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World reserves of oil are often claimed to be extensive, but statistical analysis of many oil fields reveals them to be far more mature then is claimed. In addition, OPEC declared reserves appear to have serious flaws due to economic incentives to distort submitted data. After substantiating this, the paper then addresses UK fossil fuel policies, and discusses how these can be modified to take account of the previous observations.

Introduction

Peak oil is the concept that the world’s oil supply will follow the pattern of individual fields and enter a bell curve of production. The upslope of the curve is typically made up of easy to extract oils, and provides a rapidly growing supply. The curve then peaks and falls, leaving a situation that moves from a steadily expanding supply that keeps pace with the demand curve to quickly change to a growing imbalance between demand and supply.

This report aims to investigate the extent of this issue, and how close the world is to any potential peak. Peak oil is a fundamentally an issue of environmental politics, entering around issues of resource management between states and industries. The report also implicitly queries the current market system, and notes that the market may not have adequately costed environmental and sustainability issues in the cost of petrochemicals.

Methodology

This report uses a wide search of secondary sources, as primary information on the energy industry is notoriously difficult to research. Even secondary data is rarely released to even accredited academic researchers and analysts. In addition to the complicating factor that much of the data is composed of commercially sensitive information, much of it is classified.

Because of this, I have used data primarily provided by supranational bodies such as the Organisation of Oil Exporting Countries, as well as the International Energy Authority.

The aim of this report is discover to discover the broad state of world reserves, the resemblance of the given figures to this, and the potential damage and policy responses for the UK.

Is Peak Oil an Issue?

To judge the scale of the potential problem of peak oil and the political landscape surrounding it, it is first necessary to gain a knowledge of both the theory and how the historical data compares to the theoretical prediction.

The central thesis of peak oil is based on the Hubbert Peak Theory. The Hubbert Peak Theory states that due to the production pattern of an individual well, the oil field containing the well will follow an approximate bell curve of production, although the tails on either side are somewhat truncated due to the mechanics and economics of oil extraction.

Diagram 1 indicates the theoretical production pattern of a single oil well. The well quickly reaches the maximum output capacity, and then continues to produce at this level for the majority of its working life. As the section of the field below the well produces less and less oil, the amount of oil extracted suddenly becomes limited by the field rather then the oil well and we see a quick decline to complete depletion. There is the suggestion of a bell curve for each individual well here, with the pattern only broken by the maximum production capacity of the well. Oil wells decline in a very predictable way, with an early sign being the percentage of water to oil. As fields and individual wells start to die, the oil producer typically forces water into the field. The field then increases in pressure, with more oil forced out at the cost of the energy used to force down water and a greater amount of water recovered for each barrel of oil. This caps any well at a point where the extraction of oil becomes uneconomic.

Diagram 1: Production of a Single Oil Well (wolf.readinglitho.co.uk, 2006)

This pattern of production per well then produces an approximate bell curve for the oil field as a whole. Although each individual well spends the majority of the time producing at full capacity, the increasing discovery and sinking of wells means that the field output as a whole continues to grow as more and more wells start to reach 100% production. The effect is shown in diagrams 2 and 3, which indicate the effects of 4 and 8 wells respectively. It should be noted that the rate of exploitation does not have a huge impact on the bell curve pattern. A faster growing set of wells does increase the rate of the upcurve, but at the cost of each well reaching the end of its life closer to the other wells in the field. Purely based on simple reasoning, this makes sense: the rate of exploitation does not change the amount of oil in the area. Indeed, the greater the number of wells, the closer the total production comes to a bell curve. This is shown in diagram 3 in particular.

Diagram 2: 4 Well Production Curve (wolf.readinglitho.co.uk, 2006)

Diagram 3: 8 Well Production Curve (wolf.readinglitho.co.uk, 2006)

It should be noted that these are theoretical fields, with each well always producing at full capacity. This assumes a number of things that are often untrue in the real world. Oil rich states in the Middle East in particular have been unstable in production, with factors from wars and sanctions (Iraq and Iran in particular) to more generalised factors such as OPEC limits on production impeding full production from being achieved. Oil fields may extend through multiple states, with the rate of extraction differing from state to state. An example of this is the Rumaila oil field, which is covered by both Iraqi and Kuwaiti territory, and was a primary cause of the first Gulf War (Research Unit for Political Economy, 2003). In addition, it could be argued that some countries may have elected to produce less than their theoretical maximum of production in an attempt to maximise gain through the eventual higher oil prices that occur as any resource becomes harder to obtain. All fields will however eventually decline, as oil is a non-renewable fossil fuel.

