According to the EIA, petroleum and other liquids production peaked in 2018. You can change the range of dates to show more years, but it peaked in 2018:
https://www.eia.gov/international/data/world/petroleum-and-o…
According to the analysts at PeakOilBarrel, peak production occurred in November, 2018, and has not been higher in any month since.
Here is a new detailed study on the subject of remaining oil reserves. I have not read it yet.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266604902…
“One of these days they’ll be right, but it’s not because they have any real insight into when the peak will happen.”
I disagree with that. My opinion is that people in the industry have a great deal of insight into their business. I also think the people at Peak Oil Barrel are very dedicated in their efforts to understand the energy world. Two of the contributors gather existing data each month, careful adjusting their models for the future. They offer slightly different conclusions, though the most optimistic is peak oil (petroleum and other liquids) occurs in the mid- to late-2020s.
Here is a typical discussion from last month at PeakOilBarrel. The comments section is at least as interesting as the presentation:
https://peakoilbarrel.com/opec-update-july-2022/#more-38087
A concern is the role of debt in the system. Borrowing money to accelerate growth may result in a steeper decline once the peak has been reached.
Even to a casual observer with a rudimentary understanding of a bell curve or a sine curve, it’s obvious that oil production growth has dropped from several MB/s increases per year in the mid-20th century to 1-2 per year in this century, and to do that the U.S. started fracking shale fields. And now we’re down a few Mb/s lower than the peak in 2018, though the pandemic appears to be a significant factor.
Like climate change, it’s almost certainly going to be worse that the experts predict. That’s because scientists are careful not to exaggerate.
Finally, we’re experiencing high inflation and low if any growth. People are having trouble acquiring the goods and services they want or need, and nobody seems to think that a resource crunch is a factor. While I agree that a big part of the problem is that corporations have immense pricing power, oil production is down 5% from four years ago, and contrary to contemporary wisdom, oil demand never wanes. There’s always something valuable that can be done with it.