Hirsch report

The Hirsch report, the commonly referred to name for the report Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management, was created by request for the US Department of Energy and published in February 2005. Some information was updated in 2007. It examined the time frame for the occurrence of peak oil, the necessary mitigating actions, and the likely impacts based on the timeliness of those actions.

"The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking."

The lead author, Robert L. Hirsch, published a brief summary of this report in October 2005 for the Atlantic Council.

A number of industry petroleum geologists, scientists, and economists were listed with their global peak production projection. Later, in 2010, Hirsch developed a projection that global oil production would begin to decline by 2015.

As of 2015, world crude oil production had not peaked. Production in 2015 was at an all-time high of 75.1 million barrels of oil per day.

Operating under the assumption that existing services must be sustained, the Hirsch report considered the effects of the following mitigation strategies as part of the "crash program":

The report came to the following conclusions:

The Hirsch Report urged a crash program of new technologies and changes in manners and attitudes in the US and as well implying more research and development. The report cites a peaking crude oil supply as the main reason for immediate action.

During the significant oil price rise through 2007, a theme among several industry observers was that the price rise was only partially due to a limit in crude oil availability (peak oil). For example, an article by Jad Mouawad cited an unusual number of fires and other outages among U.S. refineries in the summer of 2007 which disrupted supply. However, a lack of refining capacity would only seem to explain high gasoline prices not high crude oil prices. Indeed, if the refineries were unable to process available crude oil then there should be a crude oil glut that would reduce crude prices on international crude oil markets. Then again, sharp changes in crude oil prices can also be due to stock market volatility and fear over the security of future supplies, or, on the other hand, an anticipation by investors of a rise in the value of crude oil once refining capacity picks up again.

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