Etat des reserves de gaz des pays exportateurs vers l’Europe, Club de Nice Energie et geopolitique [2007 nov 29]

La si difficile evaluation des ressources et reserves entre technologie, marche et geopolitique, Festival International Geographie de Saint-Die des Vosges [2007 octobre 7]

Climate Change: between reality and imposture, what place for science? [Part 1] • [Part 2] • [Part 3] • 18th International festival of Saint Dié (Vosges, France) [2007 October 6]

Thoughts of a geologist-geophysicist on climate change and energy forecast with lots of graphs for meditation

North America natural gas discovery & production [2007 August 20]

From USDOE/EIA-0534 1990 "US oil and gas reserves by year of field discovery" up to 1988 and EIA annual reports using new discovery and new reservoir in old fields after 1988, it is possible the approach the mean backdated conventional discovery (or proved plus probable) from 1900 to 2005.

National Petroleum Council, Conference Call Presentation [2007 August 22]

Comments on NPC Draft «Facing hard truths about energy» National Petroleum Council [2007 august 20]

NPC is using the right approach, asking the right people, but, despite many good points, the Draft did not deliver completely the hard truths and what I was hoping for a right balance between the many opinions.

The Oil Drum Interview with Jean Laherrère [2007 ]

Jean Laherrère kindly agreed to give an interview to TOD:E by e-mail. For several years he was virtually the sole researcher modelling Coal depletion in the same vein it is done for Oil and Gas. Despite being considerably different from the common sense of limitless Coal, his forecasts were this year confirmed by several studies and reports. TOD:E got some comments on this matter as so on the general Fossil Fuels depletion picture and our future beyond them.

Union des ingenieurs et scientifiques du Bassin de l’Adour, Pau [2007 mai 10]

-Principes de la nature et de notre societe:

• Tout ce qui nait, croit, atteint un pic, decline et meurt.
• Tout est cycle, un cycle disparaît pour etre remplace par un nouveau cycle, tant qu’il y a des ressources.
• Une croissance continue est impossible dans un monde fini. Nous avons atteint les limites de la planete.
• Mais dans notre societe de consommation la croissance est le pere Noel de demain et les dirigeants sont juges sur la croissance (PIB ou actions).
• Le mot declin un terme politiquement incorrect, car contraire au voeu politique de la croissance constante pour les 30 prochaines annees (dit business as usual).
• Un dessin vaut mille mots et toute declaration sans donnees est a verifier.

Petroleum Africa [2007 April]

"As long as SEC regulations inhibit IOCs from reporting 2P reserves, and as long as OPEC quotas prevent members from accurately reporting reserves, reserves data will be flawed. Proved reserves are financial (SEC) or political (OPEC) data and should not be aggregated or used in forecasts about the future. Only proven plus probable estimates should be used and only annual production of mature fields is required for a good estimate of reserves, irrespective of all published estimates. Every country should release complete historical field annual production and most disagreements on reserves will disappear for those ready to plot the decline and to extrapolate it. Unfortunately it does not work well when field production is constrained by OPEC quotas or investment. But now quotas are less and less followed and investments are plenty from IOCs for countries which do not deny signed agreements as Venezuela, Bolivia and Russia."

"... [T]he main recommendation is to do everything possible to obtain the change of the SEC rules to come in line with the rest of the world, in order that proved reserves will be replaced by best estimate reserves."

"Most of official forecasts are not based on real studies but on wishes, mainly to continue the past economic growth, being the scenario of BAU business as usual... IEA is a consumers club founded to oppose the OPEC producers club. But as OPEC includes now Angola, IEA should include China and India. Only the BGR in Germany is making a complete inventory of the world energy resources, when other[s] [e.g.,] the WEC -- World Energy Council -- [are] compiling heterogeneous statements.... Published proven oil & gas reserves are not at all proved but what the nations want to show, mainly for the OPEC countries. The SEC rules in the US stock market oblige oil companies to omit probable reserves and aggregation of proved reserves is incorrect. Only UK and Norway publish real true (2P) field reserves. A true dialogue between producers and consumers will improve security of oil and gas supply and demand. China and India will see a large shortfall in oil and IEA future demand seems difficult to occur. Unfortunately the solution seems to be, either energy saving with a behaviour change in the consuming society (unlikely), or an economic crisis as forecasted by Paul Volcker in 2004 in the next 5 years."

