The Peak Oil Crisis: 2012 -- Apocalypse Now?

[GliderGuider]

7. Yes, those assumptions look decidedly optimistic

Here is my take on the global oil decline rate. I made this projection four years ago, and I underestimated the length of the peak plateau. Overall though, the curve still looks reasonable to me - especially given the uncertainty in regional decline rates and the impact of the unfolding global depression.

The one thing I didn't factor in is the net export crisis. For the USA I expect that issue to have a far bigger socioeconomic impact than the raw global production decline.

World Energy to 2050

The post-peak decline rate is another question. The best guides we have are the performances of oil fields and countries that are known to be already in decline. Unfortunately, those decline rates vary all over the map. The United States, for instance, has been in decline since 1970 and has lost 40% of its production capacity since then, for a decline rate of about 2% per year. On the other hand, the North Sea basin is showing an annual decline around 10%, and the giant Cantarell field in Mexico is losing production at rates approaching 20% per year.

In order to create a realistic decline model for the world's oil, I have chosen to follow the approach of the Energy Watch Group, which is similar in profile to the projections of Dr. Bakhtiari in his WOCAP model . Both assume a gradually increasing decline rate over time, starting off very gently and ramping up as the years go by.

The main difference is that the EWG model is slightly less aggressive than WOCAP. WOCAP predicts that production will fall from its current value of 4000 million tonnes of oil per year (Mtoe/yr) to 2750 Mtoe/yr in 2020, while the EWG projects a decline to 2900 Mtoe/yr by then. The EWG projects an oil supply of just under 2000 Mtoe in 2030. My model projects a decline rate increasing from 1% per year in 2010 to a constant rate of 5% per year after 2025, resulting in an average decline rate of 4% per year between now and 2050. In 2050 oil production is only 18% of what it is today, as shown in Figure 1.