World Energy Council Projects World Oil Peak In 10 - 20 Years (Podcast)

[hatrack]

In a sign of just how rapidly peak oil is moving into the mainstream, a report from the World Energy Council has forecast that conventional oil production will peak in the next ten to twenty years. But in an interview with Lastoilshock.com, WEC Secretary General Gerald Doucet insisted that the transition would be “managable” and that total world energy supply would nevertheless double by 2030.

The WEC forecast relies upon an assessment of ‘Estimated Ultimate Recovery’ - the total amount of oil that will ever be produced - from Germany’s Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR). This assessment is arguably too generous since the BGR takes OPEC’s highly questionable official reserve numbers at face value. But even on this basis WEC’s 2007 Survey of Energy Resources concludes that “the depletion midpoint - when half the EUR will have been recovered - will be reached within the next 10 to 20 years. Once that point is reached, the decline of conventional oil production is described as inevitable.” The BGR itself forecasts 2017.

EDIT

http://www.davidstrahan.com/blog/?p=48

[Mojorabbit]

1. I think that is optimistic

With the increase in demand from India and China I think it has already happened.

[Delphinus]

2. Yeah,

there are too many others who have really studied this that say it's not going to be that far in the future (if it's not here already).