any numbers worth noting.

  2. Hmm…well clearly your prediction was wrong. We are no where near 110 mbpd production by 2020. In Dec 2019, we are at 101.7 and 12 month forecasts all hover around 102.9-103 mbpd by this time next year.

    And clearly, at some point we will reach the maximum daily production rate possible given the world’s supply. The question is what is the maximum production rate a f when will we reach this. I predict somewhere around 114 mbpd is the maximum we will produce globally and that we will reach that around 2030. And even at that, it may be a plateau, not a peak with a fast declining slope. But regardless, this is essentially peak oil. So do all of the name calling you want, but if we don’t prepare for the inevitable energy transition that is coming, our economy will suffer greatly.

    And if you believe that we can go higher than 114 mbpd – please substantiate this with some numbers. I have looked at the data country by country and clearly conventional oil production has peaked (actually a practical plateau from 2005-2019) and all recent net growth has come from unconventional resources such as US shale and Canadian Tar Sands. The question is whether there is more or less than 12-13 more mbpd production capacity out there or not. I say there is not.

    Care to make another prediction that will live on in the inter webs? Or did getting this one wrong scare you off?

  3. “drill, baby, drill,” he called it – was not a plan, but rather “a bumper sticker.”  Mr. Obama assured us, “You know, we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices,” 

    …talk about a POTUS that was soo clueless he might as well have named himself Ocasio-Cortez.

  4. ” It is probably around $40/barrel.”

    With latest tech being deployed over the past three years, it can be as low as $20 – $25 per barrel.

  5. “Peak Oil was a very popular idea from about 2000 to 2013.”

    Just like Global Warming Fraud posing as ‘science’ is!

    But the coming Super Maunder Minimum is going to completely destroy what credibility is left of the Global Warming Fraudsters just as fracking destroyed that of the Peak Oiltards’.

  6. Not entirely correct. In the US oil production is based on profitability. So long as oil can be profitably pumped then exploration and drilling continues. So the question is what is the average breakeven $/barrel in the US for frackers? It is probably around $40/barrel.

    Further many frackers locked in long term contracts in the $60-$70 range so they are insulated for some time against price reductions.

  7. It won’t be that bad.

    Fracking is what gives us absurdly cheap methane which is what powers electric cars (and will keep powering them for decades). Oil is quite useful for lots of other things apart from transportation.

  8. Forwarding the congrats to any Iranian readers. (obviously not to all the Iranian ex-pats who live near me)

  9. With more development over time the price can be lowered. But I don’t want to increase production. What I want to do is severely cut demand. And that can be done with EV, and pluggable hybrid.

  10. Clearly the limit is not how much of oil is in the ground, but how much can we extract with a net energy gain that makes it worth the effort. The energy cost includes not only the energy required to extract it, but also refine it, transport it and support all the people and manufacture equipment and maintenance involved in this process. It is from that net energy were the profit to drive all this activity comes from. Now many people believe as we approach that limit the price/unit of energy will just keep rising to keep the process going, but I think as Nate Hagman shows:
    “From the lens of the Superorganism”
    http://www.postcarbon.org/energy-money-and-technology-from-the-lens-of-the-superorganism/
    &
    “Blind Spots & Super Heros”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUSpsT6Oqrg
    our economy isn’t designed to handle high oil prices. So while we can use debt to keep the process going for a while as we have with U.S. shale oil, a big change is coming whether you call it peak oil or peak inefficient economy. Gail Tverber, https://ourfiniteworld.com/, convincingly proposes that we will oscillate between demand limits and supply limits.

  11. Hubbert’s peak oil theory is that for a given oil field, or group of fields, production will increase to a maximum at about 50% of the economically recoverable oil, and decline from that point until there is no more economically recoverable oil in the field. In practice this means the production from a given field with respect to time forms a bell shaped curve.
    Production from new fields does not mean the theory is somehow disproven. The decline in production from old fields continues to decline.
    The world, and the US will never run out of petroleum, they will run short of economically producible petroleum, and newer technologies will replace petroleum, first for fuel, then for materials, and other products, as the cost of petroleum increases.
    It looks like battery electric vehicles will soon make gasoline, and Diesel oil high cost fuels, as compared with electricity stored in batteries, lowering the demand for petroleum, it’s price, and the amount that can be produced economically.

  12. US electric power is 34% non-fossil sources (nuclear, hydro, solar, wind) and rising.

    Even if we stop using it for transportation, we have lots of other products that use oil and gas as starting points, so no, it won’t be dead, just reduced.

  13. The other source is engineered bacteria, which have been demonstrated to produce ethanol and diesel profitably at $100/barrel. Since the price has been below that, the process hasn’t gone beyond a 4 acre prototype plant, but it is available if needed.

  14. I remember years ago looking at the amount of deep coal under eg: Alberta, & thinking that if oil got expensive enough we could do a lot of underground coal gasification & use the Fischer-Tropsch to make liquid fuels. So I was never all that concerned about peak oil. It looks like it will take a while for oil to get expensive enough for that idea to be used.

  15. It doesn’t have to be “dead” to be impacted by renewable and by improved transportation technology. There are people who still burn cow dung.

  16. We “can’t”. We normally survive limits by finding new resources to exploit. We don’t survive limits by insisting that the limits are lies. Notice that our lamps aren’t powered by whale oil anymore.

  17. It was peak “cheap” oil in the US and it did happen. “Cheap” oil production plummeted in the US. People mis-characterized what was predicted. Global “cheap” oil production has also been reached.

  18. The oil companies aren’t worth their book values. Anyone with a long term investment goal should be unwinding their fossil fuel companies investments. Why take the risk when there are oindustries with potential growth available.

