The Peak of the Oil Age - Analyzing the world oil production Reference Scenario in World Energy Outlook 2008

Kjell Aleklett, Mikael Höök, Kristofer Jakobsson (), Michael Lardelli, Simon Snowden and Bengt Söderbergh

Energy Policy, 2010, vol. 38, issue 3, 1398-1414

Abstract: The assessment of future global oil production presented in the IEA's World Energy Outlook 2008 (WEO 2008) is divided into 6 fractions; four relate to crude oil, one to non-conventional oil, and the final fraction is natural-gas-liquids (NGL). Using the production parameter, depletion-rate-of-recoverable-resources, we have analyzed the four crude oil fractions and found that the 75Â Mb/d of crude oil production forecast for year 2030 appears significantly overstated, and is more likely to be in the region of 55Â Mb/d. Moreover, analysis of the other fractions strongly suggests lower than expected production levels. In total, our analysis points to a world oil supply in 2030 of 75Â Mb/d, some 26Â Mb/d lower than the IEA predicts. The connection between economic growth and energy use is fundamental in the IEA's present modelling approach. Since our forecast sees little chance of a significant increase in global oil production, our findings suggest that the "policy makers, investors and end users" to whom WEO 2008 is addressed should rethink their future plans for economic growth. The fact that global oil production has very probably passed its maximum implies that we have reached the Peak of the Oil Age.

Keywords: Future; oil; supply; Peak; oil; World; Energy; Outlook; 2008 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (64)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301-4215(09)00851-9
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:38:y:2010:i:3:p:1398-1414

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().