In judging the theory in comparison to reality, we therefore have a need to find oil fields that are controlled wholly by one state, which must itself be both stable and have the economic resources to engage in large scale extraction. Two examples of this are the US’s 48 mainland states, and the Norwegian oil field, which both broadly follow the predicted pattern. The Norwegian field is interesting as the start of extraction commenced after Hubbert’s 1956 prediction, and thus we avoid the problem of theories that can only be tested against already produced data. Nevertheless, the Norwegian case study shown below has so far followed an almost perfect bell curve in production, clearly validating the basic tenets of the Hubbert Peak.

Diagram 4: Historical Norwegian Production Comparison

Given that wells are most economic at full production rates, we can assume an extrapolation the performance of the field as a whole from the live wells. The validation of this model as a predictive tool has two major political impacts. The first is that as the production peak is at around 50% of oil extracted, it is possible to predict the total amount of oil in the field very accurately as the bell curve starts to level off. The public nature of these figures in terms of oil shipped means that it is possible to estimate the likely amount of oil remaining for each oil field, regardless of claimed reserves. Secondly, it enables us to produce a global prediction of remaining oil in known fields that has an excellent chance of proving accurate. This implies a known curve of global production, and thus gives us the possibility to judge the likely interactions between predicted supply and demand.

In a modern, industrialised economy such as the UK, the cost of oil impacts on industrial production, fertilisers (through the closely related natural gas), the cost of agricultural mechanisation, transportation of products, the production of plastic and the ability for individuals to afford travel for both work and pleasure. In addition, the widespread use of petrochemicals such as oil and natural gas to produce energy means that refrigeration, heating, lighting and general electricity use is also affected. In an oil-based energy system, we can say that the economic viability of every part of the economy is an expression of the cost of oil due to the universally paid energy costs. These enter the market in many ways: in the production of finished goods, the cost of industrially produced raw materials, construction and operation of sales facilities and distribution of the final product. Even if the individual business attracts none of these costs to any great degree (a poet, for example), the prices set by the market reflect the costs of production and wages, which in turn partly reflect energy costs as mentioned above as part of the costs of operation and living. In addition, even before oil is seriously depleted it becomes more expensive to extract in energy terms, and becomes a net drain when the energy cost of extracting a barrel exceeds the energy provided by the barrel. At this point, the only benefit is the energy density of oil, the legacy infrastructure that can be used, and use in the production of plastics and other petrochemical based products. As this is a situation that would produce an economic cost without immediate benefit, it would greatly cut growth. If this happens, interest rates would need to rise to provide banks with liquidity that is normally provided from year-on-year GNP growth.

As this affects economic growth and productivity in all areas, it also impacts the amount of resources available for social programs and economic aid, as well as the cost of activities like building hospitals and housing. It also has a bearing on the profitability and viability of for profit companies, and therefore on the amount of optional economic activities that can be undertaken. This would clearly have a negative impact on the amount of jobs available, and thus further decrease the productivity of the economy while increasing the cost of social welfare provision. It seems fair to say that the last major change in price of an essential product in an large world economy of this nature was the spike in food prices caused by the obliteration of agricultural production in the United States dust bowl. This led directly to the Great Depression, as it was similarly the backbone of the American economy at that time. The gravity of these factors make it hard to imagine a greater political issue in a geopolitical and macroeconomic sense.

Reliability and Politicisation of Stated Reserves

One of the primary problems with estimating oil reserves in the world is the possibly overstated reserves of major oil-producing countries. As Diagram 5 shows, the majority of oil producing nations are now co-operating through the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC. OPEC was formed by international agreement to form an explicit cartel (Financial Times, 19/10/2006) of oil producing nations, with Russia the only major oil exporter not represented. It should however be noted that Russia is frequently in contact with OPEC (OPEC, 26/12/2005), and has an obvious interest in maximising profit from its reserves. In addition to this, the credit of oil exporting states on the world market is directly linked to the amount of oil reserves remaining, as this is often the most valuable economic asset of the states concerned.

Diagram 5: Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC, 2006)