"Saving energy should be the main goal but it seems contrary to our consumption society where growth is praised as solving everything. Saving energy will not be done with protocols or laws, but by convincing the consumer to change his way of life. Recent denials of oil & gas signed contracts seem to indicate that we are back to jungle conditions. Dialogue should prevail."

Fossil fuels public data are unreliable, in particular on reserves, confused with resources. Even production data are flawed, because publishing data is a political act and depends upon the motive of the author.

Economists do not think wrong, they think on wrong data.

Official production forecasts are based on continuous growth wishes, denying any peak. Realistic forecasts need to estimate the ultimate recovery, based on the extrapolation of creaming curves, data mostly confidential except in UK and Norway.

There are many myths based on general statements without any proof, but dismissed by individual field data. R/P is a very poor parameter for forecasting the future, but used by many.

Oil (liquids including synthetic oils) will peak in less than 10 years, if there is no constraint from the demand or investments, or will follow a bumpy plateau with chaotic prices.

Gas is not global because the high cost of transport and shortage could occur before oil shortage in North America or Europe. World gas will peak around 2025.

Coal will peak around 2050, because reserves are often confused with resources (case of France).

But in situ gasification, if viable, may convert resource into reserves. Fossil fuel per capita is flat at 1,4 toe/cap since 1975 and will stay until 2025. Primary energy will flatten and may trend towards 15 Gtoe. Even with this low level the gap with fossil fuels will be hard to fill without new generation nuclear plants."

"Principes de la nature et de notre societe:
Tout ce qui nait, croit, atteint un pic, decline et meurt. Tout est cycle, un cycle disparaît pour etre remplace par un nouveau cycle.
Une croissance continue est impossible dans un monde fini. Nous avons atteint les limites de la planete.
Mais dans notre societe de consommation la croissance est jugee indispensable et le mot declin un terme politiquement incorrect."

• Most actors favour ambiguity because publishing data is a political act and decline is still a politically incorrect term, because growth is the main goal for politicians and managers!
• Confidentiality of field reserves is difficult to remove in a competitive business if data is not released by governments, as it is done in UK and Norway. As long as OPEC quotas are based on reserves and as long as quotas are not definitely abandoned, reserves as production data will be flawed... US old and unconventional oilfields remaining reserves estimated by multiplying the annual production by 10 are chosen as examples of reserve growth by USGS 2000 and others.
• Many examples lead to conclude that the US reserve growth is mainly bad reporting and that the USGS claim of 730 Gb of world reserve growth obtained by applying this poor and obsolete US proved growth to proved + probable reserves is scientifically wrong.
• All forecasts using USGS 2000 results (at end 1995) are highly unreliable. A new world assessment is a must.
• Competition and truth cannot live together easily, but what is the truth in an uncertain world!
• It is easier to tell the truth with a large range than with a single value.
• Confidentiality will disappear when competition will be replaced by working together to save energy in order to leave enough energy to our grandchildren. It means first that peak oil has to be recognized by all.

• Ce ralentissement n’est absoulment pas envisage dans les scenarios energetiques qui sont la base des conclusion du GIEC 2001 sur le changement climatique. Ces memes scenarios irrealistes sont encore utilises pour le rapport 2007 qui arrivera donc aux memes conclusions erronees.
• L’energie est sousevalue, ne faisant que 5% du PIB tout en contribuant a 50% dans ce PIB.
• Des prix plus eleves de l’energie est la seule solution pour faire des economies et pousser les energies renouvelables.
• L’agriculture a atteint ses limites et ne pourra pas dans le futur nourrir les hommes et remplir les reservoirs des voitures.
• Les pays eduques ont un taux de fecondite tres au dessous du taux de remplacement et vont vers l’extinction."

Peak oil and related peaks: part 1 [3.6 MB pdf] ™ part 2 [2.3 MB pdf], Evora University [2006 May 8]

"I am not sure how to find and to tell the truth, but for me a graph is worth a thousand words, but as long as data is not flawed! Reliability of data is the big problem..."

