oil producing region containing many individual wells. Source:
aspoitalia.net
In the 1950s the well known U.S. geologist M. King Hubbert was working
for Shell Oil. He noted that oil discoveries graphed over time tended
to follow a bell shape curve. He supposed that the rate of oil
production would follow a similar curve, now known as the Hubbert
Curve (see figure). In 1956 Hubbert predicted that production from the
US lower 48 states would peak between 1965 and 1970. Despite efforts
from his employer to pressure him into not making his projections
public, the notoriously stubborn Hubbert did so anyway. In any case,
most people inside and outside the industry quickly dismissed the
predictions. As it happens, the US lower 48 oil production did peak in
1970/1. In that year, by definition, US oil producers had never
produced as much oil, and Hubbert's predictions were a fading memory.
The peak was only acknowledged with the benefit of several years of hindsight.
No oil producing region fits the bell shaped curve exactly because
production is dependent on various geological, economic and political
factors, but the Hubbert Curve remains a powerful predictive tool.
In retrospect, the U.S. oil peak might be seen as the most significant
geopolitical event of the mid to late 20th Century, creating the
conditions for the energy crises of the 1970s, leading to far greater
U.S. strategic emphasis on controlling foreign sources of oil, and
spelling the beginning of the end of the status of the U.S. as the
world's major creditor nation. The U.S. of course, was able to import
oil from elsewhere. Mounting debt has allowed life to continue in the
U.S. with only minimal interruption so far. When global oil production
peaks, the implications will be felt far more widely, and with much
more force.
So when will oil peak globally?
Later in life M. King Hubbert predicted a global oil peak between 1995
and 2000. He may have been close to the mark, except that the oil
shocks of the 1970s slowed the growth of our use of oil.
As represented in the following figure, global oil discovery peaked in
the late 1960s. Since the mid-1980s, oil companies have been finding
less oil than we have been consuming.
Of the 65 largest oil producing countries in the world, up to 54 have
passed their peak of production and are now in decline, including the
USA in 1970, Indonesia in 1997, Australia in 2000, the UK in 1999,
Norway in 2001, and Mexico in 2004. Hubbert's methods, as well as
other methodologies, have been used to make various projections about
the global oil peak, with results ranging from 'already peaked', to
the very optimistic 2035″
