Dr Michael Lardelli from the University of Adelaide looks at how the bulk of the world’s oil production comes from a relatively small number of very large fields discovered decades ago. The rate of world oil production has been maintained at current levels only by finding and bringing on line an increasing number of smaller fields, but the financial cost and the energy required to find and develop these new fields is constantly increasing. According to Dr Lardelli the so-called peak of oil production was actually in 2008.
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