From this perspective, for instance, the 2005 Energy Policy Act demonstrates the inability of government in the U.S. to act in the long-term national interest.The legislation's 2,000 pages are laden with subsidies to oil, gas, and electricity producers but fail to include adequate steps toward energy conservation, such as more stringent fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks. Based on this evidence, elected offi cials are so beholden to the energy industry and so reluctant to impose sacrifi ces on the public that a balanced policy based on the long-term public interest is currently impossible.
Alternatively, some contributors argued that government should play a much smaller role in energy and allow markets to guide corporate and consumer decision making. If oil and gas supplies are limited and approaching a point of resource decline, markets--via the price signal--will provide adequate incentives for conservation, fuel-switching, and technological innovation. The contending perspectives of most of those favoring more government intervention and those advocating free market principles, however, share one important point of agreement--the need to allow prices to reflect more accurately the true costs of energy resource use.

Some contributors suggested that the peak had already occurred in non-OPEC countries, and that the OPEC peak was likely to occur between 2015 and 2030. Proponents of the peak oil theory might disagree on the date when global oil and gas decline is likely to occur, but agreed on the substance of the issue and on the urgent implications of peak oil for the global economy. Some participants urged immediate action in the near term to spur a transition to non-fossil fuels, while others expressed confidence that exploration and production technology, including for unconventional liquids, would continue to postpone the peak and that market signals would be the best and most efficient agents of change. A few forum participants argued, however, that the notion of peak oil was fundamentally fl awed, since it may be possible that oil and gas supplies are not limited as most people assume. They point to a line of thought in the geology field suggesting that oil and gas are not fossil fuels at all, but rather are created through chemical reactions deep in the earth's mantle.

From that point of view it was a relief to turn to the CIBC report, which is factual, comes from experts, and has justifications for the opinions expressed.  It is very sobering.  It begins by pointing out that with non-OPEC supply remaining virtually unchanged over the past two years, the world production grew by a meager 900,000 bd this past year. (Their choice of adjective).  The segment by Rubin and Buchanan on pages 6-9 recognizes the problem that depletion of existing fields is playing with future supply reliability.  It chooses, as does ASPO, to consider Deepwater oil as an unconventional source.  This, then is the basis for its comment that conventional oil production peaked in 2004.

They recognize the input from new fields, broadening the listing of fields beyond that included by CERA and by Chris Skrebowski.  

What is additionally useful is that they include, for this year, the project production for the field, rather than the optimal production the field will achieve.  Their comments on GOMEX production are valid:

As the past fall's one-two storm punch from hurricanes Katrina and Rita clearly showed, that lack of diversification entails appreciable risks. We think as much as half of the planned 750,000 barrels per day of new Gulf of
Mexico capacity over the next three years could be delayed, as the industry grapples with recovery from extensive hurricane damage to fields and industry infrastructure in the Gulf region.

And if this year's weather patterns are repeated in the Gulf of Mexico over the balance of the decade, it is debatable whether deep-water production in the Gulf can even be sustained at today's level, let alone increased significantly as planned.

The growing shortage of offshore rigs poses another constraint on the pace of deep-water development, particularly in fields off Brazil and the west coast of Africa.

Their final conclusion, while not a surprise to those here, might be to those who inhabit the Chevron site instead.

oil consumption will soon exceed projected global supply growth, requiring further price rationing to bring demand growth back into line with the very modest supply growth we see lying ahead.