When will oil production decline significantly? European Geosciences Union, Vienna [2006 April 3]

"30 years from now, production of easy oil will be 35% less than to day but production of all liquids (including from coal and biomass) only 5% less than to day."

"Les réserves sont incertaines, mais la plupart des définitions, comme les règles de la SEC, parlent de “certitude raisonnable” pour l’existence des réserves et refusent l’approche probabiliste à cause de l’aversion au risque des banquiers et des actionnaires."

"-une nouvelle théorie remplace une ancienne en apportant plus de solutions, mais elle sera ellemême remplacée plus tard
-le point sans dimension, la droite infinie, l'infiniment grand et l'infiniment petit n'existent pas dans la Nature..."

"Rabi-Kounga produced by Shell looks like Yibal in Oman also produced by Shell. Both were overproduced with horizontal wells and the decline was drastic..."

"The story begins with a paper at the 12th European Gas Conference in Oslo 2003, by Malcolm Brinded, Shell's Vice-President of Exploration and Production. It was entitled Gas: the Bridge to a Sustainable Future. He reported that Shell's overall production forecast for 2020 was 2.6 Mb, although it did hint at some questionable additions by 2010...."

"Les perspectives pétrolières et gazières dans le monde et l’Europe"

• Faits de base
• une croissance constante n’a pas d’avenir dans un monde fini
• la croissance est le Père Noël des politiciens, qui sont jugés sur ce critère (comme les patrons !)
• tout ce qui monte redescend
• tout ce qui naît, grandit, culmine, décline et meurt: il n’y aura pas d’exception: Soleil, Terre, Homo Sapiens, civilisation
• tout phénomène naturel a donc un pic, ou plusieurs
• un cycle qui disparaît est remplacé par un nouveau cycle
• il est facile de modéliser un événement naturel avec une série de cycles Toutes les prévisions officielles: population (NU), énergie (AIE, USDOE), climat (GIEC)) sont basées sur des scénarios politiques sans considération des réalités actuelles et du passé."

Peak oil and other peaks, presentation to the CERN meeting [2005 October 3]

• Peak oil (Google 1 690 000) or oil peak (104 000)?
  
• The highest level or only a high point?
  
• One peak (one cycle = Hubbert peak) or several peaks (several cycles)?
  
• Peak by lack of demand or by lack of supply?
  
• Peak or bumpy plateau?

Publishing data is a political act and depends upon the image the author wants to give (rich in front of a banker ... or poor in front of a tax collector)."

Review on Oil Shale Data [2005 September]

"Andre Combaz who led the GERB (Groupe d’Etudes des Roches Bitumineuses) in the 1970s gave me several boxes of documents on oil shale. This data with my own file and what I could find on the web is analyzed in this review. Three annexes (A2005, A1999-2004 and A1965-1980) gather most of the data and are attached to this review.

"Oil shales are a misnomer being neither shale or oil, in fact an immature source-rock which has not yet generated any oil and needs to be heated at 600 °C to yield oil by pyrolysis. In fact they should be classified with coal and peat..."

Comments on Hydrocarbons Reserves: Abundance or Scarcity, the June 28-30 OAPEC-IFP seminar [2005 July 14]

"I attended the OAPEC-IFP seminar in Rueil-Malmaison. The seminar has gathered less than 150 people... The technical level was low, because, most of the times, data were political and terms were not defined. Most of comparisons were made between different undefined objects (as conventional confused with unconventional, proved reserves confused with 2P reserves). The obvious fact that there are two contradictory sources being the published political and the confidential technical sources is completely ignored. It was neither mentioned during the seminar that the demand is for liquids (83 Mb/d in 2004) when all of papers speak about oil, mainly oil excluding NGL. In brief it was mainly comparing apples and oranges! Many do not want to accept that the world is several and cannot be reduced to a single global entity. Many do not want to accept that there are several practices of different values.... From my notes and the proceedings (without waiting to get the CD of the presentations), I have selected the following papers ..."

