All Liquids represents 11 major streams:  Regular Conventional Crude, NGL & Refinery Gain; and the non-conventionals:  GTL (gas-to-liquid), Deep Sea, Arctic, Bitumen, X-Heavy, CTL (coal-to-liquid), Kerogen & BTL (biofuels-to-liquid)

Nov 14th ~ Linearization analysis is a guiding counterweight to our geology/technology based Estimates of Ultimate Recoverable Resource (URR/EUR).  When compared, All Liquids succumbs to a 3,563-Gb differential, mostly attributed to Bitumen, GTL, CTL & Kerogen not yet reflecting their potential flow rates.  OTOH, this shortfall is somewhat mitigated by the tainted BTL influence.  Biofuels-to-liquids are not included in our URR tally, but its 2-mbd flow is indeed reflected in All Liquids production data.

Based on these linearizations, the world won't run out of light sweet oil (RCC) until Year 2089, and there's enuf of the other stuff to take us to 2146.

spe classifications

June 2007 Feature - The Illusion of ASPO Ireland Backdates

Dec 27 2007 - Colin Campbell reduced his All Liquids URR Estimate to 2500-Gb (from 2600) on Sept 30th.  This amended chart incorporates these recent amendments and some figures will vary from the article below...

June 2nd  2007 (revised 70807) - TrendLines is troubled with the infamous ASPO-Ireland portrayal of dwindling Discoveries.  Colin Campbell published his first Historical Discoveries graph in 1996.  It was based on his estimated URR of 1800 billion barrels (Gb) and was comprised of 1650-Gb of Discovered crude & a 150-Gb allowance for probable Future Discoveries.  His 2007 version (at left) is misleading in the sense that its backdating methodology gives the perception of "a well running dry".

Peak Oil watchers have become accustomed to this dreary representation of both the recent decade and the future where Discoveries seem to tail-off to nothingness.  The pessimism occurs because in each year since 1996, Campbell has applied all of the New Discoveries and Reserve Growth against the pre-1996 columns.  Few realize that the ASPO (et al) practice of annual incremental backdating of New Discoveries & Reserve Growth hides the immensity of URR growth over the last eleven years.  Altho the methodology is duly footnoted, the magnitude of reallocations to past years went largely unreported and unnoticeable as the pre-1996 chart bars simply got a tad higher each year.  The illusion works well:  like frogs being boiled in a cauldron or death by a thousand cuts ... but the charade ends today!

This TrendLines adaptation of the ASPO Discoveries graphic reflects the current 2007 Campbell All-Liquids URR Estimate of 2600-Gb but draws attention to the cumulative Backdates. The original 1650-Gb ASPO/XOM Discoveries-to-1995 are shown in  black; the 1996 to 2006 Net Discoveries in aqua; and the allowance for Future Discoveries are red & lime. New Discoveries & Reserve Growth that has been backdated by ASPO is shown bright yellow with year of revelation in  yellow hash. These 5 components represent Campbell's original 1800-Gb plus his 800-Gb of post-1995 additions to URR.

Since 1996, Campbell has always incorporated a Future Discoveries Allowance for Regular Conventional Oil.  Starting at 150-Gb, it is presently a reduced 126-Gb.  So far , ok.  But unfortunately, it seems to us at TrendLines that Campbell has forgotten in his seasonal version updates to commence a similar category for Undiscovered Non-conventional Fields as he does for Regular Oil.

And so, i arbitrarily reduced the Y2k Backdateable bar by 200-Gb in order to create an Undiscovered Non-Conventional component which is shown in lime in the TrendLines chart.  While the annual red Conventional Discoveries & Reserve Growth bars reduce over time, i am confident that the Non-conventionals will increase over those decades and this hypothesis is reflected by a rising lime tail.

Now let us compare the  bold  black  Annual Production line in ASPO's graph to the TrendLines Annual Consumption coral chart line.  In theirs, New Discoveries & Reserve Growth has not exceeded annual production since 1980.  But by illuminating ASPO's own annual revisions before Backdating, we see that substantial URR progress was made in 1996, Y2k, 2002, 2006 & 100-Gb thus far in 2007.  All these  yellow hash  bars have been stealthily hidden via the ASPO et al practice of Backdating.

