Talk:Peak oil

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I may have found an error in this***. coveries made since then. Additionally, the reported 1.5 billion barrels (240×106 m3) of oil burned off by Iraqi soldiers in the First Persian Gulf War[55] are conspicuously missing from Kuwait's figures. ** I believe it should read ten to the ninth power. ** I'll need somebody to verify that however. — Preceding text originally posted on peak oil by Swan899 (talk⋅contribs) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Excirial (talk • contribs) 08:20, 30 May 2014‎ Excirial (UTC)

Peak oil moved out 100years or more

Peak oil has probably moved out a hundred years or more.

Why does the Hubbert page say his model accurately forecasted peak oil? Why does this page use weasel language and call his inaccurate forecasts premature? I thought this was supposed to be a NPOV encyclopedic resource? This page is not neutral- an optimistic guess above is 100yrs out or further why does the article consider optimistic is 2020? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.224.251.239 (talk) 01:55, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

new peak oil graphs?

Any modern graphs that show peak oil? Akuma809 (talk) 22:23, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Extraction or production

Talking about oil "production" is inaccurate and could be misleading, given that oil is not produced, but extracted. On the other hand, "production" is a commonly used term. That being said, "extraction" is also a commonly used term, as exemplified by the title of the article Extraction of petroleum which is linked to from the first sentence of this article, and by some authors, for example William R. Catton, Jr. in Overshoot, who actually criticizes the use of "production" as a way of fooling ourselves. Therefore I suggest changing the term "production" for "extraction". Any thoughts? Support? Objections? --Felipe (talk) 12:56, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

"Production" is an established term of art used in that industry, though "yield rate" or "extraction rate" might be less likely to be misinterpreted. List_of_countries_by_oil_production cites several refs using "production", which does have the merit of contrasting clearly with "consumption". It gets rather less clear in oil sands operations: with intermediate stages of separation (bitumen from sand) and upgrading (synthetic crude from bitumen) the quantities at each stage are different. LeadSongDog come howl! 15:50, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Felipe is obviously knowledgeable on the subject, and brings up several good points:

• Production” is inaccurate. Answer: Natural petroleum is certainly not produced in the sense of being manufactured, but I just looked up the definition of “produce” online, and down the list (admittedly the 3rd listed meaning of the word) I found:

“show or provide (something) for consideration, inspection, or use.”

Examples: "he produced a sheet of paper from his pocket" and "no evidence was produced"

Petroleum production is within this meaning.

• “Production” is misleading. Answer: I have never heard anyone being mislead into believing that the oil companies are manufacturing petroleum. Lacking actual examples, I must consider this a Straw man argument.
• “Extraction” is also commonly used. Answer: A quick review of usage indicates that “extraction” seems to be mostly used in the context of field processes of getting the stuff out of the ground, while “production” is almost always used when describing the statistics of quantities and rates produced/extracted. “produced” and “production” is commonly used to describe statistical data by the USGS:

https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2012/3051/

British government:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/604064/Oil.pdf

International Energy Agency

http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyOilTrends.pdf

I certainly don’t want to ban the term “extraction”, but I found it a bit jarring to see it completely replace “production” in statistical contexts, where I am accustomed to seeing “production.” Regards. Plazak (talk) 18:23, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

I also support using "extraction" over "production". --Fixuture (talk) 21:25, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Needs section on "Great examples of scare mongering"

In the 1990's, you could not go to a web site and discuss music or other trivial subjects without a constant barrage of "Stop and read this about the end of the world due to Peak Oil !" articles.

Now, in the 21st Century, we are more concerned with stopping all oil production, rather than concern about it running out.

So, it's a great example of "Your pet cause does not justify interrupting everything".

There should be a section in the article stating this. 162.205.217.211 (talk) 02:10, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Peak Oil : a serious scam

In the beginning of the Eighties, the US oil companies lost a large amount of crude oil assets :

• they got kicked out of Iran by Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979; the subsequent Iran hostage crisis left little hope of a come back
• they got bought out from Saudi Arabia, Aramco becoming Saudi Aramco

At that time, the oil reserves of these two countries were nr 1 and 2 worldwide. This equalled to an accounting catastrophe for these companies, as they have to include their oil reserves in their statements ; these reserves suddenly dwindled to near zero.

For a few years, the oil market was simply crazy ; oil was very expensive, and oil companies made so much money selling a suddenly rare oil that no shareholder was complaining. Then the USSR crumbled, but to the dismay of the US, the Russian oil industry was first to recoup and there was no way to get hold of it; no luck there. Worse than that, Russia started pouring oil on the market and prices fell. The old problem of non-existant crude oil reserves surfaced again : US oil companies were in no situation to conquer fields in hostile countries, and shareholders decided en masse that oil companies were very overpriced.

So the US oil companies reacted on several fronts. For one thing, they advised the US gov to take hold of available countries, such as Irak, or reserves, like the Caspian Sea, by securing the southern corridor, namely Afghanistan, in the mid-nineties, through the PNAC lobbying. Second, they launched a cheap image campaign in the US, searching to impress the US citizen by telling them there were no more reserves. Mind you, that was true of their accounting reserves, not of the world reserves. That is why they dug out this Peak Oil fable, to frighten Joe Public, which in turn would ease a toughened operation abroad.

Ten years later, when Irak was secured and accounting reserves started building up again with home tight oil, the lobbying was no longer necessary, most "Peak Oil" advocates ceased to be paid for voicing the fable, and merely disappeared, which explains why noone is speaking in favor of this fable nowadays.Environnement2100 (talk) 18:47, 9 December 2017 (UTC)