"Thanks for your ... letters with articles on Russia. Please find some previous forecasts... My [most recent] graph is from Lisbon (ASPO 2005) showing FSU and US"

"S’il faut faire des économies d’énergie, ce n’est pas pour le climat, mais pour laisser un peu de ressources à nos petits-enfants."

"Growth is the Santa Claus of politicians to solve all problems such as social security, retirement, but there is no 'Plan B' other than the next generation will pay for our excesses. Saint Exupery wrote: 'We do not inherit the Earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children' (taken from old Indian popular wisdom)"

Quand va décliner la production de pétrole et de gaz? Salon du Livre [2005 Mar 20]

"-Politique et confidentialité
Le pétrole (le sous-sol) appartient à l’Etat dans tous les pays du monde, sauf aux US à terre où il appartient aux propriétaires du sol.
Les données de réserves par champs sont confidentielles dans la plupart des pays, surtout le Moyen-Orient, ex-URSS, la France, mais pas la Grande-Bretagne, la Norvège et le fédéral américain qui donnent le détail actualisé par champs.
Les réserves de pétrole sont de nouveau un secret d’Etat depuis 4 ans en Russie.
Publier des données est un acte politique et dépend de l’image que l’auteur veut donner.
Paraître pauvre devant le percepteur ou riche devant le banquier ou l’actionnaire."

"Policy and confidentiality
Oil (the sub-soil) belongs to the State in all the countries of the world, except the US where the sub-soil belongs to the owners of the ground.
The data of reserves by fields are confidential in the majority of the countries, especially the Middle-East, the ex-USSR, France, but not Great Britain, Norway and federal American which give the detail brought up to date by fields.
The crude oil reserves have again become a State Secret for 4 years in Russia.
To publish data is a political act and depends on the image which the author wants to give.
To appear poor in front of the tax collector or rich person in front of the banker or the shareholder."

Prévisions de production des combustibles fossiles et consequences sur l’économie et le climat [en Français] [2005 February 5]

• "Tout ce qui monte doit descendre
• une croissance constante n’a pas d’avenir dans un monde fini
• publier des données est un acte politique et dépend de l’image que l’on veut présenter
• les données sont très douteuses ou absentes, notamment pour l’OPEP qui détient 80% des réserves
• l’augmentation des prix du pétrole n’apporte pas une augmentation des réserves conventionnelles ou des découvertes
• la technologie ne peut changer la géologie des réservoirs..."

"The weakest point of Hubbert['s] argument is that he used proved current reserves and he did not mention the problem of using mean values and backdated value."

Not if, but when: Oil production peak will bring hard transition, a Register-Guard Editorial [2004 September 27]

"By a happy coincidence, the day after The Wall Street Journal featured Colin Campbell on its front page with a headline characterizing him as a "doomsayer," one of Campbell's closest collaborators visited Eugene."

Present and Future Energy Problems, HEC MBA Sustainable Development Seminar [2004 September 8]

Review of USGS report on North Sea Reserve Growth (by Klett and Gautier) for Petroleum Geoscience by Jean Laherrère [2004 July 16]

Perspectives energetiques et scientifiques Presentation au club des jeunes dirigeants de Quimper, Brouillon [2004 avril 22]

Natural gas future supply, IIASA-IEW [2004 June 22-24]

Future of natural gas supply, Association for the Study of Peak Oil [2004 May]

Shell's reserves decline and SEC obsolete rules "Shell's recent reserves decline was a shock to the media and the stock market. How can such decline happen in what is believed to be proven?" [2004 February 27]

How to estimate future oil supply and oil demand? International conference on Oil Demand, Production and Costs - Prospects for the Future. The Danish Technology Council and the Danish Society of Engineers, Copenhagen, IDA Conference Centre [2003 December 10]

Oil and Natural Gas Resource Assessment: Production Growth Cycle Models, Encyclopedia of Energy, July 2003

Comments by Jean Laherrere on the article by Paul Holberg & Richard Hirsch: "Can we identify limits to worldwide energy resources?", OGJ, June 30, 2003

Modelling future oil production, population and the economy, ASPO Workshop in Paris, May 2003

