M. King Hubbert

M. King Hubbert

Marion King Hubbert was a geoscientist who worked at the Shell research lab in Houston, Texas. He made several important contributions to geology, geophysics, and petroleum geology, most notably the Hubbert curve and Hubbert peak theory , with important political ramifications. He was often...

 initially predicted in 1974 that peak oil would occur in 1995 "if current trends continue." However, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, global oil consumption

Consumption (economics)

Consumption is a common concept in economics, and gives rise to derived concepts such as consumer debt. Generally, consumption is defined in part by comparison to production. But the precise definition can vary because different schools of economists define production quite differently...

 actually dropped (due to the shift to energy-efficient

Efficient energy use

Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the goal of efforts to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. For example, insulating a home allows a building to use less heating and cooling energy to achieve and maintain a comfortable temperature...

 cars, the shift to electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

 and natural gas

Natural gas

Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...

 for heating, and other factors), then rebounded to a lower level of growth in the mid 1980s. Thus oil production did not peak in 1995, and has climbed to more than double the rate initially projected. This underscores the fact that the only reliable way to identify the timing of peak oil will be in retrospect. However, predictions have been refined through the years as up-to-date information becomes more readily available, such as new reserve growth data. Predictions of the timing of peak oil include the possibilities that it has recently occurred, that it will occur shortly, or that a plateau of oil production will sustain supply for up to 100 years. None of these predictions dispute the peaking of oil production, but disagree only on when it will occur.

According to Matthew Simmons

Matthew Simmons

Matthew Roy Simmons was founder and chairman emeritus of Simmons & Company International, and was a prominent advocate of peak oil. Simmons was motivated by the 1973 energy crisis to create an investment banking firm catering to oil companies. In his previous capacity, he served as energy...

, former Chairman of Simmons & Company International

Simmons & Company International

Simmons & Company International is a private investment bank based in Houston, Texas, that specializes in energy research, trading, and capital structuring. It was founded in 1974 by Matthew Simmons who was motivated by the 1973 energy crisis to create an investment banking firm catering to oil...

 and author of Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, "...peaking is one of these fuzzy events that you only know clearly when you see it through a rear view mirror, and by then an alternate resolution is generally too late."

Pessimistic predictions of future oil production

Matthew Simmons said on October 26, 2006 that global oil production may have peaked in December 2005, though he cautioned that further monitoring of production is required to determine if a peak has actually occurred. In 2007, Kenneth S. Deffeyes

Kenneth S. Deffeyes

Kenneth S. Deffeyes is a geologist who worked with M. King Hubbert, the creator of the Hubbert peak theory, at the Shell Oil Company research laboratory in Houston, Texas. Deffeyes holds a B.S. in petroleum geology from the Colorado School of Mines and a Ph.D. in geology from Princeton University,...

 also argued that world oil production had peaked in December 2005.

The July 2007 IEA

International Energy Agency

The International Energy Agency is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization established in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1974 in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis...

 Medium-Term Oil Market Report projected a 2% non-OPEC liquids supply growth in 2007-2009, reaching 51 koilbbl/d in 2008, receding thereafter as the slate of verifiable investment projects diminishes. They refer to this decline as a plateau. The report expects only a small amount of supply growth from OPEC producers, with 70% of the increase coming from Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

, the UAE, and Angola

Angola

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...

 as security and investment issues continue to impinge on oil exports from Iraq, Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

 and Venezuela.

In October 2007, the Energy Watch Group, a German research group founded by MP Hans-Josef Fell

Hans-Josef Fell

Hans-Josef Fell is a member of the Green Party in the German Parliament. Fell framed the German Renewable Energy legislation, together with Hermann Scheer...

, released a report claiming that oil production peaked in 2006 and would decline by several percent annually. The authors predicted negative economic effects and social unrest as a result. They stated that the IEA production plateau prediction uses purely economic models, which rely on an ability to raise production and discovery rates at will.

