Recent events and analyses have suggested that global production of oil might peak sometime within the next few years to the next one or two decades. Other analyses, however, conclude that oil supply can meet global demand for some decades to come and that oil production peaking is much further off. To explore this issue, the NRC held a workshop, funded by the Department of Energy, bringing together analysts representing these different views. The workshop was divided into four main sessions: setting the stage; future global oil supply and demand balance; mitigation options and time to implementation; and potential follow-up activities. This report provides a summary of the workshop including the key points, issues and questions raised by the participants, and it identifies possible topics for follow-up studies. No consensus views, conclusions, or recommendations are presented.
- Board on Energy and Environmental Systems
- THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2005
- Setting the Stage—Michael Ramage, Chair
- 7:30 am Sign In
- 8:00-8:10 Overview of Plan for the Workshop
- Michael Ramage, chair, Workshop Planning Group (retired executive vice president, ExxonMobil R&D Company)
- 8:10-8:45 Issues in the “Peaking of Global Oil Production” Debate
- 8:45-9:20 World Oil Demand: Key Trends and Uncertainties
- 9:20-9:55 Global Overview of Petroleum Resources
- Future Global Oil Supply and Demand Balance—Scott Tinker, Chair
- 9:55-10:00 Introduction
- Scott Tinker (director, Bureau of Economic Geology, and Department of Geological Sciences, University of Texas, Austin)
- 10:35-11:10 A Case for a Near-Term Peak in Global Oil Production
- 11:10-11:45 Questions Regarding Saudi Arabian Petroleum Supplies
- Matt Simmons (Simmons & Company International)
- 11:45-12:20 pm Exploration Trends, Diminishing Success, and Implications for Future Crude Supplies
- 12:20-1:40 Recess
- 1:40-2:15 The View from ExxonMobil
- Scott Nauman (manager, Energy and Economics, Corporate Planning Department, ExxonMobil Corporation)
- 2:15-2:50 Looking In from the Outside
- Kjell Aleklett (Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) and professor of physics, Uppsala University)
- 3:25-4:00 OPEC Outlook on Oil Supply and Demand
- Adnan Shihab-Eldin (acting secretary general, Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries)
- 4:00-5:15 Group Discussion
- Mitigation Options and Time to Implementation—David Greene, Chair
- 7:30 am Sign In
- 8:00-8:05 Introduction
- David Greene (corporate fellow, Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
- 8:05-8:50 Overview of Mitigation Strategies
- 8:50-9:35 Key Technology Trends Impacting Exploration and Production
- 9:35-10:10 The Potential of Heavy Oil
- Robert Heinemann (president and CEO, Berry Petroleum Company)
- 10:10-10:45 Oil Sands Development and Future Outlook
- 10:45-11:20 The Potential of Shale Oil
- Stephen Mut (Shell Exploration and Production Company)
- 11:20-11:55 Producing Liquid Fuels from Coal
- 11:55-1:00 pm Recess
- 1:00-1:35 Liquid Fuels from Natural Gas
- 1:35-2:10 Producing Liquid Fuels from Biomass
- Potential Follow-up Studies and Activities—Robert Hirsch, Chair
- 3:10-3:15 Overview and Purpose of the Session
- 3:15-4:30 Group Discussion
- 4:30-5:00 Summary of Salient Points from the Group Discussions and Suggestions
- for Follow-on Studies
- Robert Hirsch (Science Applications International Corporation)
- WORLD OIL DEMAND: KEY TRENDS AND UNCERTAINTIES
- QUESTIONS REGARDING SAUDI ARABIAN PETROLEUM SUPPLIES
- Matt Simmons, Simmons and Company International
- Since 2001, when the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas was founded, we have tried to tell the world that there will soon be a problem supplying the world with crude oil while demand continues to rise. The estimated peak-production year is 2010. The exact year for peak oil depends very much on future demand, and we will not know when we have peaked until we have crossed the threshold. It will certainly happen before 2020.
- Fifty years ago the world was consuming 4 billion bbl of oil per year, and the average discovery rate (the rate of finding undiscovered oil fields) was around 30 billion bbl per year. Today we consume 30 billion bbl per year and the discovery rate is dropping toward 4 billion bbl per year. (By discovery, I mean only new oil fields. Some analysts include reserve growth―newly accessible oil in old fields―as new discoveries). If we extrapolate the downward discovery slope from the last 30 years, we can estimate that about 134 billion “new” barrels of oil will be found over the next 30 years.
- The USGS has 649 billion bbl as a mean discovery rate of new oil fields (not growth) for the period from 1996 to 2025. According to available databases the world has found 100 billion bbl during the first 10 years of the period. For the next 20 years we estimate from existing trends that we will find another 100 billion bbl, in total 200 billion bbl. This is far from 649 billion bbl.
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