Total Urges Less Demand, Sees Oil Peak by 2020

AMSTERDAM, June 7 (Reuters) - France's Total estimates global oil production will peak around 2020 if output growth continues at current levels and has advised governments to cool demand to avoid a supply crunch, its chief executive said.

"The capacity of raising (oil) production is a real challenge ... if we stay with this type of production growth our impression is that peak production could be reached around 2020," Thierry Desmarest told the World Gas Conference in Amsterdam on Wednesday.

If demand growth was cut to 1 percent from the nearly 2 percent experienced in recent years, the point of peak output could be postponed by 10 years, the French oil major's CEO added.

"We say to governments, it's urgent to take action plans to reduce oil demand growth," Desmarest said.

Desmarest later told a news conference that Total had advised the French government and the European Union to try to limit demand growth, adding that the company's comments had been heard with interest.

Oil executives tend to deride the notion of peak oil, the point at which production starts to decline. Figures like BP Plc's Chief Executive John Browne usually insist there is plenty of oil left and say some previous predictions of peak oil have turned out to be false.

Nonetheless, most analysts say the increasing difficulty and expense the industry faces in raising production will ensure oil prices do not return to historical low levels for many years, if at all.

U.S. crude hit a record high of $75.35 a barrel on April 21 and was hovering around $72 on Wednesday.