Not true, and not close to being true. It is true only if you specify lower 48 AND exclude off shore oil, and limit the location to Montana. Here are some numbers : "In 2006, Elm Coulee was producing about 53,000 barrels per day" "During 2004, top oil producing areas included the Gulf of Mexico (1.5 million bbl/d), Texas onshore (1.1 million bbl/d), Alaskas North Slope (886,000 bbl/d), California (656,000 bbl/d), Louisiana onshore (228,000 bbl/d), New Mexico (176,000 bbl/d), Oklahoma (171,000 bbl/d), and Wyoming (141,000 bbl/d)."
The future success of our country (USA) will depend on how much we will invest in new technology in this industry. And Yes, as a nation we can drink 3 billion barrels in less than a year under our current levels of consumption.
You may be a in the "Oil Industry", but when it comes to Peak Oil - I don't think you know what you're talking about. Peak Oil is not about running out of oil. It is about production not keeping up with demand. It's about oil wells having a defined lifespan. Its also about the fact that the world's population is growing and thus, oil demand grows with it. Ultimately, its about not keeping up with demand, and as you said, prices rising as a result. Let's just look at the US. The US for the first half of the 1900s was a leading exporter of oil. Now we rely on growing imports. That's a fact. So if oil production can not keep up with demand in the US - can't the same be said of other countries? Or even the rest of the world? Indonesia (a former OPEC member) already needs to import oil. China used to be a net exporter oil - now it imports to satisfy its growing needs and is number 2 in imports... and the list keeps growing. See the trend? That's what Peak Oil is about. I think a lot of people mistakenly believe that Peak Oil means that oil will soon "disappear." That's not the point. The fear Peak Oil theorists have is that oil may suddenly go to 200-300 dollars a barrel and choke the global economy. In the past decade India and China have entered the global workforce - well over 2 billion people and many want the western lifestyle that includes oil consumption. We are not discovering oil finds of the scale that we did up until the late 1960s. Prices will rise as a result. It's simple math.
Very good comentary, especially on the china issue, however I disagree on some points overall. I wonder if we haven't been a little too soft on oil shales?
If peak oil is just a theory and not proven then howcome every old oil and NG well sooner later faces a production decline? This is a proven fact so is this all coincidence?
We do things "BIG" here in the Lone Star State. That oil find in the Gulf is only about 200 miles from Galveston, we just might build a pier to it.
Look at it this way. Individual wells decline - fact. Rate of mega discoveries has dropped - fact Population growth continues as does global oil demand - fact Now add all the above and arrive at a conclusion. As for "technology" - yes, we can extract oil that in the past we could not. But the results so far do not equal the mega oil discoveries that are becoming few and far in between. M. King Hubbert, a Shell Oil geologist, first described Peak Oil - it was called Hubbert's Peak. He said back in the mid 1950s that as the rate of discovery in the lower 48 declines, so too will production reach a peak and decline as well. He was laughed at. He estimated that peak to occur in the late sixties - early seventies. He was right. In 1970, US oil production in the lower 48 peaked. It has declined since. That's a fact. Now is it too complicated of a mental exercise to assume that if this can occur for one country - that it can eventually occur for the entire world? there's a lot of cognitive dissonance going on in this thread... Maybe a picture would help: Can someone spot the imaginary "peak"??? What do I know... I'm not in the oil bidness...
We will either always, or have never had, been able to meet demand with oil production. Its just that the price changes. At some price we demand almost infinite barrels, at some price we demand no barrels. the only thing that is relevant is if we will run out, but again price changes, people demand lower quantities at the higher price until they demand none. The best arguement I have seen regards how much oil does it take to get a bbl. When it costs more to get that is gets, the oil industry will die. Then we can develop tech to improve the exchange we might get some more later. Oil trivia, why is the abbreviation for oil "bbl"?