The hydrocarbon crisis: peak oil or a manufactured story?

Oil production hits a ceiling: is the crude era ending?

Is oil really running out, or are we being made to believe so in order to control consumption? The question resurfaces every so often, and the debate has been entrenched in sceptical circles for years. Between those who see peak oil theory as a self-fulfilling prophecy and those who dismiss it as a geopolitical setup, the data paint a murky picture.

Massive reserves versus stagnant production

The recurring argument of peak oil deniers is that proven reserves are enormous. Venezuela alone, it is often repeated, has enough crude to supply the planet for three centuries. The problem, the alarmists reply, is not how much lies underground but how much can be extracted per day. Daily output, they insist, has been stagnant or declining for years in conventional fields. Oil is not created overnight; it is fossil energy accumulated over millions of years, and its extraction rate faces physical limits that neither technology nor fracking has fully managed to sidestep.

Promises of 200 dollars that ended up at 60

Peak oil advocates have spent decades predicting a runaway barrel price. For 2025 they forecast figures above 200 dollars. The reality is that crude trades around 60, and countries like China and India – supposedly supposed to be strangled by scarcity – have multiplied their GDP and infrastructure since 2005. This has led many to dismiss the theory as false prophecy: if the peak was reached between 2005 and 2015, as some claimed, the subsequent growth of the global economy disproves it.

The geopolitics of the tap: Ukraine, Nord Stream and America's hand

Behind the energy debate lies a geopolitical chessboard. Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline revived the narrative that scarcity is not natural but engineered. The claim is that the United States seeks to dismantle Russia and push it away from Europe, using energy as a weapon. If Russia falls, the energy problem would be postponed three or four decades, according to some analysts. The crisis of the seventies was staged by the Americans, they recall, and the current one could trinc the same path.

More people, same flow: decline per capita

There is a third way that avoids both catastrophism and conspiracy. The problem would not be an absolute production peak, but exponential demand growth against extraction that only grows linearly. The result is fewer barrels per person per day. To disguise it, governments resort to inflation, regulations such as the electric car, or supply restrictions that push the least solvent consumers out of the market. Without any announced peak oil, access to energy is being reduced de facto.

In short, crude keeps flowing, but it is increasingly hard for more and more countries to fill the tank. Next time someone shouts "peak oil!", it is worth asking whether the peak might be that of our own consumption.