WHEN WILL GLOBAL OIL PRODUCTION PEAK?
We have now developed an assessment of how much conventional oil there is and how much remains to produce. The remaining oil does not occur in some vast underground cavern from which is could be quickly pumped, but it is held in the minute pore space of the reservoir rocks, in the same way as rising damp can flow through the walls of old stone buildings. It is easy to understand therefore why wells begin to decline as they have to draw on oil farther and farther from the wellbore. The production of an oilfield rises rapidly as new wells are added but then when all the wells are in place declines exponentially at a composite depletion rate. Depletion Rate is a given year’s production as a percentage of the remaining reserves at the end of the preceding year. So it is with a geological basin: production rises as new fields are found, and it is normal for the larger ones to be found first. Their depletion rate tends to mask the effects of small late stage additions. Lastly, it is the same