Sadad Al Husseini, former head of Saudi Aramco

Saudi Aramco

Saudi Aramco , officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is the national oil company of Saudi Arabia.Saudi Aramco is the world's largest and most valuable privately-held company, with estimates of its value in 2011 to be $7 trillion USD.Saudi Aramco has both the largest proven crude oil reserves,...

's production and exploration, stated in an October 29, 2007 interview that oil production had likely already reached its peak in 2006, and that assumptions by the IEA and EIA of production increases by OPEC to over 45 koilbbl/d are "quite unrealistic." Data from the United States Energy Information Administration show that world production leveled out in 2004, and an October 2007 retrospective report by the Energy Watch Group concluded that this data showed the peak of conventional oil production in the third quarter of 2006.

ASPO predicted in their January 2008 newsletter that the peak in all oil (including non-conventional sources), would occur in 2010. This is earlier than the July 2007 newsletter prediction of 2011. ASPO Ireland in its May 2008 newsletter, number 89, revised its depletion model and advanced the date of the peak of overall liquids from 2010 to 2007.

Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 alternative energy activist and oilman T. Boone Pickens stated in 2005 that worldwide conventional oil production was very close to peaking. On June 17, 2008, in testimony before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Pickens stated that "I do believe you have peaked out at 85 million barrels a day globally."

At least one oil company, French supermajor

Supermajor

Supermajor is a name commonly used to describe the world's five largest publicly owned oil and gas companies.-Composition:Trading under various names around the world, the supermajors are considered to be:* BP p.l.c...

 Total S.A.

Total S.A.

Total S.A. is a French multinational oil company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world.Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and...

, announced plans in 2008 to shift their focus to nuclear energy instead of oil and gas. A Total senior vice president explained that this is because they believe oil production will peak before 2020, and they would like to diversify their position in the energy markets.

The UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES) reported in late October 2008 that peak oil is likely to occur by 2013. ITPOES consists of eight companies: Arup, FirstGroup, Foster + Partners, Scottish and Southern Energy, Solarcentury, Stagecoach Group, Virgin Group, and Yahoo. Their report includes a chapter written by Shell corporation

Royal Dutch Shell

Royal Dutch Shell plc , commonly known as Shell, is a global oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the fifth-largest company in the world according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine and one of the six...

.

In October 2009, a report published by the Government-supported UK Energy Research Centre

UK Energy Research Centre

The UK Energy Research Centre is the focal point for UK research on sustainable energy, and is central to the Research Councils' Energy Programme...

, following 'a review of over 500 studies, analysis of industry databases and comparison of global supply forecasts', concluded that 'a peak in conventional oil production before 2030 appears likely and there is a significant risk of a peak before 2020'. The authors believe this forecast to be valid 'despite the large uncertainties in the available data'. The study was claimed to be the first to undertake an 'independent, thorough and systematic review of the evidence and arguments in the 'peak oil’ debate'. The authors noted that 'forecasts that delay a peak in conventional oil production until after 2030 are at best optimistic and at worst implausible' and warn of the risk that 'rising oil prices

Price of petroleum

The price of petroleum as quoted in news generally refers to the spot price per barrel of either WTI/light crude as traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange for delivery at Cushing, Oklahoma, or of Brent as traded on the Intercontinental Exchange for delivery at Sullom Voe.The price...

 will encourage the rapid development of carbon-intensive alternatives that will make it difficult or impossible to prevent dangerous climate change

Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change

The related terms "avoiding dangerous climate change" and "preventing dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system" date to 1995 and earlier, in the Second Assesment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change and previous science it cites.In 2002, the United Nations...

 and that 'early investment in low-carbon alternatives

Alternative energy

Alternative energy is an umbrella term that refers to any source of usable energy intended to replace fuel sources without the undesired consequences of the replaced fuels....

 to conventional oil is of considerable importance' in avoiding this scenario.

