China and the Twenty-First-Century Crisis by Minqi Li

Author:Minqi Li
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pluto Press

Figure 6.4 US Oil Production (Historical and Projected, Million Tonnes, 1950–2050)

Sources: US oil production from 1950 to 1964 is from Rutledge (2007). US oil production from 1965 to 2014 is from BP (2015). Projected US oil production from 2012 to 2040 is based on the EIA’s “reference case” scenario (EIA 2015), extended to 2050 based on the trend.

In a report published by the Post Carbon Institute, David Hughes (a long-time Canadian geologist), projects that US shale oil production is likely to peak before 2020. Using detailed data from US shale oil production, Hughes concludes that EIA’s official forecasts are likely to be too optimistic. Although US oil production will enjoy robust growth in the short run, the production level will be substantially below EIA’s forecast by 2040 (Hughes 2014).

Outside the United States, oil production has stagnated. Russia, the world’s second largest oil producer, is approaching peak oil production (Patterson 2014). Western sanctions on Russia are preventing Russia from receiving western capital and advanced drilling equipment. If the sanctions are not lifted, Russia could face a 20 percent decline in oil production by 2020 (Chazan and Farchy 2014). Tony Hayward, the former chief executive of BP (one of the largest multinational oil and gas companies in the world), warned that “The world has been lulled into a false sense of security because of what’s going on in the US.” According to Hayward, the world would struggle to find new sources of oil supply when US oil production peaks again (Chazan 2014).

Figure 6.5 shows the Hubbert linearization analysis of world (excluding the United States) oil production. Hubbert linearization analysis is named after the American geologist M. King Hubbert. It projects the ultimately recoverable amount of non-renewable resources based on the observed relationship between current production and cumulative production (Hubbert 1982).

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