Peak Oil – Production v Price FAIL, Saudi Arabia will increase production FAIL

Posted by admin on November 29th, 2009 and filed under peak oil production | 25 Comments »

One commenter suggested that world crude oil production was NOT an indicator for peak oil. The suggestion was that oil producers were holding back production to drive up price and that price was the driver behind production. But a graph of oil price v production does not offer us a correlation.

Another commenter suggested that Saudi Arabia had recently announced their intention to increase production even though price was low. Saudi Arabia has repeatedly indicated that it would increase production IF there was sufficient demand. In 2008 with prices at all-time highs, they did not increase production significantly and with oil prices again nearing $80 they are at a 5-year low in production.

The Saudis indicate that they will increase production to 14.5 Mbpd, but their peak production was 11.1 Mbpd in 2005. Every indication is that the only way to increase production is to sell sour oil.

OPEC has announced that they will increase production IF price goes over $100. I’m imagining that $100 will come and go without any significant increase in production.

Duration : 0:2:32


[youtube SHcHD6Mzjyk]

25 Responses

  1. zthustra Says:

    DBG asserted that …
    DBG asserted that Kuwait had once been a part of Iraq. He also asserted that they had been under US rule.

  2. zthustra Says:

    Ooops, Kuwait was …
    Ooops, Kuwait was pulling up oil from under Iraq, not Iran.

    The allegation was that the wells, which literally sat right on the border were drilled at angles and went across the border.

    If you didn’t catch it then, you will not find anything about it now. I’m fairly certain this was an issue that went to world court and the US/Kuwait oil companies just thumbed their nose at the world court opinion.

    If somebody knows more, please post a reply.

  3. zthustra Says:


    DecentralizedByGuild got frustrated with my persistance replies. He has unfriended me, unsubscribed me and blocked me. He also removed all of his own comments and replies. I’m ok with that.

    When I first replied to him, I really thought he was a “smart person” and said so. He proved me wrong.

    I left my replies up because I think we all get frustrated by deniers. I’m sorry that I frustrated him so. His replies got very ugly in the end. I wish I was a better communicator.

  4. zthustra Says:

    You probably didn’t …
    You probably didn’t notice this, but I’m not posting comments on your channel, you are posting them on mine.

    You also might not have noticed but I’m not the one resorting to ad hominen attacks with profanity, you are.

    The best way to be left alone is to simply stop posting comments and replies to my channel.

    You might even want to unsubscribe and block me. All those techniques work.

    I would rather see you take the time to do some real reasearch.

  5. zthustra Says:

    California, Los …
    California, Los Angeles Basin, Onshore has proved reserves of 188 million barrels. Compare that with a state like Kansas’ 243 million barrels or Colorado’s 288 million barrels.

    Whenever someone gets excited about southern California’s NEW untapped reserves of oil, it always turns out to be the promise of technology that will exploit extra heavy oit, tar. But that technology doesn’t exist.

  6. zthustra Says:

    YOU are the one who …
    YOU are the one who said oil production was being kept low to drive up price, not me.

    I simply demonstrated that higher prices were not increasing production.

    I NEVER confused PRODUCTION with RESERVES, that is YOUR game not mine.

    People who understand peak oil theory understand that peaking of production and running out are two different things and that there will be lots of oil stll in the ground when we go past peak production.

  7. zthustra Says:

    Let me offer you …
    Let me offer you JUST ONE example of the BS you post.

    DBG, “There are quite a lot more places where oil is and preserved than just wild life places. for example LA sits on top of oil.”

    California has a lot of so called extra-heavy oil, the other word for it is TAR. This is all over under LA and if they had any idea how to pull it up and use it to run farm equipment they would. You call it oil, the same as crude oil, but it isn’t.This is what I call BS.

  8. zthustra Says:

    For someone who …
    For someone who doesn’t care, you sure post a lot of comments and replies.

    This video and the ones that preceed it are about peak oil. If you have something else you want to address, you should make a video.

    If you think peak oil isn’t about production, you don’t know what it is about and should educate yourself and shouldn’t try to educate others.

    If you think half the you posted above is true, you should find some actual support for it.

    If you really don’t care, then go away.

  9. zthustra Says:

    My BS meter is …
    My BS meter is going nuts. If you where actually debating you would already have looked up, estimated world oil reserves, looked up how much we are using each year and looked up new annual discoveries.

    After complaining that production was no indicator of peak oil production, which is totally absurd, then insisting that you need to measure actual oil reserves then you don’t waste a minute of you time doing the real reasearch.

  10. zthustra Says:

    I don’t have to …
    I don’t have to read about it in Wiki, I was paying attention when it happened and I saw the images of miles of border oil wells being destroyed by Iraq. I was currious why they were destroying them instead of just taking over so I did some research and that’s how I know why they invaded. You, on the other hand, seem to accepting the media feed that has hound its way to Wikipedia.

  11. zthustra Says:

    You call me an …
    You call me an idiot and then you prove your earlier comment to be in error. Let’s reread your cut and paste from Wiki?