A 2010 Kuwait University

Kuwait University

Kuwait University was established in October 1966, five years after Kuwait's independence from British Colonization. KU started with only two faculties, namely the Faculty of Science, Arts and Education; and a Women's College. The university had 418 students enrolled and 31 faculty members. By ,...

 study predicted production will peak in 2014.

A 2010 report by Oxford University researchers in the journal Energy Policy

Energy policy

Energy policy is the manner in which a given entity has decided to address issues of energy development including energy production, distribution and consumption...

 predicted that production will peak before 2015.

Optimistic predictions of future oil production

Non-'peakists' can be divided into several different categories based on their specific criticism of peak oil. Some claim that any peak will not come soon or have a dramatic effect on the world economies. Others claim we will not reach a peak for technological reasons, while still others claim our oil reserves are quickly regenerated abiotically.

Plateau oil

CERA

Cambridge Energy Research Associates

Cambridge Energy Research Associates is a consulting company in the United States that specializes in advising governments and private companies on energy markets, geopolitics, industry trends, and strategy...

, which counts unconventional sources in reserves while discounting EROEI

EROEI

In physics, energy economics and ecological energetics, energy returned on energy invested ; or energy return on investment , is the ratio of the amount of usable energy acquired from a particular energy resource to the amount of energy expended to obtain that energy resource...

, believes that global production will eventually follow an “undulating plateau” for one or more decades before declining slowly. In 2005 the group predicted that "petroleum supplies will be expanding faster than demand over the next five years."

In 2007, The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

reported that "a growing number of oil-industry chieftains" believed that oil production would soon reach a ceiling for a variety of reasons, and plateau at that level for some time. Several chief executives stated that projections of over 100 Moilbbl of production per day are unrealistic, contradicting the projections of the International Energy Agency

International Energy Agency

The International Energy Agency is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization established in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1974 in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis...

 and United States Energy Information Administration.

In 2008, the IEA predicted a plateau by 2020 and a peak by 2030. The report called for a "global energy revolution" to prepare mitigations by 2020 and avoid "more difficult days" and large wealth transfers from OECD nations to oil producing nations. This estimate was changed in 2009 to predict a peak by 2020, with severe supply-growth constraints beginning in 2010 (stemming from "patently unsustainable" energy use and a lack of production investment) leading to rapidly increasing oil prices and an "oil crunch" before the peak.

It has been noted that even a "plateau oil" scenario may cause socio-political disruption through extreme petroleum price instability.

Energy Information Administration and USGS 2000 reports

The United States Energy Information Administration projects (as of 2006) world consumption of oil to increase to 98.3 Moilbbl/d in 2015 and 118 Moilbbl/d in 2030. This would require a more than 35 percent increase in world oil production by 2030. A 2004 paper by the Energy Information Administration based on data collected in 2000 disagrees with Hubbert peak theory on several points. It:

• explicitly incorporates demand into model as well as supply
• does not assume pre/post-peak symmetry of production levels
• models pre- and post-peak production with different functions (exponential growth and constant reserves-to-production ratio
  Reserves-to-production ratio
  The Reserves-to-production ratio is the remaining amount of a non-renewable resource, expressed in years. While applicable to all natural resources, the RPR is most commonly applied to fossil fuels, particularly petroleum and natural gas...
  
  , respectively)
• assumes reserve growth, including via technological advancement and exploitation of small reservoirs

The EIA estimates of future oil supply are countered by Sadad Al Husseini, a retired Vice President of Exploration of Aramco, who calls it a 'dangerous over-estimate'. Husseini also points out that population growth and the emergence of China and India means oil prices are now going to be structurally higher than they have been.

