Goldman Predicts US As Top Oil Producer In 2017 Posted by aeberman on September 15, 2011 - 4:15am
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: goldman sachs, oil supply [ list all tags]
On Sunday, September 11, 2011, Goldman Sachs (GS) predicted that the United States will become the world's largest oil-producing country. This astonishing production increase is accomplished by changing the definition of oil and by using optimistic projections of liquids-rich shale production.
The investment bank claims that U.S. daily production will increase from 8.3 to 10.9 million barrels of oil per day (Mbopd) by 2017. This would surpass Russia and Saudi Arabia according to press reports. While these reports did not mention that Saudi Arabia claims it can produce as much as 12 Mbopd, they did state that Russia would not increase its current production of 10.7 Mbopd by more than 100,000 bopd by 2017. It is curious that the GS announcement was apparently not carried by any of the major business- or energy-oriented journals (Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Oil & Gas Journal, etc.) nor was it featured on the GS website.
It is unclear how GS arrived at 8.3 Mbopd*. According to the Energy Information Agency (EIA), daily U.S. production in June 2011 was 5.6 Mbopd (Exhibit 1). I assume that GS incorrectly included natural gas liquids (NGL) and liquefied refinery gases (LRG) as oil, but that only gets us to 7.8 Mbopd. It is possible that GS also included, even more incorrectly, some fraction of biofuels as oil to arrive at 8.3 Mbopd....
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