I think you need to get away from the thought that oil companies have much to do with the price of oil, Countrys yes but companies very little IMO there individual production compared with world use is not large.
Companies are driven by shareholders and will produce as much as they can to increase shareprice and dividends especially at todays prices there main concern is to avoid being nationalised and finding more reserves.
This is one of the reasons the larger companies are looking at shale because trying to increase there reserves in conventional oil is getting much harder.
The peak oil or as I prefer peak production debate has a lot more to do with crude oil as its the oil we use most,its by far the cheapest to produce, has the most energy value is very versatile and there is nothing on the horizon that can replace it. The world uses 3 times the amount of crude oil than is discovered each year and has for a while.
Crude oil production reached about 75 million barrels a day in 2004-6 and is the same in 2012 even though the price has tripled and the world using 8- 10 million barrels more a day. So its been on a plateau for six years and is expected to enter the decline phase within the next 2-4 years.
The balance of the oil the world uses daily, about 15 Million barrels, is made up of tar sands,lpg,cng nat.gas liquids,coal to liquids and shale oil.
This where the problem lies with oil, when crude oil starts its decline phase it has to be made up with alternatives and that is the expensive oil. It seems at the moment that the oil price over $110-20 starts to send countries into resession or struggle for growth.
If you do some research on the green river shale you will find its been known about for many years and at the moment its to expensive to produce, to the best of my knowledge it is mined and uses about 3 barrels of water to produce 1 barrel of oil and if its like tar sands takes 1 barrel of oil energy to produce 3.
It will take oil at a much higher price than today on a steady basis before it will be looked at.
When you look at the scale Canadian tar sands,the resources used in water,natuaral gas plus the enviromental issues but that only produces about 3-4 million barrels a day. The US alone uses almost 20 million barrels a day.
So the peak oil debate is very real but in a different way than most realise its more to do with production and price not so mush reserves and resouces IMO
I think there will be a move towards natural gas and LNG before Green river shale.
Cheers Whisky .
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