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Don’t Confuse Peak Oil And The Peak Oil Debate

February 28, 2018

Don’t Confuse Peak Oil And The Peak Oil Debate

In the past five years of writing about energy one of my favorite observations has been that people get into trouble because they “confuse Peak Oil and the Peak Oil Debate.” In other words, they confuse what Peak Oil IS and what Peak Oil MEANS. Because the honest truth is that most people, even energy professionals, don’t actually know the proper definition of Peak Oil. And when they think about the “Peak Oil Debate,” they mistakenly believe that it refers only to those extreme pessimistic predictions of energy doom. The debate actually represents  a wide spectrum of discussions, beliefs, and positions related to oil depletion. In short, your view of Peak Oil is far too narrow if you only see it as a discussion with only two sides (energy doom vs. extreme abundance).

I wrote about this in a January tweetstorm copied below for your review. Feel free to read through the tweets in order first, and then return to view the additional comments I’ve included for each.

Ed Crooks, energy editor at the Financial Times, also penned a great response thread on Peak Oil Supply and Peak Oil Demand. You should also read his thread as well.

D. Ray Long@RayLongDC

(thread) Quick thread to expand on Chris’ point below. People always get into trouble because they confuse Peak Oil and the Peak Oil Debate. In other words, they confuse what Peak Oil IS and what Peak Oil MEANS. https://twitter.com/chrisnelder/status/953661525478092800 …

D. Ray Long@RayLongDC
Replying to @RayLongDC

On the former, there is and always was just one definition for Peak Oil Supply: the “max rate of oil production.” It’s not good, or bad, it’s a number. That’s all it is.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BP Sees Peak Oil Demand In 2030s

February 24, 2018

BP Sees Peak Oil Demand In 2030s

BP

BP says oil demand will peak in the 2030s, and that EVs will rise 100-fold to capture about a third of the car market.

BP released its annual Energy Outlook, with forecasts through 2040. Unlike in years past, this version sees more upheaval on the horizon as the energy landscape evolves rapidly. “Indeed, the continuing rapid growth of renewables is leading to the most diversified fuel mix ever seen,” BP CEO Bob Dudley said in a statement. “Abundant and diversified energy supplies will make for a challenging marketplace. Don’t be fooled by the recent firming in oil prices: the focus on efficiency, reliability and capital discipline is here to stay.”

BP believes that just about all of the growth in energy demand will come from fast-growing developing economies, with China and India alone accounting for half of the total growth in global energy demand through 2040.

BP offered several different forecasts, but all predict a peak in oil demand in the 2030s, with varying degrees of decline thereafter. Its central forecast sees peak oil demand in the mid-2030s at about 110 million barrels per day (mb/d), with consumption plateauing and declining through 2040 and beyond. In other words, demand grows for another two decades, rising by 15 mb/d, before consumption tops out.

BP sees the number of EVs on the road surging to 320 million by 2040, capturing about a third of the market in terms of miles traveled. That equates roughly to a 100-fold increase from the 3 million EVs on the road today. It is also sharply up from the 100 million EVs BP expected to be on the road in 2035 in last year’s Energy Outlook.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Exxon To Produce All Of Its Oil Despite Peak Demand Fears

February 7, 2018

Exxon To Produce All Of Its Oil Despite Peak Demand Fears

offshore rig

ExxonMobil was forced to finally acknowledge the possibility that future climate change policy could lead to peak oil demand, a serious threat to the company’s operations over the long-term.

In response to a shareholder resolution passed last year, the oil major just released a reportthat recognizes the danger of peak oil demand. By 2040, climate change policies and regulations could cut into oil demand, leading to a drop in consumption by 20 percent.

Under this scenario, oil demand would decline by an average of 0.4 percent per year, with the lower end of the range seeing declines of 1.7 percent per year.

This would mean that global oil demand would decline to 78 million barrels per day (mb/d) by 2040, down from 95 mb/d in 2016. In the most pessimistic scenario (from the oil industry’s perspective), demand drops to 53 mb/d.

