True.
I think we are close to peak oil (not exhaustion; that's entirely different) Too many places have already passed their peak. The North Sea is dropping off. Mexico may have peaked...
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In response to a request that appeared in an earlier comment, regarding where we stand on overall production. The Oil and Gas Journal keeps a statistical table (unfortunately only available on subscription) that lists country production and changes over the past year. In trying to find this information I also stumbled across the CIA worldbook entry that gives its versions of the oil production of different countries. It was intriguing to see the differences between the two sets of numbers for last year, and to note that the CIA figures were generally higher than those of the industry.
Country....................Production ..........Change
Saudi Arabia...........9,310,000..........815,000
Russia.....................9,080,000...........36,000
United States..........5,488,000.........(142,000)
Iran.........................3,880,000..........(65,000)
Mexico...................3,409,000..........(56,000)
China......................3,586,000..........187,000
Norway...................2,864,000.........(318,000)
Canada....................2,325,000.........(155,000)
Venezuela...............2,160,000..........(43,000)
Nigeria....................2,420,000...........53,000
United Arab Em......2,420,000..........160,000 (oops)
Kuwait....................2,450,000..........154,000
Iraq........................1,830,000.........(358,000)
UK.......................1,793,000.........(222,000)
Brazil.....................1,720,000..........143,000
Libya.....................1,640,000..........140,000
Algeria...................1,350,000..........205,000
Kazakhstan............1,025,000...........61,000
Angola...................1,130,000..........189,000
(a number in parentheses means, conventionally, that it is negative, or that production declined in that country).
These are the top world oil producers with current production and change since this time last year, according the the recent OGJ table. The table includes all those countries that produce more than 1 mbd of oil, and remember that world consumption last year was over 80 md. These numbers invariably get changed somewhat as the year progresses and a more accurate determination can be made, but they can be considered fairly close to actuality. They are currently projecting that world production has increased around 1.3 mbd over the past year. (And if you want to know why folk read Matt Simmons with concern just look how much of that increase came from Saudi Arabia).
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One interesting comment...
Saudi production is actually down from its peak (one of those things that don't get a lot of mention). Ghawar, for example, peaked some years ago at 6.5 mbd if I remember, and is now down somewhere below 5 mbd with a decline of around 300,000 bd per year.
It is a little complicated to work out what they are doing (hence Matt Simmons comments etc) but by looking at the blends they are selling it has been noted that they have "peaked" on light crude, which means that the combined Ghawar, Abqaig, Barri complex has peaked - which is not surprising and may be a belated recognition of reality.
Message 21556851
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I know there is a big off-shore Saudi field which is very sour; lots of sulfur and vanadium. Nobody currently has the ability to refine it. Aside from that, if this is correct and Ghawar has peaked, that probably puts us at the plateau.
There have already been fuel riots in Yemen, Nicaragua and Indonesia. Cal, New Zealand, England "are dangerously close to power blackouts". Toronto is skating on thin ice. I'm not sure that oil production can be increased by more than 1 or 2 million bpd, if that.
When I started my thread, SI Dave suggested that I should maybe move it to an Investment Forum so that free users would be able to post. Any thoughts about that? I don't have much investment talk on it.
Rat |
