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Future oil extraction in Ecuador using a Hubbert approach
Abstract
Hubbert based models to project future oil extraction in Ecuador were developed. Two values of ultimate recoverable resources (URR) (7860–10,700 million barrels (MMbbl)) are applied to 16 models, considering symmetric and asymmetric Hubbert models and one and two cycles under top-down and bottom-up approaches. Models are discussed based on the best fit to historical data, and year and value of maximum extraction. The peak oil extraction obtained ranges between 196 and 215 MMbbl and would be reached in the years 2014–2025. An analysis of the implications of extraction models in a Business as Usual and Alternative oil demand scenarios up to 2035 was performed. Ecuador could become a net oil importer between 2024 and 2035, depending on the model and demand scenario. Economic oil trade balance could be seriously affected, decreasing from a current positive value of around 2 billion USD to incur deficits of 0.6–16.7 billion USD in 2035. Current and future oil dependence for Ecuador would increase vulnerability and compromise the country in terms of energy security and trade balance. It is critical for Ecuador to consider more ambitious policies focused on energy efficiency, renewables and diversification of the productive structure over the next few years.
... In Ecuador crude oil represents 88% of the primary energy produced [28], and 32% of the total exports in monetary terms [29]. It has been estimated that oil extraction peaked in 2014 with 203 million barrels and it would fall below 100 million barrels between 2023 and 2027 [30]. Other relevant aspects are the availability of renewable energy resources, fuel import requirements, the existing dynamics between petroleum products and final energy demand [31][32][33]. ...
... This scenario considers a national oil availability of 7800 MBbl (2P case from Ref. [30]) and import constraints of oil and petroleum products due to global oil availability. Oil export policy cases are applied. ...
... This scenario considers a national oil availability of 10,700 MBbl (O case from Ref. [30]) and import constraints of oil and petroleum products due to global oil availability. Oil export policy cases are applied. ...
The aim of this paper is to develop a system dynamics model to assess the energy future up to 2050 for Ecuador considering its condition of oil producing country. Three scenarios have been developed with different assumptions regarding national and global oil availability under a Business-As-Usual narrative.
Energy demand would have a 2.4-fold increase by 2050 with predominance of petroleum products in a BAU scenario with unlimited oil access. In constrained scenarios, restricted availability of oil might pressure final demand to be reduced in 31%–40% compared to BAU. Limited imports of oil and petroleum products might produce shortages in supply, causing a downfall in economic activity in sectors with high dependency on these fuels Electricity would partially substitute fossil fuels but is not enough to offset economy decay in constrained scenarios. Limiting oil exports would not have an important effect since the decline of Ecuador's oil wells is expected to be too fast. Oil exports would cease by 2030–2045. When BAU scenarios are evaluated considering limited fossil energy access in a decaying world oil production, arise the necessity to explore new strategies to deal with an energy/economic shock.
... Moreover, Ecuador must prepare its energy sector to a substantial oil production reduction due to the resource exhaustion expected for the next decades [15]. In order to partially replace oil energy supply, bioenergy can be used, creating an additional land dispute controversy. ...
... In 2015, crude oil represented more than one-third of the export revenues [29,44]. Besides, under current production rates Ecuador could reach its crude oil production peak between 2024 and 2027 [15,45]. This would be a turning point for the country's energy and economic policies, bringing challenges not only for the energy sector but also consequences in terms of trade deficits. ...
This work presents an Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) developed for Ecuador, the so-called Ecuador Land Use and Energy Network Analysis model (ELENA). This model includes six distinctive sectors of the economy and displays the four geographic regions composing the country. The model enables to capture sectorial interactions, under a set of scenarios designed to evaluate the energy and land perspectives until 2050. The model is a crucial planning instrument to evaluate public policies, such as National Determined Contributions (NDC) and even more ambitious decarbonisation scenarios. Findings show that Ecuador's NDC are not aligned with the “well below” 2 °C target, committed in the Paris Agreement. Moreover, to achieve deep decarbonisation it is necessary to endorse disruptive strategies in which bioenergy and reforestation play a main role. To keep under the 1.5 °C temperature threshold above pre-industrial levels, Ecuador's energy matrix must be diversified with higher shares of low carbon technologies and electrification of energy end use in the transport, buildings and industry sectors. Biomass with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and biofuels could transform the energy sector in a CO2 sink.
... This entails a serious energetic threat to electricity generation, especially in scenario S1 (see Fig. 4), as cheap and easy oil will no longer be available. According to projections of future oil extraction in Ecuador, the country may become a net oil importer between 2024 and 2035, taking into account that the maximum historical oil extraction record was reported as 203MMbbl in 2014 [107]. In scenarios S2 and S3, most thermal generation corresponds to combined cycle power plants, which, in turn, draws dependence on natural gas, and not on oil derivatives such as diesel and fuel oil, which relieves the pressure in terms of energy security in the near and mid-terms. ...
... However, this situation still poses a serious risk for energy security in the country. Oil dependence as the main energy and income source will compromise energy security and economic stability in the short and long term [107,108], deeming the energy policies discussed in this study as insufficient. ...
Electricity is the main energy carrier in today's society and plays a vital role in a sustainable future. Based on the Ecuadorian experience, the goal of this study is to analyze the environmental performance of current and forecasted scenarios of electricity generation and supply using life cycle methods, as a basis to discuss the appropriateness of current policy strategies towards a decarbonized future. The environmental impacts of the electricity mix are dominated by the emissions generated by fossil fuels burning during electricity generation. Results show that increasing the share of hydroelectricity decreases the environmental impacts per kWh considerably, but the environmental performance of net electricity generated in the country is also shaped by the growing energy demand for electricity. The global warming potential of net electricity generation is from 12 to 20 times higher by 2050 over 2016 levels for all scenarios. National policies on energy sustainability will not mitigate the Ecuadorian electricity environmental impacts, due to the growing demand for electricity. Moreover, there are risks to the energy security of Ecuador in the future, as fossil resources scarcity is expected, and climate change uncertainties may pose challenges to the future harnessing of hydropower. Targeting GHG reductions must address the challenge of demand reduction. Furthermore, policy focused on climate change could potentially lead to adverse consequences in other areas: decarbonization alone does not tell the whole story of the requirements for a transition to sustainability.
... Oil has been the main indirect driver of environmental degradation in the Ecuadorian Amazon since 1967, leading to a cumulative forest loss of 13%, the second largest among Amazon countries after Brazil (see Chapter 19). Nevertheless, remaining oil reserves are limited, and the country may become a net oil importer in approximately a decade or less, potentially leading to a deep crisis (Espinoza et al. 2019;Larrea 2021). In this context, the Ecuadorian Amazon will probably soon face a transition towards a post-extractivist society, and a participatory process to promote a sustainable and equitable path should become a social and environmental priority. ...
This Report provides a comprehensive, objective, open, transparent, systematic, and rigorous scientific assessment of the state of the Amazon’s ecosystems, current trends, and their implications for the long-term well-being of the region, as well as opportunities and policy relevant options for conservation and sustainable development.
