Jean Laherrère

Jean H. Laherrère (born 30 May 1931) is a French petroleum engineer and consultant, best known as the co-author of an influential 1998 Scientific American 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., a French petroleum company. His work on seismic refraction surveys contributed to the discovery of Africa's largest oil field. 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".

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.