Oh how lovely for these big companies and their shareholders…

And how horrible for the rest of us!

More oil, more business as usual, more expansion of oil consumption and atmospheric carbon production, more environmental destruction…

...and no increase in effort being put into renewable energy sources and better energy-use efficiencies.

Wonderful stuff!!

Eat your heart out, peak oil donkeys.

Oil slicks are all some need to establish probable major new oil discoveries.
A large oil slick doesn't necessarily mean a very large oil find or reserve, [although it could,] just one very close to the surface.
We have seen these same (numerous) otherwise unexplainable mystery oil slicks, for as long as we have shipping around and through the Great Barrier reef.
Very conservative estimates have placed around five billion barrels in the Townsville trough alone. [And people are getting excited over 3.5 billion barrels.]
Informed and published opinion, has much much larger reserves further out.
Other nations have been pragmatic enough to give themselves official permission to explore and exploit their own reserves.
Waiting for others to develop our reserves for us, is just a recipe for economy destroying energy prices; when what we could be doing instead, is developing these reserves ourselves!
Some industry experts postulate, reserves to our "immediate north", may even rival or surpass, the known reserves of the Middle East.
If anyone actually believes we can continue to rely on supplies from an increasingly troubled and volatile Middle East, they've got to have rocks in their heads.
There is only one thing that prevents us from developing these resources ourselves! Us, or rather, our so-called political leaders!
In conclusion, let me add, that artificial scarcity, has only resulted in artificially high prices.
If we wanted to act on pollution, all we need is a clean air act with teeth. Which would be far less damaging to the economy, than artificially maintained and unaffordable price structures/price gouging and cartel behaviour.
Rhrosty.

Exuberance over fracking in the United States has promoted the claim that Peak oil is over.

What about the rate of oil production? The ‘RATE’ is the essence of the peak oil question.

A new scientific paper by the American Geophysical Union points to an overwhelming body of evidence contradicting the industry hype.

"Peak oil is not about oil reserves or resources, neither of which translates directly into production rate", the paper points out. "Peak oil is not about running out of oil but about its peak in production.

This is the critical fact that most people completely miss!

Peak oil does not suggest we are running out of oil but suggests a peak in conventional oil production will create an increasing reliance on more expensive, unconventional forms of oil and gas which have a far lower energy output.

Global production of crude oil and condensates has essentially remained on a plateau of about 75 mb/d since 2005 in spite of a large increase in the price of oil. Even more important, the global net oil exports from oil-exporting countries have peaked and are in decline.

This suggests supply is no longer able to match demand. This ‘inelastic supply of oil’ creates a ‘price-production buffer against increasing economic growth.’

As global demand for oil increases, driven largely by emerging markets, this leads to an increase in the price of oil. But this in turn means more unconventional resources become economically viable for development, leading to an increase in oil production.

However, the potential for recession increases, because the whole cycle was set in motion by an increase in the price of oil. As a seeming glut in unconventional production permits a nominal relaxation in prices, economic demand ramps up, once again pushing up oil prices as the economy hits the supply ceiling, reigniting the process. The result is an undulating production plateau and an unstable and fragile economy.

What almost everyone putting the opnion that there is no problem fails to mention is that
to enable oil production to remain constant, let alone cope with increased demand, we
will have to discover a new Saudi Arabia every two years !

The rate of decline of the conventional old fields is so great that it is overwhelming the
incease in shale oil and oil sands production.
Added to this is the 40% decline in the rig count in major shale oil fields
The Bakken shale oil field in the US is already showing signs that it might be peaking.
It has been calculated that all shale oil in the US will peak before 2017.

The crux of the matter is that the year that most oil was found was 1964 !
The year that production exceeded oil found was 1983 !
Unconventional oil is a small percentrage of conventional oil productuion.

Those three sentances tell it all !

Just think about the implications.

Luddy old mate, there is no such thing as renewable energy. There is just a boutique little rip off program producing just a few watts occasionally, certainly nothing useful.

From the now huge & growing body of evidence which tells us that global warming from atmospheric CO2 is a total fallacy, you should now relax. Pity, it be useful if it was a fact. It could help with the coming cold period.

I am amazed that you, a botanist, does not believe that the earth is struggling along with a deficit of atmospheric CO2 today. Compared with much of history it is very low.

Too much has been precipitated out of the ocean, & anything we produce is an asset to the whole system.

Just rejoice we will be spared those dreadful bird/bat mincing windmills, & the stupidity of covering everything with useless solar cells, that will never save the electricity wasted in their production.