Given that only one Saudi-scale resource has been found in the last 70 years of prospecting, there is plainly no prospect of unearthing six more by 2030.
Moreover, we cannot afford the unconventional liquid fuels' expansion, either financially or atmospherically or, bizarrely, in energy terms, (given their consumption of coal or gas or power as process inputs).

The crash in oil prices from $147/bbl was mirrored in many other commodities as the scale of the looming recession became clearer, and as the margin calls on major banks positions became imperative.

Thus it may be that the rate of oil supply in Sept '08 was the final peak, with continued depletion during the recession precluding increased supply (above 85mbbl/day) if and when economic growth restarts.
Certainly there are reports from worldwide of vital oil exploration & development being sharply curtailed under the $50/bbl price regime.

A likely prospect is of a sawtooth progress of economic decline, with spurts of growth allowing oil-demand, & prices, to rise to the point of stalling that growth back into recession.

The recent drives for tar-sands, ex-rainforest biofuels, coal-to-oil, methyl hydrates, liquid hydrogen and even nuclear electricity
all stem to some extent from the long-foreseen crisis of peak oil.

Perhaps the most vicious of cycles that we face is the fact that the poorer our societies get, the less able we are to afford the orderly adoption of sustainable technologies and resource-usages that could launch a new global economy that is not reliant on the discredited doctrine of endless economic growth on a finite planet.

Thus I have to draw attention to that fine old quip:

"IT IS LATER THAN YOU THINK !"

Only one answer, demand reduction.  We have seen it work with this global recession, oil has stabilized.

So work to reduce demand incrementaly year after year over the next couple of decades.  We have the technology to do it, namely plugin hybrids. Only mass production is lacking.

Peak oil discussions are a waste of energy.  The mindset that obesses around peak oil is obsolete.  Peak GHG is the important peak.  The GHG tipping point and the recession/depression tipping point the relevant points on the fossil fuel/GHG graph.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

It is somewhat ironic that, with the prospect of Peak Oil having been denied for so long, we see it now acknowledged but its discussion dismissed as "a waste of energy" with the catch-all slogan of "incremental demand reduction."

With a post-peak decline rate of between 6% and 9% per year we face a halving of global supply over an 8 to 12 year period.
That is, half the farm machinery running, half the diesel trucks & trains, half the rail-freight (such as power-stations' coal), half the heating oil, half the oil-feedstocks for the plastics, chemicals & pharmaceuticals industries -
and half the petrol passenger-vehicles too . . .

With recent oil-prices having burst the housing bubble and exposed the utter mess of modern global banking, it is hard to see how even basic sustainable alternatives in energy supplies & technologies will be funded reliably -
Have a look at what the present bust is doing for such investment plans globally . . . .

Plainly, the displacement within the planet's richest nation of some petrol engines and some oil heaters by plug-ins & ground-heat collectors will barely put a dent in the global economic destabilization that such an oil supply decline rate will cause.

The concern which climate campaigners need to address now, not after the event, is the predictable surge of funding into "unconventional oils". Agri-biofuels & coal-to-oil seem pretty foul, but just wait till Russia, Canada & others wake up to the massive potential of processing their huge peatlands - while many maritime nations also begin to exploit their vast but fragile methyl hydrate reserves.

To get an idea of the popular pressure on govt's that even a 6%/yr decline of global oil supply will generate, consider first that economic growth has been in lockstep with oil consumption for many decades. Then observe that during the USSR's great collapse, its economy was shrinking by just 5%/yr.

For Govt's to withstand that public pressure (aka "drill, baby, drill" ?) they will need the backing of a treaty of the Atmospheric Commons that is not only as transparently simple in its structure as C&C will allow, but is also as eminently fair in the allocation of developing national emission rights.

Anything less, even if it were negotiable, would be voted out by sufficient nations' inpoverished electorates to collapse the whole treaty.

Thus I'd suggest that PO is a very necessary subject of discussion, specifically as a subset of the equally long overdue discussion of the structure of the requisite global climate treaty.

Regards,

Billhook