I have never looked at production curves for any oil well, oil field, or worldwide oil production.

Given that total lack of knowledge, I cannot fathom why one might assume that production at any level would have any particular curve, even at a stable price and stable technology.

But given the technological advances and given the increasing price of petroleum, it seems to me that any probability density function would be highly local.

I don't think anybody is so foolish as to suggest that petroleum can be consumed at an increasing rate in perpetuity. I also don't think anybody is smart enough to predict exactly (or even to a reasonably approximate estimate) when production will decline. I'll bet it will be within the next couple of decades, all things being equal.

But who in their right mind would be willing to assume that everything affecting oil will be equal? It maybe tomorrow that some genius in say, Berkeley, figures-out a reasonable substitute energy source that will make petroleum obsolete for energy production. It may not come for 100 years.

Given tomorrow or 100 years as the extremes of when a substitute is discovered, I'll bet on the near-side of half-way. I have no rational basis for that. Call it faith. But I'll bet a bottle of Marvel Mystery Oil to a bottle of Mother's Back to Black that I'm right.

B