Save and Conserve

in the ongoing debate about whether or not peak oil is now, jeffrey brown asks: "What part of this is difficult to understand? Find me a case history where a region has shown rising oil production when its four largest producing fields were all declining."

based on his background as a petroleum engineer/geologist/expert, i think it's safe to say there is no case history that shows an oil producing region growing production while its four largest fields were in decline. this is likely due to the fact that production in a region is constrained by a much smaller tail of low producing oil fields than the world.

can production from the long tail of the world's low producing oil fields collectively exceed production decline from the world's largest oil fields? i think the answer right now is yes. earth is a mighty big place and there are a lot of oil fields out there. brown may be getting too hung up on the "top 4 in decline" meme. many of the other big fields (the elephants) on the list are maintaining or even growing production. and then you have a really long tail of low producers out there.

if ghawar or burgan or cantarell have only recently gone into decline, i think it will take a year or two before we really feel the pinch in terms of global oil production figures. remember, if the peak is now, production will never be higher. as many have said, you can only call the peak in the rear view mirror.