Finally, we address the Future Fields allowances.  While Campbell sees a future with insignificant URR growth of 7-Gb in 2007 and tailing off to nothingness in 2040 representing 126-Gb, TrendLines shows almost 50-Gb next year and tailing off to 20 by 2025 of our 326-Gb allowance.

Altho we concur with the "backdating" methodology as such, i cannot condone ASPO's manipulation of that data for the misleading purpose of alarmism.

Caveat:  While this exercise of redistributing/illuminating the hallmark Campbell/ASPO-IE Discoveries Chart may be intuitive, it is presented in the context that the 2007 ASPO 2600-Gb Estimate is somewhat shy being 23% less than the TrendLines 19-Estimates URR AVG of 3392-Gb.

February 2007 Feature - USGS World Petroleum Assessment 2000 Revisited

Feb 24th, 2007 - The USGS World Petroleum Assessment 2000 has borne the brunt of harsh criticism for its bold forecast that Available Future Resource (AFR or Reserve/Resource Growth + Discoveries) would increase by 1669-Gb or 54-Gb/Yr by 2025 from its base year of '95.  This estimate for increase was a hectic 75% greater than the URR growth pace of 31-Gb/Yr (2.4%) from 1957 to 1994.  Well, the authors have vindication with TrendLines URR AVG indicating of average annual growth from 1995 to present of 106-Gb/Yr (4.2%).  This is literally double their goal (over triple the past trend) and no doubt attributable to Real Prices exceeding the long standing $20-30/barrel spot price band shortly after the Asian Flu slowdown of 1998.

While the USGS Report was blasted as being exaggerative, many misinterpreted its intent.  Whereas many challenged its URR of 3345-Gb, the Report actually stated that Reserves and Past Consumption totalled 1676-Gb as of Jan 1st 1995; and that there was a best efforts estimate of 1669-Gb in Available Future Resource.  If we examine the indicated TrendLines URR AVG of the applicable period, it is revealed that the consensus URR at end-1994 was 1924-Gb and only a very few of the Estimates included a "future" component.  This is line with the USGS base year when stripped of its "future" component. In that light, it is reasonable that the USGS figure of 1676-Gb would be slightly lower (248-Gb) than that the consensus figure of 1924-Gb.  That being said, the AFR of USGS was tenfold larger than for comparison, Colin Campbell's "future discoveries" component of 157-Gb in Y2k.

None-the-less, by the end of December 2006, the TrendLines URR AVG was 3288-Gb, an increase of 1364-Gb over twelve years.  At this rate of growth, not only is the USGS projection (3345-Gb) for 2025 coming to fruition, but it seems to be somewhat understated.  The 12 year growth rate of URR AVG from 1995 to 2006 has been 114-Gb/yr.  <Note that this rate is slightly higher than than the 106-Gb for the Feb/2007 status shown in the above graph.  See footnotes for the year-end tally>

To add credibility to the studies of USGS & EIA/DOE, it is timely that TrendLines has recently done a reality check "look back" at the old 1996/1997 forecasts for global Supply.  EIA is often ridiculed for its overly optimistic Outlooks.  But in a comparison of the projections of that era, it is seen that the EIA/DOE 1997 Outlook was the third best of the time foreseeing a 2006 extraction rate of 76-mbd (in fact 2006 was 85-mbd).  BTW, only Michael Lynch (84) & IEA (80) had better accuracy on that particular metric.  Clearly, these USA Gov't agencies are prudent in their Outlooks.

Footnotes:

1)  For the purposes of this USGS Petroleum Assessment 2000 analysis, please be advised that the graph notation has been amended to reflect the change in growth rate from "1995" rather than our previous ("from Y2k") presentations.

2)  Revised Status as of Jan 1st 2007:   URR AVG - 3288-Gb  ~  Past Consumption - 1102-Gb  ~  URR Less Past - 2186-Gb

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