... Las reservas remanentes de petróleo en Ecuador, estimadas en 1.360 millones de barriles por British Petroleum, permitirán apenas 7.4 años de extracción futura al ritmo actual (BP 2021). El consumo interno y las importaciones de derivados, que actualmente equivalen a la mitad de la extracción actual de petróleo, continuarán ascendiendo, mientras que los volúmenes extraídos declinarán ante el progresivo agotamiento de los campos, de forma que, según estimaciones recientes, a inicios de la próxima década, Ecuador se convertirá en un importador neto de petróleo (Larrea 2017, Larrea 2020, Espinoza et al. 2019. Además de la reducción previsible de los volúmenes exportados, las perspectivas de los precios a mediano plazo son desalentadoras, dada la pronunciada tendencia a la descarbonización de la economía mundial para mitigar el cambio climático y cumplir con el Acuerdo de París. ...
Ecuador enfrenta un profundo estancamiento económico desde la caída de los precios del petróleo en 2014, agravado por medidas de contracción económica y la pandemia del covid-19. Aunque la renegociación de una parte de la deuda externa ha aliviado los problemas fiscales más inmediatos, el servicio de la deuda continúa siendo excesivo y la incertidumbre sobre una futura moratoria de la deuda comercial persiste. El Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) es ahora el principal acreedor no comercial del país y China el primero entre los acreedores bilaterales. La nueva política económica y ambiental de este país podría mirar con interés un canje de deuda por conservación que contribuya a la preservación de la biodiversidad y la mitigación de emisiones, además de asegurar el cumplimiento de las obligaciones restantes de Ecuador.
Este ensayo plantea un posible canje de la deuda ecuatoriana por conservación con China mediante un proyecto para reducir 47% la tasa de deforestación en 10 años, al salvar 200,000 hectáreas de selva amazónica y evitar la emisión de 117 millones de toneladas de CO2 , a cambio de una reducción de 440 millones de dólares de deuda. Asimismo, se propone un pequeño canje por un valor de 19.2 millones de dólares, a favor de la Universidad Regional Amazónica Ikiam, el cual será invertido en la conservación de la reserva Colonso Chalupas y en la infraestructura de investigación en bioconocimiento.
... Oil exploitation in Ecuador began at the beginning of the 20th century with Anglo Ecuadorian Oilfields Limited [26]. An oil country since the 1970s and its economy has based on this resource [27,28]. For this reason, one of the essential computer applications is the one that focuses on the calculation of the PVT conditions in an oil field, for the oil of eastern Ecuador, which allows us to ask ourselves the following question: Is it possible that a computer application, orderly and systematic, allows estimating statistically with an appropriate approximation the properties of PVT, based on initial conditions of a deposit in eastern Ecuador? ...
A reservoir behaviour's characterisation is determined by analysing the fluids' physical properties, reported in Pressure, Volume and Temperature (PVT) tests. These tests are performed in the laboratory or are estimated by mathematical correlations with the well's basic properties. The eastern basin of Ecuador is considered a hydrocarbon zone, and the analysis of the physical properties of the fluid from oil wells is essential. The aim is to develop the PVTTESTSYSTEM software to estimate PVT conditions when there are no laboratory tests. The study methodology is based on (i) Compilation of 10 PVT laboratory tests of oil wells in the eastern basin of Ecuador; (ii) Analysis of mathematical correlations; (iii) Development of the PVTTESTSYSTEM software, with the wells' initial conditions' input, selecting the mathematical correlation and estimation of results, based on the relationship of the properties of oil and gas; iv) Comparison of data obtained by laboratory tests and PVTTESTSYSTEM software reports. The software used with a graphical interface presents a registration and login platform and five modules that allow: inserting company and field data, initial oil well data, selecting correlations, calculating PVT properties and generating a graphic report. The results show that the mathematical correlations that estimate PVT properties were systematised, which approximate the laboratory tests' real results. The approximation of the calculated results with the actual results establishes a high confidence level for the PVTTESTSYSTEM software.
... The cost of a fully renewable electricity matrix for Ecuador has to be analyzed also under the perspective that the country's oil era is likely coming to an end within the next decade or, according to the most optimistic estimates, within the next two decades [72]. If the country is no longer an oil producer but its technological dependency on this product continues, his energy and transport sectors will be vulnerable to the fluctuating oil market. ...
The Ecuador’s expansion plans for the power sector promote the exploitation of hydro power potential, natural gas and a small share of alternative renewable energies. In 2019, electricity generation reached 76.3% from hydroelectric power, 21.9% from thermal plants and 1.8% from other renewable resources. Although the power energy mix is mainly based on renewable technologies, the total energy demand is still dependent on fossil fuels, which is the case of the transport sector that alone accounted for 50% of the total primary energy consumed in the country. This paper analyzes the pathway to develop a clean and diversified electricity mix, covering the demand of three specific development levels of electric transportation. The linear optimization model (urbs) and the Ecuador Land Use and Energy Netwrok Analysis (ELENA) are used to optimize the expansion of the power system in the period from 2020 to 2050. Results show that reaching an electricity mix 100% based on renewable energies is possible and still cover a highly electrified transport that includes 47.8% of land passenger, and 5.9% of land freight transport. Therefore, the electrification of this sector is a viable alternative for the country to rely on its own energy resources, while reinforcing its future climate change mitigation commitments.
... To identify feasible possibilities of expansion of the bioeconomy, this section presents settings in the Ecuadorian context that offer a large potential for its development, considering it an opportunity for productive transition, given an unfavorable oil production horizon and significant fossil fuel energy consumption (Espinoza et al. 2019;Verdezoto et al. 2019). These settings are an estimation of the potential for improvement of agricultural and livestock activities in terms of yield per area of arable land used; estimation of the potential for the use of fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides of biological origin; estimation of an industrial and energy development based on biomass; an estimation of the economic potential of the expansion of biological wastewater treatment; and configuration of the IOM to evaluate the future contribution of the bioeconomy. ...
The national and international scientific community considers Ecuador’s biodiversity to be a comparative—even competitive—advantage of a new development paradigm, which could pave the way for a future that is less dependent on non-renewable resources. Accordingly, the concept of bioeconomy has raised attention from different sectors, but its understanding and policy development to exploit its potential are still very limited. In the present work, we propose a methodological approach to assess the economic and social contribution of the bioeconomic sector in Ecuador. First, the theoretical and empirical foundations are delineated, based on conceptual aspects and similar previous case studies. Second, three available models (input–output model, general equilibrium model, and social accounting matrix) are evaluated in terms of comparability, applicability, external validity, and scalability. Based on a comparison of the models, the input–output matrix ranks best in terms of comparability and external validity. Aware that other countries in the region are also interested in implementing similar efforts, we have completed this exercise prioritizing the comparability (across and within countries) and external validity aspects. Thus, this work may aid in the elaboration of future evaluation approaches in other Latin American countries.