An older document just received in English translation: Will the natural gas supply meet the demand in North America?, International Journal of Energy Technology and Policy, sent November 21, 2001

Future of oil supplies, Seminar Center of Energy Conversion, Zurich, May 7, 2003

Hydrocarbons Resources: Forecast of oil and gas supply to 2050 at Petrotech 2003 in New Delhi, January 9, 2003

Réflexions sur les lois de la nature et les prévisions pétrolières presented at DEA-Paris 1 "Anthropologie des techniques contemporaines," Sorbonne, 9 décembre 2002 [en Français]

Economic use of hydrates: dream or reality?; some questions from an independent O&G explorer, September 5, 2002

Do the last 6 years of production confirm the USGS forecast for the period 1996-2025? August 2002

Modelling future liquids production from extrapolation of the past and from ultimates What reserves and what production? International Workshop on Oil Depletion, Uppsala, Sweden, May 23, 2002

The word "reserves" may mean many things and is widely misunderstood. It may mean the estimated production from the beginning to the end of the field's life (ultimate reserves) or what is left to produce from a certain date. The estimates too may refer to what is "proved" so far, hence having a high degree of certainty (called also "reasonable certainty") or to what can be "expected" from the whole field over its full production life (called "mean" or "expected" value)...."

Is FSU Oil Growth Sustainable? The present oil price war between OPEC and Russia, Petroleum Review, April, 2002

Mr. Laherrere's comments on the book, Hubbert’s peak: the impending world oil shortage by K.S. Deffeyes, January 6, 2002

Comments on the new Shell scenarios, October 11, 2001

Forecasting Future Production from Past Discovery (Presented during the OPEC seminar in Vienna entitled "OPEC and the Global Energy Balance: Towards a Sustainable Energy Future"), September 28, 2001.

Comments on "Challenges and Concepts for Long Term Oil and Natural Gas Supply Modeling" by Vello A. Kuuskraa (Presented at PEW Workshop on Oil and Gas Markets, Stanford Energy Modeling Forum #19 Snowmass, CO, August, 2001), September, 2001.

Jean Laherrère comments on "Global Natural Gas Perspectives" by Nakicenovic, et al, (published by the International Gas Union for the Kyoto Council and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, October 2-5, 2000), August, 2001.

Estimates of Oil Reserves [short version, pdf, 708k] [full version, pdf, 1.5mb], presented at IIASA, June 19, 2001.

US Natural Gas Supply Update, February 12, 2001.

Perspective on False Reserves, US Production, Saudi Arabia and OPEC, questions from a reader and answers by Dr. Laherrère, January 3, 2001.

Vers un Déclin de la Production Pétrolière, a report given at the Institut Superieur Industriel de Bruxelles, colloque " Energie et developpement durable ". "La prévision est un art difficile comme le montre la météorologie où les données sont nombreuses, mais la prévision des productions futures sur des données incertaines de par une connaissance limitée des gisements, mais surtout biaisées par la politique, devient presque une tâche impossible..." octobre 11, 2000.

Call for Global Grouping of Oil Companies, Gulf News, October 8, 2000.

Is USGS 2000 Assessment Reliable? The United States Geological Survey has made periodic assessments of the world's conventional oil and gas endowment since the oil shocks of the 1970s. Its ... next study is due to be presented in Calgary in June [2000]. The full study is awaited but indications of its contents are becoming available through a press release (2) issued on the eve of a critical OPEC meeting, on the Internet (3) and in the Oil & Gas Journal (4). These indications suggest that there are serious flaws in the study. It is a matter of grave concern because the world is now approaching the peak of conventional oil production. It is important therefore that the claims of the USGS be subject to close scrutiny, lest they be given an undeserved credibility in the formulation of government policy. Demand and price are influenced by the belief in the availability of future oil and gas. May 2000.

See also Laherrère's comments on John Wood's presentation of USGS 2000, December 2000.

Oceanic Hydrates: an Elusive Resource . Methane hydrates are well known to the oil industry as a material that clogs pipelines and casing. They are also present in permafrost areas and in the oceans where the necessary temperature and pressure conditions for stability occur. Claims for the widespread occurrence in thick oceanic deposits are unfounded. Being a solid, methane in oceanic hydrates cannot migrate and accumulate in deposits sufficiently large to be commercially exploited. Published estimates of the size of the resource are highly unreliable and give flawed comparisons with conventional fossil fuels." Offshore, August 1999 and September 1999.

