How can there be this peak oil when it was gushing hundreds of feet in the air in kuwait?

Question

i live in southest tx were there once was plenty of oil so i have some knowledge about oil wells and what not, we have to pump it out of the ground because the pressure that once was is now gone, when they say inventories are running low around the world and we are using it about as fast as they can pump it out the ground how can this be true when saddam blew the oil wells up in kuwait the pressure from the oil wells went up several hundred feet in the air, are they just turning the valve off slowly so that inventories will go down so the price will go up?

Answer 1

Some of the more recently drilled oil wells may still have pressure, but they are a very small fraction of global oil production.  

Peak oil doesn't mean that the oil supply in the ground is running low, but that oil production is slowing down, while the world population and oil demand are still rising.  It's getting harder and more expensive to pump oil, which means we can't keep doing it at the colossal rate that we're used to.  

We've used about half of all the accessible oil, so the curve is going to head down.  Oil is going to get very expensive.