When will Peak Oil occur?

In principle, there is no debate about the fact that the world is heading for Peak Oil and Gas. Being debated is the question when Peak Oil and Peak Gas will occur, and how to handle this challenge. ASPO Switzerland emphasizes that oil will be scarce in the foreseeable future, and that the remaining time before Peak Oil should be used for careful planning.

A global peak of conventional oil is to be expected somewhere before the year 2020 by using compilations of historical industrial data on known production and reserves, and then adding projected findings and subtracting the current production.

By \'conventional oil\' we mean oil that is easy to produce. Not included are: Oil found in polar regions, deep water oil, oil from tar sands and from oil shales. Extracting these latter oils is more difficult and requires more energy, so that they have a lower economical value.

The moments in time at which oil and gas will peak cannot be predicted exactly, because much depends on future discovery rates, development-, and consumption rates which themselves heavily depend on prices. Furthermore,
the official data provided by numerous countries, e.g. those in the Middle East, is often not very reliable because it is treated as a state secret.

Thus, the exact moment of global peaking will only be clearly recognizable for historians after the fact. By now, historians can already clearly identify various national oil peaks, the best known of which is the US peak of 1970.

Marion King Hubbert (1903-1989) Petroleum geologist for Shell.
First scientist to warn for the far reaching consequences of Peak Oil.

Predicting Peak Gas is even more difficult than predicting Peak Oil. Market disturbances will probably already occur in ten years or slightly more. This depends very much on how fast the known big gas fields in Northern Russia, the Middle East, Kasachstan, Turkmenistan, and other regions of the world will be connected to an efficient pipeline system to consumers in Europe and Asia. Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) will experience a strong growth as a traded commodity, however it is more expensive and less energy-efficient. The North American continent will have to fall back on LNG on a large scale.

Coal reserves, which are abundant at the moment, will also be scarce in the long run. Just like petroleum and natural gas, coal has a maximal extraction rate, i.e. a Peak. Coal fields easily accessible from the surface or from shallow mines will be depleted. In addition it should be realized that commercially viable fields are often located far from consumption centres and that the logistics require big and expensive investments. Furthermore, coal comes with important environmental problems.

Already in 1957 in the USA, Shell geologist King Hubbert called attention to the oil peak phenomenon. Hubbert studied the continuously declining US oil reserves and warned for the problems, unsolved to this day, of self-depleting oil fields. His predictions were initially doubted, but have been extensively confirmed in the USA. His statements have been known in the oil industry for a long time.

Hubbert's 1957 prediction of Peak Oil (blue curve) and realized US oil production (red curve). Source: AAPG Explorer, 2000