With Oil Prices >$40, is the Peak Oil Theory still relevant?

(Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned oil company, said crude oil output fell 6.5 percent in November from the year-earlier period as production at its Cantarell field declined at a faster-than-expected rate.

NVDL: The answer to the title is this: the drop in demand is currently outpacing the drop in supply (depletion). Whereas we would like to think the demand drop is temporary (and for academic purposes it will be over the shorter term), depletion is a permanent state of terminal contraction, which, unfortunately, will finally force our consumption down in a global systemic supply/resources crunch. This is likley to occur in cycles, each one of increasing severity/intensity, causing the system to convulse and more and more players to fall out of the market, joining a growing mob of economic losers.

clipped from www.bloomberg.com Production dropped to 2.711 million barrels a day, from 2.901 million barrels a day a year earlier, the company known as Pemex said today on its Web site. In an e-mail, Pemex cited Cantarell, its largest field, as the reason for the drop. The Mexico City-based company in October lowered its 2008 output forecast by 3.6 percent to as low as 2.7 million barrels a day after interruptions from hurricanes. It was the third time Pemex reduced its forecast this year, after a faster-than- expected decline at Cantarell, the world’s third-largest field. Cantarell accounted for 32 percent of Pemex’s total output, half of the 65 percent it once represented at its peak. Oil exports fell 20 percent to 1.511 million barrels a day, according to a chart on Pemex’s Web site. Mexico is the third-largest supplier of crude to the U.S. Canada and Saudi Arabia are the first- and second-largest suppliers.