  19. We did reach peak “cheap” oil production in the US as predicted. If you are willing to pay enough for oil we could produce oil from CO2 and water so if price is not a consideration then there is no peak oil. If price is a consideration then we have reach peak global oil production already.

  20. Contrary to one diagram here, Venezuela will almost certainly not exceed its oil production (capacity) of 2011 in 2020.

  21. How do those batteries get filled with power???? You burn carbon-based energy. Oil won’t be dead for at least 100 years.

  22. Peak Oil has a long history. I became acquainted with it
    in the 1970’s, about the same time as the Global Freezing
    campaign was under way.
    Someone tried to disabuse me of my fears about running
    out of oil. He was an old guy who lived through many a
    Peak Oil hysteria. I was young and knew better – or so I
    thought.

  23. Among the greatest idiots which the human race has produces and made prominent, there was the one who said, “We can’t just drill our way out of the energy and climate challenge that we face.”

  24. “US crude oil production should surpass 12 million barrels per day in 2018 and reach 14 million barrels per day in 2019 and 16 million barrels per day in 2020!” Putin say hello to the real energy superpower.

  25. Not entirely correct. In the US oil production is based on profitability. So long as oil can be profitably pumped then exploration and drilling continues. So the question is what is the average breakeven $/barrel in the US for frackers? It is probably around $40/barrel.

    Further many frackers locked in long term contracts in the $60-$70 range so they are insulated for some time against price reductions.

  26. It won’t be that bad.

    Fracking is what gives us absurdly cheap methane which is what powers electric cars (and will keep powering them for decades). Oil is quite useful for lots of other things apart from transportation.

  27. With more development over time the price can be lowered. But I don’t want to increase production. What I want to do is severely cut demand. And that can be done with EV, and pluggable hybrid.

  28. Peak Oil has a long history. I became acquainted with it
    in the 1970’s, about the same time as the Global Freezing
    campaign was under way.
    Someone tried to disabuse me of my fears about running
    out of oil. He was an old guy who lived through many a
    Peak Oil hysteria. I was young and knew better – or so I
    thought.

  29. Clearly the limit is not how much of oil is in the ground, but how much can we extract with a net energy gain that makes it worth the effort. The energy cost includes not only the energy required to extract it, but also refine it, transport it and support all the people and manufacture equipment and maintenance involved in this process. It is from that net energy were the profit to drive all this activity comes from. Now many people believe as we approach that limit the price/unit of energy will just keep rising to keep the process going, but I think as Nate Hagman shows:
    “From the lens of the Superorganism”
    http://www.postcarbon.org/energy-money-and-technology-from-the-lens-of-the-superorganism/
    &
    “Blind Spots & Super Heros”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUSpsT6Oqrg
    our economy isn’t designed to handle high oil prices. So while we can use debt to keep the process going for a while as we have with U.S. shale oil, a big change is coming whether you call it peak oil or peak inefficient economy. Gail Tverber, https://ourfiniteworld.com/, convincingly proposes that we will oscillate between demand limits and supply limits.

  30. Hubbert’s peak oil theory is that for a given oil field, or group of fields, production will increase to a maximum at about 50% of the economically recoverable oil, and decline from that point until there is no more economically recoverable oil in the field. In practice this means the production from a given field with respect to time forms a bell shaped curve.
    Production from new fields does not mean the theory is somehow disproven. The decline in production from old fields continues to decline.
    The world, and the US will never run out of petroleum, they will run short of economically producible petroleum, and newer technologies will replace petroleum, first for fuel, then for materials, and other products, as the cost of petroleum increases.
    It looks like battery electric vehicles will soon make gasoline, and Diesel oil high cost fuels, as compared with electricity stored in batteries, lowering the demand for petroleum, it’s price, and the amount that can be produced economically.

  31. US electric power is 34% non-fossil sources (nuclear, hydro, solar, wind) and rising.

    Even if we stop using it for transportation, we have lots of other products that use oil and gas as starting points, so no, it won’t be dead, just reduced.

  32. The other source is engineered bacteria, which have been demonstrated to produce ethanol and diesel profitably at $100/barrel. Since the price has been below that, the process hasn’t gone beyond a 4 acre prototype plant, but it is available if needed.

  33. I remember years ago looking at the amount of deep coal under eg: Alberta, & thinking that if oil got expensive enough we could do a lot of underground coal gasification & use the Fischer-Tropsch to make liquid fuels. So I was never all that concerned about peak oil. It looks like it will take a while for oil to get expensive enough for that idea to be used.

  34. We “can’t”. We normally survive limits by finding new resources to exploit. We don’t survive limits by insisting that the limits are lies. Notice that our lamps aren’t powered by whale oil anymore.

  35. It was peak “cheap” oil in the US and it did happen. “Cheap” oil production plummeted in the US. People mis-characterized what was predicted. Global “cheap” oil production has also been reached.

  36. The oil companies aren’t worth their book values. Anyone with a long term investment goal should be unwinding their fossil fuel companies investments. Why take the risk when there are oindustries with potential growth available.

  37. We did reach peak “cheap” oil production in the US as predicted. If you are willing to pay enough for oil we could produce oil from CO2 and water so if price is not a consideration then there is no peak oil. If price is a consideration then we have reach peak global oil production already.

  38. Among the greatest idiots which the human race has produces and made prominent, there was the one who said, “We can’t just drill our way out of the energy and climate challenge that we face.”

  39. “US crude oil production should surpass 12 million barrels per day in 2018 and reach 14 million barrels per day in 2019 and 16 million barrels per day in 2020!” Putin say hello to the real energy superpower.

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