Testing Hubbert

Adam R. Brandt

In this paper I test the Hubbert theory of oil depletion against other plausible models. The Hubbert model is tested against 5 other models using oil production data from 139 regions. These regions are of a variety of sizes and are from all continents.

This work was submitted to the United States Association of Energy Economists (USAEE) 26th annual meeting in Ann Arbor, MI (September 24th-27th, 2006) for consideration in their "Best Student Paper Competition." It was selected for a student paper award.

A paper based on this work was published in Energy Policy in May, 2007.

Testing Hubbert files

Brandt, A.R. (2007). Testing Hubbert. Energy Policy, 35(May):3074-3088. [pdf]

Appendix with regional definitions [pdf]

Expanded documentation. Gives detailed tabulated results from the paper for results from three- and six-model comparisons, best-fitting exponential rates of increase and decrease, as well as figures showing the fit of all six models to all 139 regions. LARGE FILE (17Mb, 150 pages) [pdf]

Sample images

German oil production (kbbl/y) with the best fitting Hubbert curve

German oil production (kbbl/y) with the best fitting asymmetric Hubbert curve

German oil production (kbbl/y) with the best fitting linear curve

German oil production (kbbl/y) with the best fitting asymmetric linear curve

German oil production (kbbl/y) with the best fitting exponential curve

German oil production (kbbl/y) with the best fitting asymmetric exponential curve

These images show the best fitting curves generated by the six studied models to German production data in kbbl/y. Note that the best fitting model is the asymmetrical exponential model.

Last updated: 11/05/07