Exxon, and the Implications of 8%

peakoil.com (thread 1, thread 2) -> theoildrum.com :

Most of us thinking about peak oil have been aware for some time that the central uncertainty is the decline rate on fields in production (FIP). This dramatically affects when one believes peak will be. It's also critically important in assessing the economic impact, since the faster total production declines, the harder it will be for the economy to adjust, and as we go further and further past peak, the fewer new projects there will be to add to the declining bulk of production.

In the past, peak oil projections have used fairly low decline rates for FIP - 3%-6%. There are now several pieces of evidence that the FIP decline rate might be more like 8%. Adding that to Chris Skrebowski's list of new projects makes for a very rough ride ...

... the bulk of Exxon's failure to grow their supply as they hoped does not come from project delays, but rather than from somewhat underestimating the decline rate in their existing fields. Indeed, for the last eight years, all of the very considerable new capacity that Exxon has bought on at great expense and enormous trouble has only gone to offset declines. They have not managed to grow their production or market share one iota.

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