Peak - Ricardo

Peak oil study
ction
The concept of peak oil was first
described almost fifty years ago by
M King Hubbert, a geoscientist working
for Shell Oil. Hubbert observed that
aggregate production from individual
oil wells in a field tended to follow a bellshaped
curve, with its peak representing
the high point of production when
roughly half of the total available oil
side peak has been the subject of
much debate for many decades. Oil
derived from mineral deposits is a finite
resource subject to global demand:
when peak production is reached, so
the argument runs, price would surely
rise exponentially as competition for
increasingly scarce resource intensifies.
The problem for those projecting longhas
been depleted. Having accurately
predicted that US production would peak
between the late nineteen sixties and
early seventies, the same basic principle
has since been used widely to determine
the likely future production profiles of
individual regions and nations as well as
for global forecasts.
The precise timing of such a supply-
RQ • Q1 • 2012 9