Predicting the timing of peak oil

Peak oil is the point at which oil production, sometimes including unconventional oil sources, hits its maximum. Predicting the timing of peak oil involves estimation of future production from existing oil fields as well as future discoveries. The most influential production model is Hubbert peak theory, first proposed in the 1950s. As of 2014, it is not widely questioned that oil production will be in decline after 2050. The effect of peak oil on the world economy remains controversial.

There was a consensus between industry leaders and analysts that world oil production will peak between 2010 and 2030, with a significant chance that the peak will occur before 2020. Dates after 2030 were considered implausible by some. Determining a more specific range is difficult due to the lack of certainty over the actual size of world oil reserves. Unconventional oil is not currently predicted to meet the expected shortfall even in a best-case scenario. For unconventional oil to fill the gap without "potentially serious impacts on the global economy", oil production would have to remain stable after its peak, until 2035 at the earliest.

On the other hand, the US Energy Information Administration projected in 2014 that world production of “total liquids,” which, in addition to liquid petroleum, includes biofuels, natural gas liquids, and oil sands, would increase at an average rate of about one percent per year through 2040 without peaking. OPEC countries are expected to increase oil production at a faster rate than non-OPEC countries.

Given the large range offered by meta-studies, papers published since 2010 have been relatively pessimistic. A 2010 Kuwait University study predicted production would peak in 2014. A 2010 Oxford University study predicted that production will peak before 2015. A 2014 validation of a significant 2004 study in the journal Energy proposed that it is likely that conventional oil production peaked, according to various definitions, between 2005 and 2011. Models which show a continued increase in oil production may be including both conventional and non-conventional oil. A set of models published in a 2014 Ph.D. thesis predicted that a 2012 peak would be followed by a drop in oil prices, which in some scenarios could turn into a rapid rise in prices thereafter.

Phibro statistics show that major oil companies hit peak production in 2005.Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, stated in 2011 that "crude oil production for the world has already peaked in 2006."

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