Plateau Oil?

It seems that oil production plateaued in 2005 and hasn't increased since. Does that mean that the long rumored peak oil is at hand - or has already even occurred? The ever rising price of oil suggests that neither supply nor demand has a lot of ready elasticity. The long dreaded $100/bbl might be just around the corner and it makes everyone pretty darn nervous. Producers are nervous for fear that it might cause a world wide crash that destroys the price and destroys their ever increasing investments in the rest of the world. Consumers are nervous just because of the looming crash.

My own highly inexpert opinion is that the peak ain't here yet. It's possible that some Saudi and other fields have hit the wall, and that might mean that we really do hit $100, but I expect that the investment triggered by the record prices will kick in more production over the next few years.

Or not.

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