Question of the Week

Each week we take a question from one of our featured authors and put it out to the oil and gas community. It's a chance for you to have your say on topics that affect the industry.

Question

Why would anybody believe in "Peak Oil"?

Who of you believes in 'Peak Oil' i.e. specifically the notion that almost certainly in this decade the all-time oil production peak will occur and thereafter we will be in continuous decline?

A couple of questions:

1. Of all the oil that has been discovered in the world, roughly what % has been produced? The answer is ~10%!?
2. What is the global average recovery factor for fields currently in production? Some would have it as low as around 22%!

Here are some other figures:

- Shifting the average recovery factor offshore Norway from ~45% which is what it is today to their government's target of 50% would add an extra 4 billion barrels or so.
- Enhanced Oil Recovery using CO2 is capable of raising recovery factors offshore the UK by from 4 to 12%, resulting in from almost 3 up to 8 billion barrels of technical reserves. This is 60 to 160 times the most exciting discovery made in the UKCS last year!
- An increase of 1% in the aforementioned global recovery factor would yield almost 90 billion barrels, equivalent to roughly 3 years consumption at current rates.

Submitted by David Bamford from OilEdge

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