No. What I am saying is that lifting costs are (largely) unrelated to peak oil. Discovery, transportation, upgrade and capital costs are related to peak oil if peak oil is properly understood to be the peak of conventional oil (as Hubbert described it) though the concept can be applied to oil plus heavy oil plus synthetic oil plus etc. as each successive supply reaches its peal. Discovery, transport, upgrade and capital costs are directly related to the scarcity of conventional, sweet, non-frontier crude. In any case, even if lift costs are constant but the supply of new oil is coming on stream slower than demand is rising, even first year economics will tell you the price will rise and keep on rising as long as demand increases faster than supply, even if it isn't peaking. Ricardo described this two centuries ago.
Paul P sartesian wrote:
What you describe does not call into question the relevance of "lifting costs" but of peak oil itself. Transport and upgrade costs are not a function of scarcity, supply, or peak, but are capital costs-- social, economic, property factors.
