What is Peak Oil?

Peak Oil is a professional term used in the oil industry and in petroleum geology. Every oil or gas well that has been discovered goes through
a production capacity evolution: It starts at zero, then rises to a maximum extraction rate also known as the production peak,and finally goes back to zero with time. There are no exceptions to this extraction rate pattern.

Not only does every discovered oil or gas well reach a maximum extraction rate (the production peak), so does every oil or gas field, every oil and gas extracting region, every basin, country, and adding it all up so does the whole world.

As illustrated in the graphs below, the extraction rate profile always ends up being a bell curve, of which the exact shape can vary. Shown on the left is the example of a single oil field, and on the right the example of an oil producing country.

The faster the development of a well, or a field or basin is, and the faster production grows, the faster its exploitation will follow, and the faster its decline will be at the end.

Production curve of a single oil field, known as the \'Forties\' field, in the North Sea in Europe. Source: Department of Trade and Industry, UK.

Production curve of all US oil fields, following Campbell (2002), slightly modified.

A small number of specialists is well aware of Peak Oil and global Peak Gas, because these peaks herald the beginning of a worldwide decline in
production.

To the wider public however, the terms \'Peak Oil\' and \'Peak Gas\' are either new or misunderstood.
The aim of ASPO Switzerland is to put these issues out into the open and to bring them closer to the public debate by publishing factual information.