Jean H. Laherrère (* May 30, 1931) is a
petroleum engineer and consultant, best known as the co-author of an influential 1998
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...
article entitled ''The End of Cheap Oil''.
Career
Laherrère studied at the Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole Nationale du Pétrole in Paris and worked for 37 years with
Total S.A.
TotalEnergies SE is a French multinational integrated energy and petroleum company founded in 1924 and one of the seven supermajor oil companies. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and ...
, a French petroleum company. His work on seismic refraction surveys contributed to the discovery of Africa's largest oil field.
Since retiring from Total in 1991, Laherrère has consulted worldwide on the future of exploration and production of
oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
and
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
.
He is the co-founder and an active member of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, and continues to contribute detailed analyses and projections of the future of world
energy production. Laherrère is an advisor for the
Oil Depletion Analysis Centre.
Peak predictions
In 1998, with co-author
Colin J. Campbell, Laherrere predicted that most likely "world production of conventional oil will peak during the first decade of the 21st century".
While unconventional oil production from tar sands and tight oil kept growing, conventional crude oil has entered a plateau phase since 2005.
In 2003, Laherrere predicted that the combined natural gas production of Canada and the United States had peaked in 2001, and would continue to decline, falling approximately in half by 2020. He wrote: "It means that the future gas production is fairly settled for the next 30 years, except miracles!"
In 2007, Laherrere predicted that United States marketed natural gas production, including unconventional gas, had already peaked in 2001, at 20.6 tcf per year, and would continue to fall, to about 12 tcf by 2020. Instead, US marketed gas production has continued to rise through 2017, when it reached 28.8 tcf.
[US EIA]
US natural gas marketed production
accessed 12 June 2018.
Notes
External links
Laherrere at OilCrisis.com
See also
*
Marion King Hubbert
Marion King Hubbert (October 5, 1903 – October 11, 1989) was an American geologist and geophysicist. He worked at the Shell research lab in Houston, Texas. He made several important contributions to geology, geophysics, and petroleum geolo ...
, and the
Hubbert curve.
*
Colin Campbell (geologist)
Colin J. Campbell (24 July 1931 – 13 November 2022) was a British petroleum geologist who predicted that oil production would peak by 2007. He claimed the consequences of this are uncertain but drastic, due to the world's dependency on fossi ...
French geologists
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
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