Colin Campbell

Colin Campbell (geologist)

Colin J. Campbell, PhD Oxford, is a retired British petroleum geologist who predicted that oil production would peak by 2007. The consequences of this are uncertain but drastic, due to the world's dependency on fossil fuels for the vast majority of its energy...

 argues that the 2000 United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates is a methodologically flawed study that has done incalculable damage by misleading international agencies and governments. Campbell dismisses the notion that the world can seamlessly move to more difficult and expensive sources of oil and gas when the need arises. He argues that oil is in profitable abundance or not there at all, due ultimately to the fact that it is a liquid concentrated by nature in a few places that possess the right geological conditions

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

. Campbell believes OPEC

OPEC

OPEC is an intergovernmental organization of twelve developing countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. OPEC has maintained its headquarters in Vienna since 1965, and hosts regular meetings...

 countries raised their reserves to get higher oil quotas and to avoid internal critique. He also points out that the USGS failed to extrapolate past discovery trends in the world’s mature basins.

No peak oil

The view that oil extraction will never enter a depletion phase is often referred to as "cornucopian

Cornucopian

A cornucopian is a futurist who believes that continued progress and provision of material items for mankind can be met by similarly continued advances in technology...

" in ecology and sustainability literature.

Abdullah S. Jum'ah

Abdullah S. Jum'ah

Abdallah S. Jum'ah was the VP of Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company until the end of 2008. In 1995, he succeeded Ali Al-Naimi, the first Saudi to ever become the president of the Saudi newly government acquired, Aramco. He joined the company in 1968 and was appointed V-president in...

, President, Director and CEO of Saudi Aramco

Saudi Aramco

Saudi Aramco , officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is the national oil company of Saudi Arabia.Saudi Aramco is the world's largest and most valuable privately-held company, with estimates of its value in 2011 to be $7 trillion USD.Saudi Aramco has both the largest proven crude oil reserves,...

 states that the world has adequate reserves of conventional and nonconventional oil sources that will last for more than a century.
As recently as 2008 he pronounced "We have grossly underestimated mankind’s ability to find new reserves of petroleum, as well as our capacity to raise recovery rates and tap fields once thought inaccessible or impossible to produce.” Jum’ah believes that in-place conventional and non-conventional liquid resources may ultimately total between 13 trillion and 16 Toilbbl and that only a small fraction (1.1 trillion) has been extracted to date.
Economist Michael Lynch says that the Hubbert Peak theory is flawed and that there is no imminent peak in oil production. He argued in 2004 that production is determined by demand as well as geology, and that fluctuations in oil supply are due to political and economic effects as well as the physical processes of exploration, discovery and production. This idea is echoed by Jad Mouawad, who explains that as oil prices rise, new extraction technologies become viable, thus expanding the total recoverable oil reserves. This, according to Mouwad, is one explanation of the changes in peak production estimates.

Leonardo Maugeri

Leonardo Maugeri

One of the world’s foremost experts on oil, gas, and energy, Leonardo Maugeri has been one of the most distinguished top managers of eni One of the world’s foremost experts on oil, gas, and energy, Leonardo Maugeri has been one of the most distinguished top managers of eni One of the world’s...

, group senior vice president, Corporate Strategies of Eni S.p.A.

Eni

Eni S.p.A. is an Italian multinational oil and gas company, present in 70 countries, and currently Italy's largest industrial company with a market capitalization of 87.7 billion euros , as of July 24, 2008...

, dismissed the peak oil thesis in a 2004 policy position piece in Science

Science (journal)

Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is one of the world's top scientific journals....

 as "the current model of oil doomsters," and based on several flawed assumptions. He characterizes the peak oil theory as part of a series of "recurring oil panics" that have "driven Western political circles toward oil imperialism and attempts to assert direct or indirect control over oil-producing regions". Maugeri claims the geological structure of the earth has not been explored thoroughly enough to conclude that the declining trend in discoveries, which began in the 1960s, will continue. He goes on to claim that complete global oil production, discovery trends, and geological data are not available globally.

Abiogenesis

The theory that petroleum derives from biogenic processes is held by the overwhelming majority of petroleum geologists. However, abiogenic theorists

Abiogenic petroleum origin

Abiogenic petroleum origin is a largely abandoned hypothesis that was proposed as an alternative to theory of biological petroleum origin. It was relatively popular in the past, but it went largely forgotten at the end of the 20th century after it failed to predict the location of new wells.The...

