UKERC forecasts oil production peak

Oil production is likely to peak before 2030, with a significant risk of a peak in the next 10 years, according to the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC).

The UKERC claims that its report is the first study to take an independent and systematic review of the evidence and arguments in the ‘peak oil' debate.

The report states that oil will become increasingly expensive and harder to find, extract and produce. Significant new discoveries, such as the one announced recently in the Gulf of Mexico, are only expected to delay the peak by a matter of days and weeks.

According to the UKERC, to maintain global oil production at today’s level will require the equivalent of a new Saudi Arabia every three years. The report concludes that the UK is not the only country that is unprepared for such an event.

Steve Sorrell, the report's chief author and senior researcher at UKERC, said: ‘In our view, forecasts that delay a peak in conventional oil production until after 2030 are at best optimistic and at worst implausible.