Energy Efficiency of Passenger Transport in Poznan Agglomeration in the Face of Peak Oil - Technology Management for Sustainable Production and Logistics - page 153

account for merely one third of the yearly oil consumption in that period, which is
much less than at the beginning of the 1960s, when the amount of discovered oil
deposits was 50-60 billion barrels per year (IEA 2013 ). Discovering gigantic oil
deposits containing 500 million barrels (so called “elephants”) belongs to a
bygone era. One example of such an oil field is Ghawar in Saudi Arabia which
spreads on the area of 280 km in length and 26 km in width and its ultimately
recoverable resources (URR) values ranging from 66 to 150 billion barrels of oil.
Another example is Cantarell Field in Mexico, 3 whose URR is estimated at
11-20 billion barrels (Aleklett 2012 ). Oil deposits discovered nowadays are ever
smaller and contain 50 million oil barrels, whereas in the 1960s this amount was
230 million (IEA 2013 ). Non-abundant fields mean low returns to scale, so the
generated cost of oil extraction is higher than in the case of big fields and leads to
the reduction of Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) 4 ratio.
In spite of employing advanced technologies, searching for new oil fields
which are not so oil-abundant becomes more demanding and expensive. The total
investments of $2.4 billion in the oil industry between 1994 and 2004 allowed to
increase the extraction of oil by 12 million b/d. Similar expenditure between 2005
and 2010 only allowed to maintain the level of production (Heinberg 2013 ).
4 Peak Oil
In 1956, Marion King Hubbert, an American geophysicist, after thorough analy-
ses of the levels of oil extraction in the USA, proposed a thesis that exploitation
of non-renewable resources will cause their ultimate exhaustion in the foreseeable
future. Hubbert estimated that for the USA the peak production will be reached
between 1966 and 1972. His projections proved to be right as the peak oil was
reached in the USA in 1970 (533.5 million tonnes).
The peak oil theory, in relation to conventional oil sources, is best exemplified
for instance by the field located under the bed of the North Sea, which is exploited
by Denmark, Norway and Great Britain. The extraction levels have been rapidly
rising since the 1970s and peaked at the turn of the centuries, when it began fall-
ing systematically (Fig. 3 ). Great Britain was first to reach peak oil in 1999 with
a 137.4 million tonnes yearly extraction rate. It had fallen by 70 % by 2013 to
reach 40.6 million tonnes. It was followed by Norway, which reached peak oil of
162.5 million tonnes in 2001 and the fall by 50 % occurred by 2013. Similarly,
in Denmark, where peak oil was reached in 2004 (at 19.1 million tonnes), the
3 Discovered in 1976, the extraction started in 1979. Turned out to be the last greatest oil field
discovered in the world.
4 Another measure can be found in the literature, namely Energy Return On Investments (EROI),
which includes all the investments made (including indirect investments) in order to extract oil.