World oil production trend: Comparing Hubbert multi-cycle curves

Abstract

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.