AGING GIANT OIL FIELDS, NOT NEW DISCOVERIES ARE THE KEY TO FUTURE OIL SUPPLY

"Aging giant fields produce more than half of global oil supply and are already declining as group ... An evaluation of giant fields by date of peak shows that new technologies applied to those fields has kept their production higher for longer only to lead to more rapid declines later. As the world’s giant fields continue to age and more start to decline, we can therefore expect the annual decline in their rate of production to worsen. Land-based and offshore giants that went into decline in the last decade showed annual production declines on average above 10 percent. What this means is that it will become progressively more difficult for new discoveries to replace declining production from existing giants. And, though I may sound like a broken record, it is important to remind readers that the world remains on a bumpy production plateau for crude oil including lease condensate (which is the definition of oil), a plateau which began in 2005."

Zum Artikel von Kurt cobb, erschienen auf Resource Insights (7. April 2013) »