... (OswaldoJadán, Bolier Torres, & Sven Günter, 2012;Sierra et al., 2002). In the region of the Napo river basin, oil extraction is an economic sector which is not expected to stop in the future(Espinoza, Fontalvo, Martí-Herrero, Ramírez, & Capellán-Pérez, 2019). However, there are ongoing protests and resistance against the exploration forms within the indigenous communities, which has already achieved its first successes(Kerstin Sack, 2019;Latorre, Farrell, & Martínez-Alier, 2015). ...
With the development of new imaging and near field remote sensing UAV technologies, the field of forest canopy and tree crown investigations in the context of rainforest ecology gained new perspectives in recent years. This study demonstrates the feasibility of structural analysis of canopy for the assessment of succession states of tropical lowland rainforests using a consumer UAV and open access ground reference data. Therefore, the canopy of 22 small-scale forest plots in the Ecuadorian Andes and the Mata Atlântica were captured with an UAV between October 2017 and February 2018. The fully remote image acquisition used automated flight plans consisting of crossed flights with different incident camera angles and did not require ground control points (GCP) as further ground reference. Photogrammetric Point Clouds (PPC), image meshes and crown height models (CHM) were created with Structure from Motion (SfM), combined with a Digital Terrain Model from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), in order to analyze structural parameters of the canopy. The standard deviation of the height values of the PPC and the CHM differs statistically significant between succession stages. Investigation plots in climax or late succession show a mean PPCSD of 6.7 m with a standard error of 0,3 m. Plots in early succession show a PPCSD of 4.8 m with a standard error of 0.3 m and degraded plots show 2.8m with a standard error of 0.2m. This result proves the applicability of the proposed workflow under typical NGO conditions and other applied science research with limitations in budget and access to sophisticated survey equipment.
... Por lo tanto, la presente propuesta permite evaluar el programa PEC considerando los aspectos técnicos y económicos. Para esta evaluación se plantea como año base 2015 con un horizonte de 15 años, es decir una proyección hasta 2030, considerando que dentro de este plazo la propuesta tecnológica estará dentro de un mercado maduro y competitivo, además de considerar el horizonte petrolero no favorable [31], lo que implicaría la necesidad de cambios tecnológicos para reemplazar la dependencia de derivados del petróleo. ...
El Gobierno Ecuatoriano en el año 2014 comenzó la ejecución del Programa de Eficiencia Energética PEC, que principalmente busca la sustitución de 3 millones cocinas de GLP por cocinas de inducción, con la finalidad de reducir el subsidio al GLP. En este contexto, el presente estudio consta un modelo LEAP y una estimación económica, ambos con año base 2015, con el objetivo de evaluar los impactos del Programa. Como resultados de la implementación del Programa PEC, se tendría un ahorro energético del 29% y una reducción del 69% en las emisiones GEI para 2030 en el sector residencial, así como, una curva estable de consumo en este mismo sector durante el período de estudio, siendo el sector urbano mayormente beneficiado de estas reducciones. Como respuestas económicas, existiría un leve incremento del PIB, vinculado a un crecimiento en la generación de empleos directos e indirectos en toda la cadena productiva.
El artículo analiza las reservas, la extracción, las exportaciones e importaciones petroleras en el Ecuador, encontrando que el país puede convertirse en un importador neto de petróleo entre 2027 y 2031.
The aim of this paper is to analyze energy pathways for a fossil fuel rich developing country towards an energy transition considering national and international oil availability using Ecuador as a reference. An integrated assessment model has been developed to simulate energy transition scenarios considering constraints on oil availability at the national and global level. Results show that if current trends in energy demand and supply persist, energy scarcity would start around 2040 due to depletion of national oil reserves and restricted access to foreign oil. This would trigger a degrowth in economic activity in sectors with high dependency on petroleum products. Scenarios with conservative efforts might partially revert the increasing use of fossil fuels supported by policies for energy efficiency and substitution of liquid fuels with electricity mainly from renewables. However, energy shortages would still be foreseeable as well as a decay of the economy. Under a maximum efforts scenario with an optimistic availability of national oil, a moderate-sustained economic growth could be feasible. This shows that oil would still play a key role during the transition. Furthermore, ambitious policies must be implemented in the short term to smooth the effects of displacing oil as energy and income source.
Economic and population growth have led to rapidly growing fuel consumption in South America. In order to supply this increasing demand while also using environmentally friendly and locally available feedstock, several countries have implemented the use of biofuels, in which biodiesel deserves special attention. While this alternative source of energy may reduce dependence on refining or importing fossil diesel, it also requires well-established policies and logistics for local industries to compete and succeed in producing a satisfactory quantity of biodiesel. This review compares the effectiveness of implemented policies in South American countries, providing a better understanding on cases of success and failure on the road to making biodiesel a regularly found fuel in the local transportation network. This assessment also clearly identifies different stages of development, pointing out that countries from the same region can have totally different outcomes according to political and market aspects. The main factors associated to cases of success, represented by Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, were early implemented regulation policies, the solidity of local soybean industry and response to foreign competition. Finally, Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil (HVO) is a new and efficient green fuel used in Diesel engines and will likely present additional challenges for this sector, potentially replacing both diesel and biodiesel in the fuel network, and posing a challenge to even the most stable biodiesel industries, along with the potential vehicle electrification.
Classic forecasting methods of natural gas consumption extrapolate trends from the past to subsequent periods of time. The paper presents a different approach that uses analogues to create long-term forecasts of the annual natural gas consumption. The energy intensity (energy consumption per dollar of Gross Domestic Product—GDP) and gas share in energy mix in some countries, usually more developed, are the starting point for forecasts of other countries in the later period. The novelty of the approach arises in the use of cluster analysis to create similar groups of countries and periods based on two indicators: energy intensity of GDP and share of natural gas consumption in the energy mix, and then the use of fuzzy decision trees for classifying countries in different years into clusters based on several other economic indicators. The final long-term forecasts are obtained with the use of fuzzy decision trees by combining the forecasts for different fuzzy sets made by the method of relative chain increments. The forecast accuracy of our method is higher than that of other benchmark methods. The proposed method may be an excellent tool for forecasting long-term territorial natural gas consumption for any administrative unit.
The aim of this study was to analyze the energy demand in a scenario considering the National Policy for Energy Efficiency (PLANEE) of Ecuador. For this purpose, the effects on energy supply and demand by taking into account an economic scenario were studied. The economic scenario considered historical Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The main contribution is this scenario was considered the Development Plan and current information. The data selected included the fall in GDP in 2015 as a result of the crisis caused by the fall in oil prices. The energy scenarios were designed using Long-range Energy Alternative Planning (LEAP) model. Two scenarios were development, business as usual (BaU) without policies and projects. The results show that energy efficiency measures implicate cumulative energy savings that could reach 216,700 kBOE between 2015 and 2035.
