IIRC the times correctly, the Shah was overproducing what was optimal for maximum extraction in order to fund his police state. After the fall, they've never had top class investment so their production may have been somewhat artificially limited by incompetence and lack of investment. And part of that rise for 20 years was simply opening up old taps that had been shut down when prices and the call on OPEC crashed from 81-->87.
From here forward it is possible they have capacity up their sleeve or if they let in competent operators they could increase production. Or they can just keep stubbling along and decline from here. They've been having trouble actually reaching their quota so all the old taps are probably wide open.
That is in line with what the article says:
"Iran needs to invest more than it does," said Manouchehr Takin, an Iranian energy analyst at the Center for Global Energy Studies in London. "It needs foreign companies to bring expertise, capital and technology." But oil companies complain that the rewards are limited. Under Iran's stringent buyback contracts, oil companies basically operate as contractors for the government for a limited time. They are not allowed to book the reserves as their own and gain little in extra profits when energy prices go up.
But oil companies complain that the rewards are limited. Under Iran's stringent buyback contracts, oil companies basically operate as contractors for the government for a limited time. They are not allowed to book the reserves as their own and gain little in extra profits when energy prices go up.
I also just realized that the the translucent cloud around the forecasted oil production projection represents the range of possible severity in the decline. Nevertheless, consumption seems certain to increase steadily, and so even if production remains (at the most optimistic extreme) more or less flat, Iran's situation seems bound to become more desperate. Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
Yours and mine. Complete madness. Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
