Hubbert’s peak
But the peak will inevitably come, perhaps later this decade, perhaps now. The signs Gerth wrote about Feb. 24 may be the first signal that it is starting. “We simply don’t know,” Goodstein said. This is a problem New Mexico oil and gas producers have thought about a lot. Here, production peaked in 1969 and has been generally declining ever since, according to data from the American Petroleum Institute
– John Fleck, Albuquerque Journal, November 2004
Hubbert’s steady continuing climb
I met King Hubbert at (I think) a Penrose Conference on pore pressure and subsidence in 1979. He gave some elegant and simple arguments about effective stress using what he called drill-stem paradox. My structural geology prof related a story of Hubbert downing a beer and inverting it on a glass plate before a presentation on excess pore pressure. The principle was demonstrated when the beer can floated on the warmer air pressure in the can and on the sealing and lubricating film of water on its edge and zipped across the glass plate. I’ve thought about peak oil every time a new major field is discovered. It’s coming but just delayed.
“…Fracking involves blasting underground rock with water to free up trapped oil and gas, but when that water returns to the surface, it is laden with contaminants it picks up from the earth. Every barrel of hydrocarbons reaped also generates up to 10 barrels of contaminated water (https://nmpwrc.nmsu.edu/about/presentation-pdfs/Produced-Water-in-NM-OVRU-8-20.pdf). In 2021 alone, New Mexico was spewing 147 million gallons of toxic wastewater daily (https://www.nmlegis.gov/handouts/RHMC%20071421%20Item%204%20OCD%20Produced%20Water%20Management.pdf).
“Can fracking wastewater be reused? New Mexico’s legislators are eager to repurpose “produced water,” but environmental organizations say that there is no safe way to do that.” High Country News 6/9/25 https://www.hcn.org/articles/can-fracking-wastewater-be-reused/
According to the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association state and local government revenue from the oil and gas producing industry reached $13.0 billion in FY24.