Keywords: Energy scenarios, Energy efficiency, LEAP
JEL Classification: Q4
The scale of human activities worldwide has grown so great that they are increasingly affecting the regular functioning of the biosphere and critically threatening its equilibrium: during the last few decades, human actions have become the main driver of global environmental change. The design of effective policies to rectify current trends critically depends on our ability to understand the complex interactions between the environment and society. In this context, environmental Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) constitute a powerful tool integrating multiple disciplines and dimensions to shed light on potential sustainability pathways. In particular, IAMs of Climate Change are considered one of the best tools for the implicit evaluation of planetary and social boundaries. This PhD thesis seeks to develop and apply these tools to investigate the risks and opportunities for potential sustainable pathways, and to gain a better understanding of how a transition to a low carbon economy can be achieved.
The field of IA Modelling of Climate Change is reviewed, assessing its trends over time and providing a thorough classification of existing IAMs on seven axes that illustrates the diversity of modelling approaches and assumptions: policy-evaluation vs. policy-optimization; top-down vs. bottom-up; highly-aggregated vs. higher-resolution; regarding the level of integration of subsystems; deterministic vs. stochastic; equilibrium vs. disequilibrium; and standard vs. biophysical economic models. Recent developments in the field are directed towards increasing interactions within the subsystems represented and expanding models to represent other biosphere processes. However, many uncertainties and some controversy about the usefulness of these models still exist in scientific discussion.
Two modelling frameworks are applied in this thesis: a state–of-the-art model (GCAM) and a new biophysical model (WoLiM). GCAM is a high resolution bottom-up IAM model that has been used in all the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to date to analyse mitigation scenarios. WoLiM takes a biophysical approach focusing on basic thermodynamic principles to analyse economic process, inheriting from complex systems that concentrate on dynamic interrelations between elements. The two models not only have different structures but also different aims. This diversity has enabled us to address a variety of issues, and to explore the same issue from different perspectives. Both models are applied to shed light on two current debates in the literature: (1) the implications of the uncertainty of fossil fuel resources availability and geological constraints for climate, energy and socioeconomic pathways; and (2) the implications of different post-Paris Agreement (Dec. 2015) international climate policy regimes in terms of climate change and terrestrial and industrial carbon leakage.
In relation to the availability of fossil fuel resources, the results obtained considering the range of remaining ultimately recoverable resources (RURRs) for fossil fuels in the literature show that potential future constraints on their extraction would not solve the climate change challenge. In terms of temperature increase, the probability of surpassing the 2°C from pre-industrial levels by 2100 reaches almost 90% for baseline scenarios (i.e. scenarios with no additional climate policies). However, the likely depletion of fossil fuels during the 21st century drives the transition to renewable energy sources faster than expected by current models. As a consequence, the cost of
future energy systems increases substantially, which in turn translates into lower mitigation efforts to stabilise the climate by 2100.
The integration of flow limitations from geological constraints with the RURRs for fossil fuels in combination with the simulation of the socioeconomic scenarios considered in Global Environmental Assessments enables us to explore the challenges and opportunities of global energy transition pathways. According to our results, future extraction of fossil resources reaches a plateau at around 500-525 EJ/year of maximum extraction in 2020-2035 and declines thereafter. The total primary energy supply can be stabilised or may even grow in some scenarios to 2050, but the growth trends shown in the past cannot be maintained. This is due to the fact that fossil fuels depletion can only be partially offset by the extraction of unconventional fossil fuels, alternative technologies and efficiency improvements. Transport is the most critical sector due to its current dependency on liquid fuels. Our findings indicate that there is a significant systemic energy-scarcity risk: global demand-driven trends in fuel extraction seen in the past might be unfeasible in the future. Overcoming the potential fall in fossil energy availability would thus require structural changes in the economy combined with social changes. Hence, anticipatory strategies should be implemented urgently.
In relation to the implications of different international climate policy fragmentation scenarios in terms of climate change and terrestrial and industrial carbon leakage, the results show that, even in the most optimistic scenarios where only Russia, the Middle East and Africa do not participate in the international climate regime, coordinated climate action by most countries would only be able to limit the temperature rise to around 2.5 ºC by the end of the century. Moreover, the results show that terrestrial carbon leakage may be the dominant type of leakage by 2050. In fact, afforestation in participating regions occurs at the expense of massive deforestation in non-participating regions, where substantial amounts of food and bioenergy production are shifted. The higher the mitigation target, the greater the increase in the global price of food due to the intensification of land competition driven by the substantial deployment of land-based climate mitigation options such as afforestation or bioenergy crops. In the scenarios considered, food prices increase by between 3 and 7 times by 2100 in relation to the baseline. Under these circumstances, food security and biodiversity conservation might be at risk in some countries. These results are essential to the design of effective climate policies under climate fragmentation scenarios such as the Intended National Determined Contributions after the Paris Agreement.
Finally, since there is a large discrepancy between natural scientists’ understanding of ecological feedbacks and the representation of environmental damages in IAMs, the thesis concludes with some final remarks and suggestions for progress in modelling towards sustainability. In particular, four key features are proposed: (i) adoption of a precautionary principle approach; (ii) emphasis on feedbacks between processes and subsystems; (iii) consideration of the relevant planetary and social boundaries; and (iv) enhancement of the credibility and legitimacy of models by improving their documentation and transparency. In fact, to properly assess the risks of environmental unsustainability, IAMs should be able to simulate potential “disaster” scenarios of human societies, especially in baseline scenarios. Thus, the main goal of sustainability analyses should be to detect the conditions required to reach equilibrium.
In recent years, the economic and political aspects of energy problems have prompted many researchers and analysts to focus their attention on the Hubbert Peak Theory with the aim of forecasting future trends in oil production. In this paper, a predictive model based on a variant of the multi-cyclic Hubbert approach is applied to forecast future trend in OPEC oil production. Moreover, a model that attempts to contribute in this regard is presented; it is based on a variant of the well-known Hubbert curve for OPEC oil production. The model is simple, accurate, and totally data driven which allows a continuous updating once new data are available. The results of the analysis for 12 major oil producing countries suggest that OPEC ultimate recoverable resource would be as much as 1271 Gb. OPEC holds about 72/6% of the world crude oil reserves. Our study also indicates that OPEC crude oil production peak will occur in 2028 at a production rate of 18.85 Gb/Year.
Different methodologies have been applied to forecast oil production curves in many regions or countries. The scientific literature indicates that curve-fitting models, especially the approach of Hubbert, are a simple and suitable tool for first-order projections of future production. This is particularly true when data for ultimately recoverable resources (URR) are uncertain and producers are price-takers. This study estimated Brazil’s oil production curves, according to different URR scenarios (P95, P50 and P5), applying a modified multi-Hubbert model. This model improved the classic methodology by adding productive cycles and allowing the revision of the assumption that production rate is strictly proportional to the first power of both depletion and information effects. Findings show that, without considering the recent discoveries in pre-salt layers, Brazil’s peak oil should hover between 2.37 Mb/d (2015), 3.33 Mb/d (2022) and 6.59 Mb/d (2035), depending on URR scenarios. The accuracy of the fitting related to the observed data from 1954 to 2012 gave a relative standard deviation of less than 2.5%. Considering pre-salt contingent resources, Brazil’s peak oil would be fatter and range from 4.85 Mb/d (2027) to 8.24 Mb/d (2047) depending on the hypotheses made. This last result is, however, highly uncertain.