OPEC stated reserves have a major issue, due to the method of allocating production allowances. OPEC countries obviously need a way to negotiate the production amount for each country, as the cartel might otherwise fracture. OPEC moved to achieve this in 1985 by linking the production allowance of each country to their stated reserves. These factors create a massive incentive to exaggerate reserves, and the large difference in claimed reserves after 1985 shown in Diagram 6 would appear to show this has indeed occurred. Iraq jumps from 29.70 bbls6 in 1982 to 41.00 bbls in 1983, for example. It is worth noting that Iraq was at war with Iran at the time, and so was in a situation that typically results in the immediate need to borrow money on the international markets. This first increase appears to have had little response at first, possibly because the OPEC production quota via reserves had not yet been implemented. After 1985, the inflation of reserves increases greatly. Kuwait immediately shifted claimed reserves from the 1984 total of 63.90 bbls to 90 bbls. This gained them a near 50% increase in production allowance, and meant that the other OPEC nations had a corresponding decrease in their own. Seen in this light, the 1988 increases of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Iran, and Iraq become somewhat suspicious, especially as they represent around a 100% increase in claimed reserves for Iran and Iraq, with around a 200% increase for Abu Dhabi and Dubai. This rate of “discovery” in a single year is unprecedented, and would imply entirely new oil field discoveries. It is difficult to see where this would occur in Dubai for example, as it is an extremely small principality. Saudi Arabia’s increase in 1990 might well be seen as a response to this inflation, with a corresponding greater income for the kingdom.

Diagram 6: Selected Reported Reserves in Gigabarrels (BP, 2006)

Year	Abu Dhabi	Dubai	Iran	Iraq	Kuwait	Saudi Arabia	Venezuela
1980	28	1.4	58	31	65.4	163.35	17.87
1981	29	1.4	57.5	30	65.9	165	17.95
1982	30.6	1.27	57	29.7	64.48	164.6	20.3
1983	30.51	1.44	55.31	41	64.23	162.4	21.5
1984	30.4	1.44	51	43	63.9	166	24.85
1985	30.5	1.44	48.5	44.5	90	169	25.85
1986	31	1.4	47.88	44.11	89.77	168.8	25.59
1987	31	1.35	48.8	47.1	91.92	166.57	25
1988	92.21	4	92.85	100	91.92	166.98	56.3
1989	92.2	4	92.85	100	91.92	169.97	58.08
1990	92.2	4	93	100	95	258	59
1991	92.2	4	93	100	94	258	59
1992	92.2	4	93	100	94	258	62.7
2004	92.2	4	132	115	99	259	78

More generally, it is noticeable that the modern era estimates fail to decline when this might be expected. Dubai has certainly not stopped production of oil, but from 1988-2004, their claimed reserve of oil has not declined at all. This is especially suspicious due to the insufficient land for any major discoveries.

Another example of an apparently missing decrease of reserves is Kuwait’s estimates from 1989 to 1991. The 1989 figure of 91.92 bbls is actually lower then the 1991 figure of 94 bbls, even though the Gulf War had ended with Iraqi forces causing massive oil well fires. Indeed, the US National Defense Research Institute states that “As the Iraqis withdrew from Kuwait, they set fire to over half of Kuwait’s 1000 oil wells and damaged most of the rest. Industry experts estimated at the time that these fires were burning 5-6 million barrels of crude oil per day and 70-100 million m3 per day of natural gas” (Spektor, 1998). This would imply a matching reduction of Kuwaiti reserves, when they in fact increased by 2.08 bbls. The suspicious nature of this is made worse by the fact that we might well consider new exploration to a low Kuwaiti priority given that the last oil well fire was only extinguished in November, 1991 (Ibid).

The world’s largest source of oil production is Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, a field that currently produces 4.5 million barrels per day. Ghawar produces over 5.5% of global production, and so is essential to global energy use. BMO Capital Markets state that “Because the combination of the news that there’s no new Saudi Light coming on stream for the next seven years plus the 27% projected decline from existing fields means Hubbert’s Peak has arrived in Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom’s decline rate will be among the world’s fastest as this decade wanes. Most importantly, Hubbert’s Peak must have arrived for Ghawar, the world’s biggest oilfield” (BMO Capital Markets, 30/03/05)

Ghawar is also an excellent example of the dubious nature of claimed reserves. The field is 60 years old, with an original 1975 estimate of a total of 60 bbls ultimately recoverable reserve. Up to 2003, the field had produced 55 bbls. Saudi ARAMCO now claim that there are 125 bbls left to recover. In another sign of age, the water cut for the field as a whole was at 30% as of 2004, a figure that is associated with extremely mature fields. This would certainly not suggest that the field was only 30% exploited (Simmons, Matthew 2004). To directly quote Simmons, “How wrong could 1975 Exxon, Mobil, Chevron and Texaco estimates have been?”

While these increases in claimed reserves might individually not greatly impact the overall picture, together they form a picture of greatly exaggerated remaining barrels. This view is supported both locally by the reportedly leaked Kuwaiti documents stating that their proven reserves are in fact only 24 bbls (Reuters, 20/01/06) and globally by Shell’s reduction of stated reserves by 20% (Messenger, 15/07/04). Indeed, of Diagram 7’s reserves, it would seem that 317.54/701 bbls must be regarded with severe suspicion. The particularly interesting implication of this is that the International Energy Agency is failing in its primary duty of predicting worldwide energy production when it takes these figures at face value. This extends a dependency on oil, with a movement to more renewable resources continually delayed by worldwide governments as there seems no pressing need to spend money on research now. It is worth remembering that the IEA was set up by OPEC nations, and we might view their membership as having a vested interest in discouraging a movement away from an oil based economy.

