Given that demand growth has outstripped discoveries, how is it that we've continued to grow production for these last 40 years? The answer lies in the metric

Given that demand growth has outstripped discoveries, how is it that we've continued to grow production for these last 40 years? The answer lies in the metric "proven reserves" - oil that we have the technology to recover today - which has outpaced production increases over the last 40 years (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866387/figure/RSTA20130179F6/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866387/figure/...), leaving us with 50 years of production at today's rates, up from 30 years in 1980. Figure from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866387/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3866387/ The weakness of most peak oil supply discussions, including that "peak-oil-perspective" link, is that they only count "Conventional" oil. Ignoring "Unconventional oil" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconventional_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconventional_oil has caused these predictions to be invalidated every time. Hubbert's original "peak oil" prediction did not consider "unconventional" oil, because there was no "unconventional" oil production at that time (and the term still remains loosely defined - basically oil that costs more than other oil to produce). Increased prices provide incentives to create technologies to recover previously unusable sources and to bring previously uneconomic sources into production. Today's "unconventional" oil includes sources that most people just expect to be counted as part of the oil supply, like fracking and offshore drilling. Increased prices also motivate developing and shifting to other energy sources which were previously not economically viable, like wind and solar. This article http://www.artberman.com/the-crude-oil-export-ban-what-me-worry-about-peak-oil/ http://www.artberman.com/the-crude-oil-export-ban-what-me-wo... does better, but in his eagerness to declare peak oil supply, he ignores economics and his peak oil supply declaration failed immediately as world oil supply continued to grow: https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/global_oil.php Turning your question around, "Can you explain to me how we can hit peak oil production, when growth in proven reserves outstrips production growth — and has, for nearly forty years?" (It's possible, but it seems likely we will hit peak demand and reduce oil demand well before we hit peak supply).