Forty years ago, the results of modeling, as presented in The Limits to Growth, reinvigorated a discussion about exponentially growing consumption of natural resources, ranging from metals to fossil fuels to atmospheric capacity, and how such consumption could not continue far into the future. Fifteen years earlier, M. King Hubbert had made the projection that petroleum production in the continental United States would likely reach a maximum around 1970, followed by a world production maximum a few decades later. The debate about "peak oil", as it has come to be called, is accompanied by some of the same vociferous denials, myths and ideological polemicizing that have surrounded later representations of The Limits to Growth. In this review, we present several lines of evidence as to why arguments for a near-term peak in world conventional oil production should be taken seriously-both in the sense that there is strong evidence for peak oil and in the sense that being societally unprepared for declining oil production will have serious consequences.
This study evaluates scenarios for the oil production in Peru applying a Hubbert model. Two scenarios for the estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) were proposed: the first, in which low investments in E&P and social and environmental barriers undermine the development of oil resources beyond the limits characterized as 2P; the second, more optimistic, in which current exploratory and production areas in Amazonia and low-explored Offshore-Shelf basins are developed, thus, increasing EUR to 3P reserves plus contingent resources. Findings show that oil production in Peru has not followed a Single-Hubbert pattern, except for the area with more drilling activity and the highest accumulated production in the Northwest coast. Actually, institutional and regulation changes and less-attractive periods for operators due to poor results in oil discoveries explain why a multi-Hubbert approach better depicted the oil production in Peru. Peru has the potential to achieve a second peak of 274 kbpd of crude oil, overcoming the peak of 195 kbpd, reached in 1982. However, most of the remaining production would be located in Amazonia, where social and environmental issues pose critical challenges.
China is currently the largest producer of rare earths in the world, mining at least 90% of world total production. Because of China׳s dominant position in global rare earths production and the constant development of rare earths terminal industries, the study of China׳s rare earth supply trends has gradually been a hot topic of world interest. However, the literature shows that previous research has mainly focused on the estimation of rare earth supply and its influence based on experiential judge of current and premonitory new rare earth production capacity, rather than on quantitative modeling. The results are usually estimations of the productions of near future rather than longer term. Forecasts by mine types are particularly rare. Considering the different applications and demands of different rare earth elements, the Generalized Weng model, a widely used quantitative model in exhaustible resource forecast, is adopted in this study to predict the production of the three major rare earths in China (namely, mixed rare earth, bastnasite and ion-absorbed rare earth) before 2050. The results show that production of mixed rare earth will peak in 2014 at 62,757 t, followed thereafter by an annual decline of 2%; production of bastnasite will peak in 2018 at 32,312 t, preceded by an annual increase of 1.67% and followed by an annual decrease of 4%; production of ion-absorbed rare earth will peak in 2024 at 45,793 t, preceded by an annual increase of 1.72% and followed by an annual decrease of 4%. Based on these findings, Chinese government should enforce environmental and resource exhaustible taxes soon and different domestic regulations for different rare earths according to their different production potential. Countries without resource endowments should make efforts to develop rare earth recycling technologies and seek substitutes for rare earth resources, in addition to keeping good international trading relationships. Countries with some kind of rare earths should start or restart their rare earth mines to gradually reduce dependence on China׳s supply.
This paper reviews the latest information and perspectives on global phosphorus scarcity. Phosphorus is essential for food production and modern agriculture currently sources phosphorus fertilizers from finite phosphate rock. The 2008 food and phosphate fertilizer price spikes triggered increased concerns regarding the depletion timeline of phosphate rock reserves. While estimates range from 30 to 300 years and are shrouded by lack of publicly available data and substantial uncertainty, there is a general consensus that the quality and accessibility of remaining reserves are decreasing and costs will increase. This paper clarifies common sources of misunderstandings about phosphorus scarcity and identifies areas of consensus. It then asks, despite some persistent uncertainty, what would it take to achieve global phosphorus security? What would a ‘hard-landing’ response look like and how could preferred ‘soft-landing’ responses be achieved?
Due to the critical importance of oil to modern economic activity, and oil’s non-renewable nature, it is extremely important to try to estimate possible trajectories of future oil production while accounting for uncertainties in resource estimates and demand growth, and other factors that might limit production. In this study, we develop several alternate future scenarios for conventional oil supply, given the current range of the estimates of resource availability and of future demand, and assuming that production will continue to increase unconstrained by political or economic factors such as deliberate withholdings or prolonged global recession. Our results predict that global production of conventional oil will almost certainly begin an irreversible decline somewhere between 2004 and 2037, at 22 to 42 billion barrels per year, depending upon how much oil is available from the earth’s crust and the growth rate in its use. In addition, we found that the increasing domestic use of conventional oil in oil-producing countries is very likely to eliminate over time the ability of these countries to export oil to net-consumer countries, so that the number of net-exporting countries will be reduced from 35 today to between 12 and 28 by 2030, and fewer subsequently. The geopolitical and economic implications of these trends are likely to be pronounced if reliance on cheap oil is not reduced prior to the peak.
The most important contributors to the world's total oil production are the giant oil fields. Using a comprehensive database of giant oil field production, the average decline rates of the world's giant oil fields are estimated. Separating subclasses was necessary, since there are large differences between land and offshore fields, as well as between non-OPEC and OPEC fields. The evolution of decline rates over past decades includes the impact of new technologies and production techniques and clearly shows that the average decline rate for individual giant fields is increasing with time. These factors have significant implications for the future, since the most important world oil production base - giant fields - will decline more rapidly in the future, according to our findings. Our conclusion is that the world faces an increasing oil supply challenge, as the decline in existing production is not only high now but will be increasing in the future.
There is a huge discrepancy between the "political" values of the reserves by country as reported by the Oil and Gas Journal, World Oil, BP Statistical Review, OPEC, etc. and the "technical" values which are confidential to most countries. Yet, most production forecasts by official agencies are based on the political data. Some countries report minimum values (e.g. the USA with Proved values), others report maximum values (e.g. the FSU), and most countries report likely or median (called Proven + Probable) values which are generally close to, yet lower than, "mean", e.g. "expected", values. When technical data are used to calculate the "mean" values of field reserves, a good fit is found between annual (and cumulative) discoveries and annual (and cumulative) production, the former being close to the latter with a time translation of a certain number of years. This procedure makes it possible to forecast future production from the corresponding past discovery trend. Examples shown for conventional oil are the US Lower 48, FSU, France, UK, Middle East, deepwater and the world outside "Middle East and deepwater", and for conventional gas, North America. A long-term forecast for world production of all hydrocarbons, based on these methods, is far below all the scenarios developed for the 2000 Third Assessment report of the IPCC.