The OPEC cartel has been largely successful at managing production, and has broadly succeeded in maintaining relatively high costs for oil. Seen in a global light, this has been broadly positive in terms of emissions, resource management and ensuring constant supply up to the present. They have a clear incentive to lie about reserves however, and given the implication of overestimates on both the national, supranational and corporate levels, it would seem that the best tool to estimate remaining reserves is the Hubbert Peak.

Supply, Demand and Economic Price Forecasts

So what of non-OPEC nations? Diagram 7 shows the US Department of Energy’s prediction of global oil production for non OPEC & CIS nations, with a clear peak in 2004. This global production graph can also be seen to form a broad Hubbert peak, with a plateau clearly haokving been reached.

Diagram 7: Oil Production for Non-OPEC & Non-CIS States (US Department of Energy, 2006)

Diagram 8: World Primary Energy Demand

It is also important to note that the world oil price is at a very high level historically, and so it is unlikely that nations are producing oil at less then their maximum capacity. The problem this presents is more clearly shown when we look at Diagram 8’s demand curve. The trend line for the last 30 years has been in an almost first order increase. This demand curve is also likely to increase due to the rapid industrialisation of India and China, as well as the rapidly increasing wealth and energy usage of populations numbered in the billions. The possibility of a decrease in global production suddenly becomes extremely problematic, with a widening divide between demand and supply obeying the most basic rule of economics and resulting in a greatly increased price. The oil-based nature of much of the economy also means that demand is greatly inelastic, with China and India unlikely to give up the plastics that form many of their exported products or the petrochemicals required for silicon chip production, or for the use of newly purchased cars.

This is not unknown to the industry, although the scale of the problem is largely absent from public debate. Dick Cheney, for example, was far more open before he entered political office. In 1999, while still CEO of Halliburton, Cheney stated to the London Institute of Petroleum that “For the world as a whole, oil companies are expected to keep finding and developing enough oil to offset our seventy one million plus barrel a day of oil depletion, but also to meet new demand. By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day” (Aleklett, 2004).

Diagram 9: Oil Prices, 1994-2006

As can be clearly seen from Diagram 9, supply has obviously not kept pace with demand since 1999. Indeed, the 400% increase in price from that point clearly shows a market that is currently failing to effectively meet demand. The trend line for oil costs is very clearly up, and indeed the current US Energy Advisor stated in 2004 that “Oil is far too cheap at the moment. The figure I’d use is around $182 a barrel. We need to price oil realistically to control its demand. That is because global production is peaking” (Porter, 2004)

That figure is around three times the current value, and merely talks about values that the market should set today. This still continues to ignore the continuing difference between demand and supply that will apply by 2020 or 2030, and it is noticeable that no public figure is on record as discussing price forecasts this far in the future.

UK Energy Generation Policies in Relation to Fossil Fuels, 1979-2006

UK energy policy over the last 30 years is a tale of a steady movement away from coal towards a system that currently depends greatly on a supply of petrochemicals such as oil and natural gas.

Post-WW2 UK energy policy was dominated by Whitehall dictates, with the heavily unionised state energy monopolies having complete control of supply. These monopolies were the National Coal Board, British Gas and the Central Electricity Generating Board. As this would imply, the energy policies of the state were fairly simple. The UK was capable of generating large quantities of coal though widespread coal mining, and thus had a huge balance of payments issue that was avoided by using internally generated fuel. British Gas also produced natural gas on a mostly internal basis, and so Whitehall naturally turned to these two sources of energy. This was not just for economic reasons; in a country that had so recently suffered a naval blockade the energy security of completely domestic energy production appealed greatly. Car use was comparatively low, and so the need for petrol was not as strong. A major success of this system was the ability of domestic energy production to insulate the UK from energy price changes, and the oil shocks of the 1970s had far less impact on the UK then the United States (Helm, 2003).