Reserve Growth: Technological Progress, or Bad Reporting and Bad Arithmetic?" While the concept of probability evidently has entered the daily life of Calgarians, it has yet to enter the assessments of oil and gas reserves in the provinces of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. April 1999

What goes up must come down: when will it peak? "Our civilization is accustomed to growth, and it is difficult to imagine that growth is a transitory phenomenon.... We do not like to think about our own demise, any more than we like to accept that oil production will peak and decline to eventual exhaustion. The United States has already witnessed its peak and is well into decline, but thanks in part to its military power it has been able to ignore the consequences by being able to import large quantities of cheap oil, especially from Saudi Arabia.... This arrangement cannot last as production in the world as a whole and later the Middle East itself are about to peak. However, this unassailable observation is no more popular than that which greeted Hubbert’s correct prediction of the situation in the United States itself.... [T]he transition to a low energy economy will be difficult after our experience of abundant cheap supply. The official forecasts that ignore the elementary resource constraints do us no service. Never listen to those who tell you only about rise without talking about peak." Nov. 1998

Evolution of "development lag" and "development ratio" "As many offshore marginal fields are now put into production as available capacity nearby becomes available, it appears that "development lag" ... is decreasing. But, as development moves to difficult areas as West Shetlands, and, as the Foinaven development is two years behind schedule, it could be the other way." World Oil, February 1998

Distribution and evolution of "recovery factor" "Uncertainty on reserves diminishes when production after decline sets in - larger uncertainty on volume in place estimated from seismic and wells, but knowledge does not improve from production data." From International Energy Agency's Oil Reserves Conference, Paris, November 11, 1997

Multi-Hubbert Modeling, King Hubbert in his famous paper of 1956 ("Nuclear energy and the fossil fuels," API drilling and production practice) describes the future production curve of the US 48 states as a symmetrical (or bell-shaped) curve. This so-called "Hubbert curve" was a derivative of the logistic curve of Verhulst (1845) which was used extensively by R. Pearl (1925) as the Pearl-Reed curve). Everything which goes up will come down (except if the velocity is high enough to escape the earth); likewise, every curve has to come down one day and a symmetrical curve works well to describe this most of the time. July 1997.

Future sources of crude oil supply and quality considerations from DRI/McGraw-Hill/French Petroleum Institute conference, "Oil markets over the next two decades: surplus or shortage?" in Rueil-Malmaison France. 12-13 June 1997.

Pétrole et Techniques Les prévisions en matière de production d'huile et de gaz sont d'un intéret capital. Il est superflu de le rappeler. Ces études reposent nécessairement sur les données de réserves et de ressources. Mais s'il est déjà délicat d'obtenir des valeurs fiables en matière de réserves dites prouvées, il est évidemment encore plus difficile d'avoir des estimations valables de celles restant à découvrir. Bulletin Association Francaise des Techniciens et Professionnels du pétrole, n·406 Jan-Fév 1997 [Note: Graphics not yet included as of this update.]

Upstream potential of the Middle East in the world context, a paper presented at the IBC in Dubai (in French with English summary). May 1996.

“Parabolic fractal” distributions in Nature describes the nature of the distribution of objects in natural domains. April 1996. [Long file]

Discovery and production trends, "It was stated at the recent World Energy Congress in Tokyo that there were no concerns regarding the supply of petroleum for the next 25 years. This statement was evidently based on the simple calculation that the reserves were sufficient to sustain consumption of oil for 43 years, and gas for 66 years. .... It is absurd to imagine that production can last for a given number of years and then stop overnight...." -- an article for the OPEC Bulletin published February 1996, p7-11.

"World oil reserves: which number to believe?", graphs from OPEC Bulletin, February 1995, p9-13.

List of Publications and Biography, Jean Laherrère

Acknowledgements: Our thanks to Petroconsultants for allowing the use of their data in preparing these papers.