OVERVIEW

In the last chapter, I described the concept of the Ultimate: namely Cumulative Production when it ends. Alternatively, if we have a mental hang-up with the idea of actually producing the last barrel, we could call it Cumulative Production at some distant future date such as 2075 or 2100. As production declines exponentially, the tail end of depletion is almost flat, so it makes little practical difference.

I have suggested that 1.8 trillion barrels is a good number for the Ultimate. If we subtract the 784 billion already produced, to end 1996 we are left with about one trillion barrels to produce in the future (1.016 Tb to be exact). It is made up of 836 billion barrels of Reserves and 180 billion barrels Yet-to-Find always remembering that we are talking about Conventional oil only. Figure 8-1 shows where it is, both by region and major country. It is immediately obvious that about half of it lies in the Middle East Gulf Region, comprising Abu Dhabi, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (including the Neutral Zone, owned by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia).

Figure 8-1: Distribution of Remaining (Yet-to-Produce) oil, and depletion midpoint by country and region.

I have already explained that the rate of flow in an oilfield is constrained by both the immutable physics of the reservoir, by what the engineers think is the optimal depletion strategy, and in some cases by market offtake. We cannot have one large champagne party, and blow it...