{"id":55264,"date":"2020-10-10T07:32:49","date_gmt":"2020-10-10T12:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55264"},"modified":"2020-10-10T07:32:49","modified_gmt":"2020-10-10T12:32:49","slug":"has-oil-peaked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=55264","title":{"rendered":"Has oil peaked?"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"post-image\">\n<div class=\"fimg-wrapper fimg-cl\">\n<div class=\"featured-image\">\n<div class=\"fimg-inner\">\n<div class=\"vm-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"vm-middle\">\n<h3 class=\"post-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/stories\/2020-10-08\/has-oil-peaked\/\">Has oil peaked?<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"backstretch\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Exxon_desert_tanker.jpg\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<section class=\"post-content\">Last month, the world\u2019s 4<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0largest oil company\u2014BP\u2014<u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bp.com\/content\/dam\/bp\/business-sites\/en\/global\/corporate\/pdfs\/energy-economics\/energy-outlook\/bp-energy-outlook-2020.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">predicted<\/a><\/u>\u00a0that the world will never again consume as much petroleum as it did last year. So, have we finally hit peak oil? And if so, what does that mean for our economy and our world?<\/p>\n<p>There was fierce controversy in the first decade of this century over claims by petroleum geologists and energy commentators that peak oil was imminent (I was a figure in that debate, writing several\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/richardheinberg.com\/bookshelf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">books<\/a><\/u>\u00a0on the topic). Most of those early claims were based on analysis of oil depletion and consequent supply constraints. BP, however, is talking about a peak in oil\u00a0<i>demand<\/i>\u2014which, according to its forecast, could fall by more than 10 percent this decade and as much as 50 percent over the next 20 years if the world takes strong action to limit climate change.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-3483566 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/peak_oil2020.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 874px) 100vw, 874px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/peak_oil2020.jpg 874w, https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/peak_oil2020-304x154.jpg 304w, https:\/\/www.resilience.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/peak_oil2020-768x388.jpg 768w\" alt=\"\" width=\"874\" height=\"442\" \/><\/p>\n<p><i>Source: PeakOilBarrel.com; production in thousands of barrels per day.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Numbers from the US Energy Information Administration\u2019s\u00a0<u><a href=\"https:\/\/www.eia.gov\/totalenergy\/data\/browser\/?tbl=T11.01B#\/?f=M\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Monthly Review<\/a><\/u>\u00a0tell us that world oil production (not counting biofuels and natural gas liquids) actually hit its zenith, so far at least, in November 2018, nearly reaching 84.5 million barrels per day. After that, production rates stalled, then plummeted in response to collapsing demand during the coronavirus pandemic. The current production level stands at about 76 mb\/d.<\/p>\n<p>Many early peak oil analysts predicted that the maximum rate of oil production would be achieved in the 2005-to-2010 timeframe, after which supplies would decline minimally at first, then more rapidly, causing prices to skyrocket and the economy to crash.<\/p>\n<p>Those forecasters were partly right and partly wrong.\u00a0<i>Conventional<\/i> oil production did plateau starting in 2005, and oil prices soared in 2007, helping trigger the Great Recession.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Has oil peaked? Last month, the world\u2019s 4th\u00a0largest oil company\u2014BP\u2014predicted\u00a0that the world will never again consume as much petroleum as it did last year. So, have we finally hit peak oil? And if so, what does that mean for our economy and our world? There was fierce controversy in the first decade of this century [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[24206,2272,2268,141,164,251,267,328,588,1039,589,6343,4523,596,607,617,13669,6665,1081,723],"class_list":["post-55264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-american-oil-companies","tag-bp","tag-british-petroleum","tag-climate-change","tag-conventional-oil","tag-eia","tag-energy-information-administration","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-oil","tag-oil-consumption","tag-oil-demand","tag-oil-depletion","tag-oil-sands","tag-oil-supply","tag-pandemic","tag-peak-oil","tag-peak-oil-demand","tag-resilience-org","tag-richard-heinberg","tag-shale-oil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55265,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55264\/revisions\/55265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}