Comment on the ‘Uppsala critique’

Abstract

This paper discusses the criticisms of the IEA World Energy Outlook raised by Aleklett et al. (2010), often referred to as the ‘Uppsala critique’. The major argument of Aleklett et al. is that the rates of depletion, the ratio of annual production to remaining resources or reserves, assumed by the IEA in certain categories of fields are unreasonable. In this paper, we call into question the reductions in future global oil production that Aleklett et al. argue are necessary: they have incorrectly applied a depletion rate for all fields within a region to different subsets of fields within a region. The more minor reductions to future global oil production that Aleklett et al. argue are needed because of the IEA modelling of the production of bitumen and natural gas liquids are also examined briefly.