, such as the late professor of astronomy Thomas Gold

Thomas Gold

Thomas Gold was an Austrian-born astrophysicist, a professor of astronomy at Cornell University, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the Royal Society . Gold was one of three young Cambridge scientists who in the 1950s proposed the now mostly abandoned 'steady...

, assert that oil may be a continually renewing abiotic product, rather than a “fossil fuel

Fossil fuel

Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years...

” in limited supply

Non-renewable resources

A non-renewable resource is a natural resource which cannot be produced, grown, generated, or used on a scale which can sustain its consumption rate, once depleted there is no more available for future needs. Also considered non-renewable are resources that are consumed much faster than nature...

. They hypothesize that if abiogenic petroleum sources are found and are quick to replenish, petroleum production will not decline. Gold has not been able to prove his theories in experiments

One of the main counter arguments to the abiotic theory highlights the biomarkers

Biomarker (petroleum)

Biomarkers are any of a suite of complex organic compounds composed of carbon, hydrogen and other elements such as oxygen,nitrogen and sulfur, which are found in crude oils, bitumens and a petroleum source rock and eventually show simplification in molecular structure from the parent organic...

 which have been found in all samples of all the oil and gas accumulations to date. These suggest that oil has a biological origin, and is generated from kerogen

Kerogen

Kerogen is a mixture of organic chemical compounds that make up a portion of the organic matter in sedimentary rocks. It is insoluble in normal organic solvents because of the huge molecular weight of its component compounds. The soluble portion is known as bitumen. When heated to the right...

 by pyrolysis

Pyrolysis

Pyrolysis is a thermochemical decomposition of organic material at elevated temperatures without the participation of oxygen. It involves the simultaneous change of chemical composition and physical phase, and is irreversible...

.

Peak oil for individual nations

Peak Oil as a concept applies globally, but it is based on the summation of individual nations experiencing peak oil.
In State of the World 2005, Worldwatch Institute

Worldwatch Institute

The Worldwatch Institute is a globally focused environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C. Worldwatch was named as one of the top ten sustainable development research organizations by Globescan Survey of Sustainability Experts.-Mission:...

 observes that oil production is in decline in 33 of the 48 largest oil-producing countries. Other countries have also passed their individual oil production peaks.

The following list shows significant oil-producing nations and their approximate peak oil production years.

• Angola (disputed): 2010
• Australia: 2000
• China (disputed): 2009
• Egypt: 1987
• France: 1988
• Germany: 1966
• Iran: 1974
• Indonesia: 1991
• Japan: 1932
• Libya: 1970 (disputed)
• Mexico: 2003
• New Zealand: 1997
• Nigeria: 1979
• Norway: 2000
• Oman: 2000
• Russia (disputed): 1987; 2009
• Syria: 1996
• Tobago: 1981
• UK: 1999
• USA: 1970
• Venezuela: 1970

Peak oil production has not been reached in the following nations (and is estimated in a 2010 Kuwait University study to occur in the following years):

• Algeria: 2012
• Azerbaijan: 2013
• India: 2015
• Iraq: 2036
• Kazakhstan: 2020
• Kuwait: 2033
• Saudi Arabia: 2027
• Qatar: 2019

In addition, the most recent International Energy Agency

International Energy Agency

The International Energy Agency is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization established in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1974 in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis...

 and US Energy Information Administration

Energy Information Administration

The U.S. Energy Information Administration is the statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy. EIA collects, analyzes, and disseminates independent and impartial energy information to promote sound policymaking, efficient markets, and public understanding of energy and...

production data show record and rising production in Canada and China. While conventional oil production from Canada is listed as 1973, oil sands production are expected to permit increasing production until at least 2020 - see table Canadian Oil Production.