Well, we almost made it

Oil numbers just finally got released for the end of last year on the EIA page. Despite oil prices going through the roof, 2005 remains the year the world produced the most oil.

1997: 64 744 thousand barrels per day
1998: 66 966 thousand barrels per day
1999: 65 992 thousand barrels per day
2000: 68 495
2001: 68 101
2002: 67 168
2003: 69 448
2004: 72 512
2005: 73 807
2006: 73 539
2007: 73 310

This is what it will look like when the world hits peak oil. Despite huge increases in price the world’s production of oil will just stop going up. In 1998 the price of oil was only $15 a barrel, in 2000 it was about $20 and still production increased. Now it is through the roof, and production is stuck.

A 3 year small drop isn’t conclusive evidence, probably another 5 years are needed, but at $110 a barrel every oil producing country in the world is going to be squeezing out every barrel they can of production. And still production has been flat. How much more does the price need to go up before production stops stagnating?


And I leave you with a somewhat scary quote from a recent Business Week Article:

" But how could oil production be flat? Peer into Exxon’s historical numbers and you see the problem Tillerson faces. Since 2000, Exxon’s oil output from two of its largest regions, the U.S. and Europe, declined a startling 37%. That’s 500,000 fewer barrels a day in just seven years."

For oil production to even stay flat right now, countries that can produce more oil, have to do so more quickly than production drops in America, Europe, and a few other areas.