Who Was King Hubbert?

Was he a merry old soul? King is a pretty cool name. The only other guy who I can think of whose name was King, off the top of my head, was King C Gillette, yep that Gillette. Actually King Hubbert, was really named Marion King Hubbert by his parents but what guy would want to keep the name Marion? Even Pat Robertson dropped his official first name of Marion and so did John Wayne who actually dropped his entire birth name of Marion Morrison. I had a wonderful aunt Marian... and that's the difference between the male version of the name, which has an 'o' as opposed to the feminine with the letter 'a'. But getting back to King Hubbert - he was one interesting guy and if you have the time you should do some reading about him if you're not familiar.

To boil it down, Hubbert, a geophysicist who worked for Shell, is THE guy who predicted that U.S. oil output would peak in the late 1960's or early 1970's. He made the prediction in 1956 and it came true in 1970. Google Hubbert's Curve, or Hubbert's Peak for more information. Oil experts of today like Matt Simmons have built upon Hubbert's work and believe the same thing is happening, or about to happen in many other giant oil fields around the globe including the main fields in Saudi Arabia.

That's where Me-he-co comes into the picture. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting report about a "virtual collapse" at Mexico's Cantarell - which had been the world's 2nd largest oil field in terms of production at the start of last year. Output slumped a half million barrels per day last year, is falling faster than the grimmest of estimates, and is expected to continue falling.
Mexican Oil problem read here (subscription required). Keep an eye on this situation both for how it impacts global oil prices, but for how it impacts the Mexican economy and its currency in the months ahead. The situation with the oil output decline for Mexico is critical and has got to be forcing Calderon to be popping the Ambien pills already.