American geophysicist M. King Hubbert in 1956 first introduced a logistic equation to estimate the peak and lifetime production for oil of USA. Since then, a fierce debate ensued on the so-called Hubbert Peak, including also its methodology. This paper proposes to use the generic STELLA model to simulate Hubbert Peak, particularly for the Chinese oil production. This model is demonstrated as being robust. We used three scenarios to estimate the Chinese oil peak: according to scenario 1 of this model, the Hubbert Peak for China's crude oil production appears to be in 2019 with a value of 199.5 million tonnes, which is about 1.1 times the 2005 output. Before the peak comes, Chinese oil output will grow by about 1–2% annually, after the peak, however, the output will fall. By 2040, the annual production of Chinese crude oil would be equivalent to the level of 1990. During the coming 20 years, the crude oil demand of China will probably grow at the rate of 2–3% annually, and the gap between domestic supply and total demand may be more than half of this demand.
A new mathematical model can forecast when worldwide conventional oil production will peak with a minimal amount of information. The new model for forecasting worldwide conventional oil production requires historic oil production data (HPD(x)) and an estimate of ultimate recoverable reserves. The model generates an ideal bell curve (IBC(x)) from IBC(x) = 2Yp/1 + coshR(X-Xp) using data prior to anomalies in production. The curve has the total area equal to the ultimate recoverable reserves. The model considers crude plus NGL production. In the equation, Yp is the production at the peak year, R is a slope constant, x is the year and xp is the peak year. The xai-1 is the year the i-th anomaly occurred. The model requires conventional oil production data and an estimate of the world's total recoverable conventional oil as inputs.
Bottom-up models of oil production are continuously being used to guide investments and policymaking. Compared to simpler top-down models, bottom-up models have a number of advantages due to their modularity, flexibility and concreteness. The purposes of this paper is to identify the crucial modeling challenges, compare the different ways in which nine existing models handle them, assess the appropriateness of these models, and point to possibilities of further development. The conclusions are that the high level of detail in bottom-up models is of questionable value for predictive accuracy, but of great value for identifying areas of uncertainty and new research questions. There is a potential for improved qualitative insights through systematic sensitivity analysis. This potential is at present largely unrealized.
a b s t r a c t China's energy supply is dominated by coal, making projections of future coal production in China important. Recent forecasts suggest that Chinese coal production may reach a peak in 2010e2039 but with widely differing peak production levels. The estimated URR (ultimately recoverable resources) influence these projections significantly, however, widely different URR-values were used due to poor understanding of the various Chinese coal classification schemes. To mitigate these shortcomings, a comprehensive investigation of this system and an analysis of the historical evaluation of resources and reporting issues are performed. A more plausible URR is derived, which indicates that many analysts underestimate volumes available for exploitation. Projections based on the updated URR using a modified curve-fitting model indicate that Chinese coal production could peak as early as 2024 at a maximum annual production of 4.1 Gt. By considering other potential constraints, it can be concluded that peak coal in China appears inevitable and immediate. This event can be expected to have significant impact on the Chinese economy, energy strategies and GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions reduction strategies.
Worldwide shale oil resources in the U.S., China, Russia, Poland and France could mean that potential world oil production could double or triple in the next few decades. However, not all of these new reserves may be as large or as productive as North Dakota's Bakken shale oil. In addition reserves of shale oil look to be a lot less in relative terms than the reserves of shale gas as evidenced by the price of natural gas in the U.S. compared to the price of oil. This suggests that the U.S. and world supplies of shale oil may be limited. In this article, we will look to attempt a different type of forecast for oil using a modified Hubbert curve oil production forecast. We look at possible world oil production trends rather than just U.S. oil production trends. Two interesting comparisons of the world oil production trend to other regional trends are the former Soviet Union's oil production trend and the U.S. oil production trend. If we compare the current world oil production trend to those previous trends using indexation, then we can get an idea of what may happen to world oil production in the future.
Debates about the possibility of a near-term maximum in world oil production have become increasingly prominent over the past decade, with the focus often being on the quantification of geologically available and technologically recoverable amounts of oil in the ground. Economically, the important parameter is not a physical limit to resources in the ground, but whether market price signals and costs of extraction will indicate the efficiency of extracting conventional or nonconventional resources as opposed to making substitutions over time for other fuels and technologies. We present a hybrid approach to the peak-oil question with two models in which the use of logistic curves for cumulative production are supplemented with data on projected extraction costs and historical rates of capacity increase. While not denying the presence of large quantities of oil in the ground, even with foresight, rates of production of new nonconventional resources are unlikely to be sufficient to make up for declines in availability of conventional oil. Furthermore we show how the logistic-curve approach helps to naturally explain high oil prices even when there are significant quantities of low-cost oil yet to be extracted.
China's natural gas consumption has increased rapidly in recent years making China a net gas importer. As a nonrenewable energy, the gas resource is exhaustible. Based on the forecast of this article, China's gas production peak is likely to approach in 2022. However, China is currently in the industrialization and urbanization stage, and its natural gas consumption will persistently increase. With China's gas production peak, China will have to face a massive expansion in gas imports. As the largest developing country, China's massive imports of gas will have an effect on the international gas market. In addition, as China's natural gas price is still controlled by the government and has remained at a low level, the massive imports of higher priced gas will exert great pressure on China's gas price reform.
In this paper, a predictive model based on a variant of the multi-cyclic Hubbert approach is applied to forecast future trend in world fossil fuel production.Starting from historical data on oil (crude and NGL), natural gas, and coal production, and taking into consideration three possible scenarios for the global Ultimate (i.e. cumulative production plus remaining reserves plus undiscovered resources), this approach allowed us to determine when these important energy sources should peak and start to decline. In particular, considering the most likely scenarios, our estimated peak values were: 30 Gb/year in 2015 for oil, 132 Tcf/year in 2035 for natural gas, and 4.5 Gtoe/year in 2052 for coal. A plateau is likely to occur in the case of natural gas, if the global Ultimate is high.A comparison of the Multi-Hubbert Variant (MHV) approach used in this paper with both the Single-cycle Hubbert (SH) and the “original” Multi-cyclic Hubbert (MH) approach has also been done.
This review paper summarises and evaluates the evidence regarding four issues that are considered to be of critical importance for future global oil supply. These are: a) how regional and global oil resources are distributed between different sizes of field; b) why estimates of the recoverable resources from individual fields tend to grow over time and the current and likely future contribution of this to global reserve additions; c) how rapidly the production from different categories of field is declining and how this may be expected to change in the future; and d) how rapidly the remaining recoverable resources in a field or region can be produced. It is shown that, despite serious data limitations, the level of knowledge of each of these issues has improved considerably over the past decade. While the evidence on reserve growth appears relatively encouraging for future global oil supply, that on decline and depletion rates does not. Projections of future global oil supply that use assumptions inconsistent with this evidence base are likely to be in error.
