IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v37y2009i4p1267-1276.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The peak of oil production--Timings and market recognition

Author

Listed:
  • de Almeida, Pedro
  • Silva, Pedro D.

Abstract

Energy is essential for present societies. In particular, transportation systems depend on petroleum-based fuels. That world oil production is set to pass a peak is now a reasonably accepted concept, although its date is far from consensual. In this work, we analyze the true expectations of the oil market participants about the future availability of this fundamental energy source. We study the evolution through time of the curves of crude oil futures prices, and we conclude that the market participants, among them the crude oil producers, already expect a near-term peak of oil production. This agrees with many technical predictions for the date of peak production, including our own, that point to peak dates around the end of the present decade. If this scenario is confirmed, it can cause serious social and economical problems because societies will have little time to perform the necessary adjustments.

Suggested Citation

  • de Almeida, Pedro & Silva, Pedro D., 2009. "The peak of oil production--Timings and market recognition," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1267-1276, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:37:y:2009:i:4:p:1267-1276
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301-4215(08)00663-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Menzie D. Chinn & Michael LeBlanc & Olivier Coibion, 2005. "The Predictive Content of Energy Futures: An Update on Petroleum, Natural Gas, Heating Oil and Gasoline," NBER Working Papers 11033, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Mark W. French, 2005. "Why and when do spot prices of crude oil revert to futures price levels?," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-30, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Hallock, John L. & Tharakan, Pradeep J. & Hall, Charles A.S. & Jefferson, Michael & Wu, Wei, 2004. "Forecasting the limits to the availability and diversity of global conventional oil supply," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 29(11), pages 1673-1696.
    4. Jean Laherrere, 2003. "Will the natural gas supply meet the demand in North America?," International Journal of Global Energy Issues, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 19(1), pages 1-62.
    5. Litzenberger, Robert H & Rabinowitz, Nir, 1995. "Backwardation in Oil Futures Markets: Theory and Empirical Evidence," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1517-1545, December.
    6. Eugene F. Fama & Kenneth R. French, 2015. "Commodity Futures Prices: Some Evidence on Forecast Power, Premiums, and the Theory of Storage," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anastasios G Malliaris & William T Ziemba (ed.), THE WORLD SCIENTIFIC HANDBOOK OF FUTURES MARKETS, chapter 4, pages 79-102, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    7. Jiang, X.M. & Han, X.X. & Cui, Z.G., 2007. "New technology for the comprehensive utilization of Chinese oil shale resources," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 772-777.
    8. Harold Hotelling, 1931. "The Economics of Exhaustible Resources," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 137-137.
    9. Joseph G. Haubrich & Patrick C. Higgins & Janet Miller, 2004. "Oil prices: backward to the future?," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Dec.
    10. Benjamin Miranda Tabak, 2003. "On the Information Content of Oil Future Prices," Working Papers Series 65, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    11. Andrew H. McCallum & Tao Wu, 2005. "Do oil futures prices help predict future oil prices?," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue dec30.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ron Alquist & Lutz Kilian, 2010. "What do we learn from the price of crude oil futures?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 539-573.
    2. Lang, Korbinian & Auer, Benjamin R., 2020. "The economic and financial properties of crude oil: A review," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    3. Oleg Kucher & Alexander Kurov, 2014. "Business cycle, storage, and energy prices," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(4), pages 217-226, November.
    4. Baruník, Jozef & Malinská, Barbora, 2016. "Forecasting the term structure of crude oil futures prices with neural networks," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 366-379.
    5. Kuper, Gerard H., 2012. "Inventories and upstream gasoline price dynamics," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 208-214.
    6. Menzie D. Chinn & Olivier Coibion, 2014. "The Predictive Content of Commodity Futures," Journal of Futures Markets, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(7), pages 607-636, July.
    7. Constantino Hevia & Ivan Petrella & Martin Sola, 2018. "Risk premia and seasonality in commodity futures," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(6), pages 853-873, September.
    8. Jeffrey A Frankel & Andrew K Rose, 2010. "Determinants of Agricultural and Mineral Commodity Prices," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Renée Fry & Callum Jones & Christopher Kent (ed.),Inflation in an Era of Relative Price Shocks, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    9. Valenti, Daniele & Bastianin, Andrea & Manera, Matteo, 2023. "A weekly structural VAR model of the US crude oil market," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    10. Bahel, Eric, 2011. "Optimal management of strategic reserves of nonrenewable natural resources," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 267-280, May.
    11. Frankel, Jeffrey A., 2014. "Effects of speculation and interest rates in a “carry trade” model of commodity prices," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 88-112.
    12. Alquist, Ron & Kilian, Lutz & Vigfusson, Robert J., 2013. "Forecasting the Price of Oil," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 427-507, Elsevier.
    13. Stepanek, Christian & Walter, Matthias & Rathgeber, Andreas, 2013. "Is the convenience yield a good indicator of a commodity's supply risk?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 395-405.
    14. Bahel, Eric, 2011. "Optimal management of strategic reserves of nonrenewable natural resources," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 267-280, May.
    15. Etienne, Xiaoli L. & Farhangdoost, Sara & Hoffman, Linwood A. & Adam, Brian D., 2023. "Forecasting the U.S. season-average farm price of corn: Derivation of an alternative futures-based forecasting model," Journal of Commodity Markets, Elsevier, vol. 30(C).
    16. Wang, Qiao & Balvers, Ronald, 2021. "Determinants and predictability of commodity producer returns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    17. Acharya, Viral V. & Lochstoer, Lars A. & Ramadorai, Tarun, 2013. "Limits to arbitrage and hedging: Evidence from commodity markets," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(2), pages 441-465.
    18. Clostermann, Jörg & Keis, Nikolaus & Seitz, Franz, 2010. "Short-term oil models before and during the financial market crisis," Arbeitsberichte – Working Papers 18, Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt (THI).
    19. Markos Farag, Stephen Snudden, Greg Upton, 2024. "Can Futures Prices Predict the Real Price of Primary Commodities?," LCERPA Working Papers jc0145, Laurier Centre for Economic Research and Policy Analysis, revised 2024.
    20. Szklo, Alexandre & Machado, Giovani & Schaeffer, Roberto, 2007. "Future oil production in Brazil--Estimates based on a Hubbert model," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 2360-2367, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:37:y:2009:i:4:p:1267-1276. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.