It’s a rather bleak picture for oil, and one echoed by a long list of analysts, environmental groups, and increasingly, the oil industry itself. A few weeks ago, a report coauthored by a top BP official, lays out a case in which oil demand peaks and declines, ushering in an era of permanently lower oil prices.

Still, Exxon was clearly issuing the report under duress. The tone of Exxon’s “2°C pathway” scenario suggests that the company doesn’t really see it playing out. While the report suggests that oil demand could fall, Exxon goes to great lengths to downplay the significance, arguing that “[o]il demand is projected to decline modestly on average, and much more slowly than its natural rate of decline from existing producing fields,” and “[e]ven under a 2°C pathway, significant investment will be required in oil and natural gas capacity,” and “[p]roduction from our proved reserves and investment in our resources continue to be needed to meet global requirements,” and the like.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Oil Demand Is A Slow-Motion Train Wreck

January 19, 2018

Peak Oil Demand Is A Slow-Motion Train Wreck

oil

Will oil demand peak within five years? 15 years? Or not until 2040 or 2050?

The precise date at which oil demand hits a high point and then enters into decline has been the subject of much debate, and a topic that has attracted a lot of interest just in the last few years. Consumption levels in some parts of the world have already begun to stagnate, and more and more automakers have begun to ratchet up their plans for electric vehicles.

But the exact date the world will hit peak demand kind of misses the whole point, argues a new report, which is notable since it is coauthored by BP’s chief economist Spencer Dale, along with Bassam Fattouh, the director of The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

They argue that the focus shouldn’t be on the date at which oil demand peaks, but rather the fact that the peak is coming at all. “The significance of peak oil is that it signals a shift from an age of perceived scarcity to an age of abundance,” they wrote. In other words, oil won’t be on the only game in town when it comes to fueling the global transportation system, which will have far-reaching consequences for oil producers and consumers alike.

The exact date is unknowable, and in any event, the year in which the world does hit peak consumption won’t result in some abrupt “discontinuity of behavior,” the report argues. Demand growth will slow and then decline, but probably won’t fall off a cliff. So, the exact date of peak oil demand is “not particularly interesting.”

Nevertheless, the implications of a looming peak in oil consumption are massive. Without an economic transformation, or at least serious diversification, oil-producing nations that depend on oil revenues for both economic growth and to finance public spending, face an uncertain future.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Tomgram: Michael Klare, The Coming World of “Peak Oil Demand,” Not “Peak Oil”

April 28, 2016

Tomgram: Michael Klare, The Coming World of “Peak Oil Demand,” Not “Peak Oil”

In a Greater Middle East in which one country after another has been plunged into chaos and possible failed statehood, two rival nations, Iran and Saudi Arabia, have been bedrock exceptions to the rule. Iran, at the moment, remains so, but the Saudi royals, increasingly unnerved, have been steering their country erratically into the region’s chaos. The kingdom is now led by a decrepit 80-year-old monarch who, in commonplace meetings, has to be fed his lines by teleprompter. Meanwhile, his 30-year-old son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has gained significant control over both the kingdom’s economic and military decision-making, launched a rash anti-Iranian war in Yemen, heavily dependent on air power. It is not only Washington-backed but distinctly in the American mode of these last years: brutal yet ineffective, never-ending, a boon to the spread of terror groups, and seeded with potential blowback.

Meanwhile, in a cheap-oil, belt-tightening moment, in an increasingly edgy country, the royals are reining in budgets and undermining the good life they were previously financing for many of their citizens. The one thing they continue to do is pump oil — their only form of wealth — as if there were no tomorrow, while threatening further price-depressing rises in oil production in the near future. And that’s hardly been the end of their threats. While taking on the Iranians (and the Russians), they have also been lashing out at the local opposition, executing a prominent dissident Shiite cleric among others and even baring their teeth at Washington. They have reportedly threatened the Obama administration with the sell-off of hundreds of billions of dollars in American assets if a bill, now in Congress and aimed at opening the Saudis to American lawsuits over their supposed culpability for the 9/11 attacks, were to pass.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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