How does economic theory explain the Hubbert peak oil model?

The aim of this paper is to provide an economic foundation for bell shaped oil extraction trajectories, consistent with Hubbert's peak oil model. There are several reasons why it is important to get insight into the economic foundations of peak oil. As production decisions are expected to depend on economic factors, a better comprehension of the economic foundations of oil extraction behaviour is fundamental to predict production and price over the coming years. The investigation made in this paper helps us to get a better understanding of the different mechanisms that may be at work in the case of OPEC and non-OPEC producers. We show that profitability is the main driver behind production plans. Changes in profitability due to divergent trajectories between costs and oil price may give rise to a Hubbert production curve. For this result we do not need to introduce a demand or an exploration effect as is generally assumed in the literature.