This was all broadly within the context of the post-war Keynesian consensus, with the state providing a safe but uninnovative monopoly of supply. As might be expected, this policy changed after the 1979 election of the Thatcher Conservative government, which was followed by a prolonged political battle with the coal miners over the large-scale closure of pits throughout the UK. The wave of privatisation started by the government also affected the energy industry, and National Coal Board, British Gas and the Central Electricity Generating Board were all broken up. The need for coal also declined due to the increasing exploitation of North Sea oil and gas, and the dislike of the Thatcher government for large scale subsidy meant that the energy industry moved towards greater use of petrochemicals. Throughout this time, the UK remained a net energy exporter (Ibid), with energy surpluses and cheap fossil fuel prices pushing the UK towards greater use of gas and oil. In addition to this, the UK started to grow economically, with an ensuing greater use of private cars (see Diagram 10, “Growth in Car Use v Decline in Bus Use” (Commission for Integrated Transport, 2002)).

This change clearly necessitated a further increase in dependency on oil, with a larger hunger for petrol created. In addition, the moves away from railway subsidies and the increase in road building meant that the oil used became more and more essential to the economy.

This trend increased with the privatisation of the electricity supply industry in the late 1980s, with a new necessity to attract funding on the private markets to develop new generation capacity. This led to the dash for gas, with a large scale development of combined cycle gas turbines (Watson, 2004).

The conversion to gas was coupled with increased use of oil, and both of these options were presumably particularly attractive to UK regulators due to the easy access to North Sea production. As shown in Diagram 11, the development of North Sea oil had really started to gather pace in the early 1980s, with the decrease in 1988-1994 being a purely political limit due to the brief collapse of oil prices.

Diagram 11: UK Oil Production (M3), 1975-2006 (Department of Trade and Industry, 2006)

The Hubbert bell curve is very evident in this diagram, with a quick climb followed by a plateau of production (again, excluding the period of politically limited extraction). This represented a brief period of easy benefits for the UK in both economic and energy terms, and the production of oil and gas kept the UK as an energy exporter. The peak has clearly been passed by the year 2000 however, and the UK has become dependent on Russian natural gas imports and oil importation from the general market.

Seen in this light, we can see that the UK’s energy resource choices have had considerable impact on several major areas of national concern.

On the positive side, carbon emissions from coal plants have been reduced by the move to the somewhat more cleanly burning oil and gas. The nation has also improved air quality from the reduced particulate production, and has greatly reduced the radioactivity produced by coal plants (US Geological Survey, 1997).

More negatively speaking, the UK has moved from a situation of energy independence to requiring external assistance to be able to function. This has large implications for the geopolitical relationships we share with Russia and the Middle East, for example. In addition to this, the UK is now fully exposed to fluctuations in the world market price for oil, and has indeed frequently suffered price fluctuations in response to instability in the Middle East in the last few years. Were the UK to be subjected to a major price rise in oil as might be suggested by the occurrence of peak oil, it would be a profound blow to the economy.

The large-scale removal of the infrastructure of coal extraction and coal based energy generation suggests this is not an easily reversible process, and our EU and Kyoto carbon emission commitments prevent a retreat to coal in any case. The UK seems to have sacrificed energy security in favour of lower carbon emissions, and so has become dependent on cheap foreign oil.

Conclusion

From the data gathered, it would seem reasonable to assume that the world is set for a period of oil prices that grow exponentially until a reasonable alternate source of energy can be found.

The issue with this is that even if an alternate energy source was found tomorrow, the amount of legacy infrastructure that surrounds the oil economy is immense. Oil is not only useful for its energy effiency in extraction, but for its energy density. In areas such as aviation, there is no real substitute for the power to weight ratio provided by oil. A true change from oil would also require the replacement of almost every internal-combustion vehicle on UK roads, and it is difficult to conceive of this happening over less then a 30-40 year time scale.

In terms of electricity generation, the policies advanced by the 2006 Government Energy Review seem compelling, with an increasing use of nuclear and renewable sources leading to greater energy security through the avoidance of the risks of an energy monoculture. In the long run, it is difficult to imagine a workable energy policy that does not revolve around entirely renewable sources, although the funding of blue-sky technologies such as cold fusion may offer an unexpected alternative within the 50 year time frame. It should however noted that this possibility was held out 40 years ago as being available in 20 years.

To a certain extent, the government of the UK is a hostage to events on the global stage. As the Stern Report noted, almost as much heavily-polluting coal-fired generation comes on line in the PRC in one year as the entire installed electricity capacity of the United Kingdom. The impact on global oil supplies if the PRC chose to move to gas or oil fired generation for environmental reasons can therefore easily be imagined.

The petrochemical society must surely be unviable for the rest of this century for three main reasons: the environmental damage produced by extraction and carbon release, the unreliability of estimated reserves, and the political instability in oil producing areas. This being so, the UK badly needs to diversify, and would be well advised to do so while the costs of doing so are not raised by an already arrived hugely expensive oil price.

Bibilography

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