The Oriente Basin of Ecuador is one of the most productive of the South American Sub-Andean Basins. Cumulative production of oil to the end of 1986 was over one billion barrels, and current production stands at approximately 300 000 barrels per day. At least 20 oil fields have been discovered to date, including five giant fields, and exploration is currently in the early stages of a new and already successful phase in which ten new operators are scheduled to drill over 40 wells between 1985 and 1992. The Oriente Basin contains a sedimentary fill of Palaeozoic to Recent age. Major commercial interest is confined to the Cretaceous depositional cycle and all of the significant production comes from fluvio-deltaic and marine sandstones of the Hollin and Napo Formations. Most of the productive structures are low-relief, north-south orientated, anticlines of two distinct types: foot wall anticlines associated with normal faults, (Type 1) or hanging wall anticlines associated with reverse faults, (Type 2). Evidence points to the importance of pre-Miocene structural growth, comprising either early-mid Cretaceous rejuvenation of pre-Cretaceous 'basement' faults in the case of Type-1 structures and 'Early Andean' (latest Cretaceous to Oligocene) compression in the case of Type-2 structures. Few commercial discoveries have been made associated with 'Late Andean' (Miocene-Pliocene) compressional structures, essentially because these structures appear to post-date the main phase of primary oil generation and migration. The origin of the oils is problematical because the potential source rocks, the marine claystones and limestones of the Cretaceous Napo Formation, are generally immature or marginally mature within the confines of the present-day Oriente Basin. Oil analyses indicate a single family of oils. Available evidence, combined from structural and geochemical data, supports a major phase of Early Andean age oil generation and migration. There is a considerable variation of oil type from 37° API paraffinic oils with a GOR of 250-300 to altered 10° API oils. Marked variations exist not only between oilfields but also between reservoirs in the same well. The observed trends can in most cases be accounted for systematically in terms of: early primary oil generation, migration and entrapment; and subsequent structural evolution locally involving the processes of biodegration, water washing and/or flushing, and oil remigration.
The year 2008 has witnessed unprecedented fluctuations in the oil prices. During the first three-quarters, the oil price abruptly increased to $140/bbl, a level that has never been reached before; then because of the global economic crisis, the price dramatically plunged to less than $50/bbl by the end of the year losing more than 64% of the maximum price in less than three months period. The supply of crude oil to the international market oscillated to follow suite according to the law of supply and demand. This behavior affected oil production in all exporting countries. Nonetheless, the demand for crude oil in some developing countries, such as China and India, has increased in the past few years because of the rapid growth in the transportation sector in addition to the absence of viable economic alternatives for fossil fuel. The rapid growth in fuel demand has forced the policy makers worldwide to include uninterrupted crude oil supply as a vital priority in their economic and strategic planning.
a b s t r a c t Based on economic and policy considerations that appear to be unconstrained by geophysics, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) generated forty carbon production and emissions scenarios. In this paper, we develop a base-case scenario for global coal production based on the physical multi-cycle Hubbert analysis of historical production data. Areas with large resources but little production history, such as Alaska and the Russian Far East, are treated as sensitivities on top of this base-case, producing an additional 125 Gt of coal. The value of this approach is that it provides a reality check on the magnitude of carbon emissions in a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario. The resulting base-case is significantly below 36 of the 40 carbon emission scenarios from the IPCC. The global peak of coal production from existing coalfields is predicted to occur close to the year 2011. The peak coal production rate is 160 EJ/y, and the peak carbon emissions from coal burning are 4.0 Gt C (15 Gt CO 2) per year. After 2011, the production rates of coal and CO 2 decline, reaching 1990 levels by the year 2037, and reaching 50% of the peak value in the year 2047. It is unlikely that future mines will reverse the trend predicted in this BAU scenario.
A logistic function is used to characterize peak and ultimate production of global crude oil and petroleum-derived liquid fuels. Annual oil production data were incrementally summed to construct a logistic curve in its initial phase. Using a curve-fitting approach, a population-growth logistic function was applied to complete the cumulative production curve. The simulated curve was then deconstructed into a set of annual oil production data producing an "idealized" Hubbert curve. An idealized Hubbert curve (IHC) is defined as having properties of production data resulting from a constant growth-rate under fixed resource limits. An IHC represents a potential production curve constructed from cumulative production data and provides a new perspective for estimating peak production periods and remaining resources. The IHC model data show that idealized peak oil production occurred in 2009 at 83.2Â Mb/d (30.4Â Gb/y). IHC simulations of truncated historical oil production data produced similar results and indicate that this methodology can be useful as a prediction tool.
The reserves, distribution, production and utilization of natural gas resources in China are introduced in this paper which
leads a point of view that China’s natural gas resources are relatively rich while distributed unevenly. The future production
and consumption of China’s natural gas are predicted using the Generalized Weng model and the Gray prediction model. The prediction
suggests that with the increasing gas consumption China’s natural gas production will not meet demand after 2010. In order
to ease the supply-demand gap and realize rational development and utilization of China’s natural gas resources, this paper
puts forward some measures, such as using advanced technologies for natural gas development, establishing a long-distance
pipeline network to rationalize the availability of natural gas across China and importing foreign natural gas and liquid
natural gas (LNG).
A growing number of commentators are forecasting a near-term peak and subsequent terminal decline in the global production
of conventional oil as a result of the physical depletion of the resource. These forecasts frequently rely on the estimates
of the ultimately recoverable resources (URR) of different regions, obtained through the use of curve-fitting to historical trends in discovery or production. Curve-fitting was originally pioneered by M. King Hubbert in the context
of an earlier debate about the future of the US oil production. However, despite their widespread use, curve-fitting techniques
remain the subject of considerable controversy. This article classifies and explains these techniques and identifies both
their relative suitability in different circumstances and the level of confidence that may be placed in their results. This
article discusses the interpretation and importance of the URR estimates, indicates the relationship between curve fitting
and other methods of estimating the URR and classifies the techniques into three groups. It then investigates each group in
turn, indicating their historical origins, contemporary application and major strengths and weaknesses. The article then uses
illustrative data from a number of oil-producing regions to assess whether these techniques produce consistent results as
well as highlight some of the statistical issues raised and suggesting how they may be addressed. The article concludes that
the applicability of curve-fitting techniques is more limited than adherents claim and that the confidence bounds on the results
are wider than usually assumed.
KeywordsPetroleum resource estimation-peak oil
Combining geological knowledge with proved plus probable (‘2P’) oil discovery data indicates that over 60 countries are now past their resource-limited peak of conventional oil production. The data show that the global peak of conventional oil production is close.Many analysts who rely only on proved (‘1P’) oil reserves data draw a very different conclusion. But proved oil reserves contain no information about the true size of discoveries, being variously under-reported, over-reported and not reported. Reliance on 1P data has led to a number of misconceptions, including the notion that past oil forecasts were incorrect, that oil reserves grow very significantly due to technology gain, and that the global supply of oil is ensured provided sufficient investment is forthcoming to ‘turn resources into reserves’. These misconceptions have been widely held, including within academia, governments, some oil companies, and organisations such as the IEA.In addition to conventional oil, the world contains large quantities of non-conventional oil. Most current detailed models show that past the conventional oil peak the non-conventional oils are unlikely to come on-stream fast enough to offset conventional's decline. To determine the extent of future oil supply constraints calculations are required to determine fundamental rate limits for the production of non-conventional oils, as well as oil from gas, coal and biomass, and of oil substitution. Such assessments will need to examine technological readiness and lead-times, as well as rate constraints on investment, pollution, and net-energy return.
