Wall Street firm John S. Herold Inc. of Norwalk, CT has estimated peak production for about two dozen oil companies. Without substantial new investment and additional discoveries, the company believes that French oil company, Total S.A., will reach peak production in 2007. Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, BP, Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and the Italian producer, Eni S.p.A. will hit peak production in 2008. In 2009, Herold expects ChevronTexaco Corp. to peak. In Herold's view, each of the world's seven largest publicly traded oil companies will begin seeing production declines within the next 48 months or so.
- Since forecasting is a tricky business, and we won't know for sure until a few years *after* the fact, we'll have to check back again, say around 2012 or so. A credible-enough range so far for the Peak Oil date seems to be 2010 +/- 5 years.