    The British, not the US, ruled from Basra. Kuwait existed BEFORE there was an kingdom or Iraq, NOT as part of the kingdom of Iraq. Iraq didn’t like where the lines were drawn in the sand by Britain, but Iraq didn’t have any say in it because Iraq didn’t rule, Britain did.

    Where you an adult in 1990? I was in the military and I watched the whole thing closely.

  12. zthustra Says:

    Do you never get …
    Do you never get tired of being wrong?

    Kuwait has been ruled by the Arab family of al-Sabah since 1756.

    The modern nation of Iraq was once under British rule but became a kingdom in 1935.

  13. zthustra Says:

    Go ahead DBG, get …
    Go ahead DBG, get some numbers and do some math. You keep making asserions that aren’t backed by ANYTHING. Saddam invaded Kuwait because Kuwait was putting wells down on the border and sucking Iranian oil in violation of treaty. Iraq was protecting it’s own oil from US/Kuwait oil companies. That’s why when they went in they destroyed all the wells along the border.

  14. zthustra Says:

    Sounds just like an …
    Sounds just like an assertion. In other words, a statement made the same as fact with no evidence. Get some numbers and do some math.

  15. zthustra Says:

    Damn it, why don’t …
    it, why don’t you go to the databases and tell us how much oil is out there (technically available oil), how much we are finding every year, and how much we are using every year. Do the math and figure out how long before it runs out. I already told you that you can go to my web page and use a JavaScript routine to run the numbers (numbers the YOU find and like) or do the math on your calculator, the formula is provided.

  16. zthustra Says:

    Maybe there is a …
    Maybe there is a reason that has nothing to do with CONTROL? But I doubt you will be able to see it. It probably isn’t worth my time to explain to you why there are many offshore claims that are not being drilled.

  17. zthustra Says:

    AMEN! All that crap …
    AMEN! All that crap about not being able to drill in protected areas is just distraction.

  18. zthustra Says:

    OMG, I take it back …
    OMG, I take it back, the early-70’s dollar crisis was in response to the Nixon taking us off the gold standard when he stopped giving IMF members an ounce of gold for every $35 coupled by the peaking of US oil production. Prior to the early 70’s the US was a leading crude oil producer and exporter. My father-in-law is a diplomat and the told me all about the misleading wheat issue.

  19. zthustra Says:

    I don’t know how to …
    I don’t know how to get past this but I’m going to try another angle on you. Peak Oil is a theory about PRODUCTION … did you get that? The theory is that PRODUCTION will increase and then PEAK and then DECLINE. It is ALL about PRODUCTION. Now, how in are you going to measure peak oil PRODUCTION is you don’t measure PRODUCTION?

  20. bdist Says:

    Actually there is …
    Actually there is not much oil in such prodtected areas compared to what the decline rate is in existing fields. So even if those areas where brought online, massive investment would be needed to match the decline rate, and so they would probably not do much to decrease the price. EU top ministers recently said on European TV that “the age of cheap energy is over”. :(

  21. zthustra Says:

    I’m sure you are …
    I’m sure you are familiar with the Theory of Unlimited Need. ALL of the oil that is produced will sell. The question is always whether the EROEI model will justify the cost of extraction. I know the dollar market with EROEI but on the ballance EROEI works. And all the oil that can be produced is produced and sold. That is why production is ONE (just one) indicator that is worth paying attention to.

  22. zthustra Says:

    I understand that …
    I understand that very well. I only posted that chart because YOU indicated that there was a lot of production capacity that was being withheld to drive up the price.

    Well, the price has gone up a couple of time now and is VERY high by historic standards and produciton is NOT going up. In fact production has never responded more than a little in response to price.

  23. zthustra Says:

    DBG “… how much …
    DBG “… how much oil is left out there.”

    Do you remember my reply, “… petroleum geologists, engineers and industry experts.”

    THEY have a very good idea how much oil is left and THEY are talking. In fact, the data is published on the EIA web site. In fact, I have written a JavaScript web tool so you can see how long what is left will last taking into account what we use, what is there, and what we are finding. Use number YOU trust.

    The link is on an earlier vid, How Long Will It Last?

  24. zthustra Says:

    Like I said, you’re …
    Like I said, you’re a smart person, you just need some education. Do some real research then let me know why what you just posted is totally wrong.

    PS. I could type for an hour to explain it but you won’t believe ti, so PLEASE do some serious digging.

    Oh, you aren’t far off on your cost to pump a barrel of oil from an established well on some Texas prarie or in Saudi. Now think why we import 2/3rd of our oil, even when the price is $80 a barrell.

  25. WouldbeSage Says:

    The entirety of the …
    The entirety of the Alaskan Wildlife Preserve Oil Field would not make a drop in the bucket over the long-term.

    Oil is not like coal.

    Coal is practically everywhere, easy to harvest, and requires very little processing.

    Oil is not everywhere, is often hard to reach when it is found, and requires intensive processing to become useful.

    Talking about the oil that remains is like a car headed toward a cliff 100 yards away. If you’re looking at the road, you’ve missed the point.

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