It is silly to do year-by-year trends. It is really the decade-long averages that matter, or even longer time spans. The predictions made by Hubbert et al about the US oil reserves were largely correct: oilfields in USA peaked in 1970 and yields have been decreasing by more than 1-percent annually ever since. The USA now produces 32 percent less oil annually than it did then.

Since 1981 the US oilfields yield 24.3 percent less oil annually, but as I expect the oil companies are reporting the total remaining reserves to have only decreased by 16.7 percent since 1981. This essentially demonstrates what I have been saying: production will be failing while large reserves still remain.

For USA the production "Peak" occurred 33 years ago, roughly 44 years before British Petroleum's predicted "Brick Wall". And according to the BP Statistics the worldwide "Brick Wall" is just 40 years from now (I estimate 29 years). The USA has had the benefit of a gradual production fall-off, allowing time for equipment to be refinanced, decommissioned, assets to be re-invested. The closer we get to the worldwide "Brick Wall" the steeper the production fall-off will be. That's just simple math, not voodoo economics.