This paper forecasts oil production in Brazil, according to the Hubbert model and different probabilities for adding reserves. It analyzes why the Hubbert model might be more appropriate to the Brazilian oil industry than that of Hotelling, as it implicitly emphasizes the impacts of information and depletion on the derivative over time of the accumulated discoveries. Brazil's oil production curves indicate production peaks with a time lag of more than 15 years, depending on the certainty (degree of information) associated with the reserves. Reserves with 75% certainty peak at 3.27 Mbpd in 2020, while reserves with 50% certainty peak at 3.28 Mbpd in 2028, and with 30% certainty peak at 3.88 Mbpd in 2036. These findings show that Brazil oil industry is in a stage where the positive impacts of information on expanding reserves (mainly through discoveries) may outstrip the negative impacts of depletion. The still limited number of wells drilled by accumulated discoveries also explain this assertion. Being a characteristic of frontier areas such as Brazil, this indicates the need for ongoing exploratory efforts.
This review paper assesses oil supply modeling techniques and critically evaluates their usefulness in projecting future oil production. It reviews models that project future rates of oil production, but does not address estimation of oil resources. The following types of models are reviewed: the Hubbert method; other curve-fitting methods such as exponential and Gaussian models; simulation models of resource discovery and extraction; and data-rich “bottom-up” models. Economic models are reviewed more briefly. Forty-five mathematical models of oil depletion of the last century are classified along four dimensions of variability: emphasis on physical or economic aspects of oil production; model scale; hypothetical or mechanistic orientation; and complexity. Models based on quite disparate assumptions (e.g., physical simulation vs. economic optimal depletion) have produced approximately bell-shaped production profiles, but data do not support assertions that any one model type is most useful for forecasting future oil production. In fact, evidence suggests that existing models have fared poorly in predicting global oil production. The greatest promise for future developments in oil depletion modeling lies in simulation models that combine both physical and economic aspects of oil production.
Within the polarised and contentious debate over future oil supply a growing number of commentators are forecasting a near term peak and subsequent decline in production. But although liquid fuels form the foundation of modern industrial economies, the growing debate on ‘peak oil’ has relatively little influence on energy and climate policy. With this in mind, the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) has conducted an independent, thorough and systematic review of the evidence, with the aim of establishing the current state of knowledge, identifying key uncertainties and improving consensus. The study focuses upon the physical depletion of conventional oil in the period to 2030 and includes an in-depth literature review, analysis of industry databases and a detailed comparison of global supply forecasts. This Communication summarises the main findings of the UKERC study. A key conclusion is that a peak of conventional oil production before 2030 appears likely and there is a significant risk of a peak before 2020.
The Hubbert theory of oil depletion, which states that oil production in large regions follows a bell-shaped curve over time, has been cited as a method to predict the future of global oil production. However, the assumptions of the Hubbert method have never been rigorously tested with a large, publicly available data set. In this paper, three assumptions of the modern Hubbert theory are tested using data from 139 oil producing regions. These regions are sub-national (United States state-level, United States regional-level), national, and multi-national (subcontinental and continental) in scale. We test the assumption that oil production follows a bell-shaped curve by generating best-fitting curves for each region using six models and comparing the quality of fit across models. We also test the assumptions that production over time in a region tends to be symmetric, and that production is more bell-shaped in larger regions than in smaller regions.
The production and the depletion of mineral resources, and especially oil and fossil fuels, has been an object of extensive predictive modeling. These predictions are often derived from Hubbert's model which is based on the fitting of the experimental data to a symmetric, bell-shaped curve. Although this model describes several historical cases, in particular, crude oil production in the lower 48 US states, not all theoretical models for the “mineral economy” are based on symmetric curves. Also, not much attention has been dedicated so far to the mechanisms which lead to such a behavior. In particular, scarce attention has been dedicated to the factors which may make the production curve asymmetric, e.g. a decline in production more abrupt than the growth. In the present paper, the author uses a stochastic model to examine factors affecting these phenomena. The results of the simulations indicate that the production curves of a non-renewable resource may be asymmetric in dependence on factors such as the search strategy or the presence of technological improvements. Considering worldwide oil production, the simulations indicate that the after-peak downward slope might turn out to be considerably more steep than the upward slope, something that could have unpleasant effects on the economy.
A model capable of projecting mineral resources production has been developed. The model includes supply and demand interactions, and has been applied to all coal producing countries. A model of worldwide coal production has been developed for three scenarios. The ultimately recoverable resources (URR) estimates used in the scenarios ranged from 700 Gt to 1243 Gt. The model indicates that worldwide coal production will peak between 2010 and 2048 on a mass basis and between 2011 and 2047 on an energy basis. The Best Guess scenario, assumed a URR of 1144 Gt and peaks in 2034 on a mass basis, and in 2026 on an energy basis.
Although considerable discussion surrounds unconventional oil's ability to mitigate the effects of peaking conventional oil production, very few models of unconventional oil production exist. The aim of this article was to project unconventional oil production to determine how significant its production may be. Two models were developed to predict the unconventional oil production, one model for in situ production and the other for mining the resources. Unconventional oil production is anticipated to reach between 18 and 32Â Gb/y (49-88Â Mb/d) in 2076-2084, before declining. If conventional oil production is at peak production then projected unconventional oil production cannot mitigate peaking of conventional oil alone.
SE DEFINE LO REFERENTE A BALANZAS DE PAGO, SU ESTRUCTURA EN CADA UNA DE SUS CUENTAS, SE DESCRIBEN LOS PRINCIPIOS CONTABLES QUE RIGEN SU ELABORACION Y SE RESALTA LA IMPORTANCIA DE ESTE INDICADOR DEL SECTOR EXTERNO PARA LA ECONOMIA ECUATORIANA. PRESENTA UNA VISION GENERAL DE LOS PRINCIPALES ACONTECIMIENTOS QUE SE SUSCITARON A PARTIR DE 1972 HASTA 1991, ENFOCANDO EL ANALISIS EN EL SECTOR PETROLERO Y SU INFLUENCIA EN EL CRECIMIENTO DE LA ECONOMIA, EN EL SECTOR FISCAL, EN LA BALANZA DE PAGOS. DESCRIBE LA EVOLUCION DE LA ACTIVIDAD HIDROCARBURIFERA EN EL ECUADOR EN LOS AÑOS DE PERIODO ANALIZADO, SE ESTABLECE COMO SE HA DESENVUELTO EL PAIS EN LAS FASES DE EXPLORACION, EXPLOTACION, PRODUCCION, TRANSPORTE, INDUSTRIALIZACION, COMERCIALIZACION INTERNA Y EXTERNA EN BASE DE LAS ESTADISTICAS QUE PROVEE LA DIRECCION NACIONAL DE HIDROCARBUROS. SE ENFOCA AL PETROLEO COMO UNO DE LOS PRODUCTOS PRINCIPALES DENTRO DEL CUADRO MACROECONOMICO.
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