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The scenario above shows an Oil Shock Model with a URR of 3600 Gb and EIA data from 1970 to 2015 and the Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) 2016 early release reference projection from 2016 to 2040. The oil shock model was originally developed by Webhubbletelescope and presented at his blog Mobjectivist and in a free book The Oil Conundrum.

The World extraction rate from producing reserves must rise to 15% in 2040 to accomplish this for this “high” URR scenario. This high scenario is 100 Gb lower than my earlier high scenario because I reduced my estimate of extra heavy oil URR (API gravity<10) to 500 Gb. The annual decline rate rises to 5% from 2043 to 2047 creating a “Seneca cliff”, the decline rate is reduced to 2% by 2060.

blogchart/

The scenario presented above uses BP’s Energy Outlook 2035, published in Feb 2016. This outlook does not extend to 2040, maximum output is 88 Mb/d in 2035 at the end of the scenario. This scenario is still optimistic, but is more reasonable than the EIA AEO 2016. Extraction rates rise to 10.6% and the annual decline rate rises to 2.5% in 2042 and is reduced to under 2% by 2053.

A problem with the BP Outlook is the expectation that US light tight oil (LTO) output will rise to 7.5 Mb/d from 2030 to 2035, the BP forecast for US LTO from 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016 is shown below.

blogchart/

A more realistic forecast would be a peak of 6 Mb/d in 2022 with output declining to 3 Mb/d by 2035. The scenario below shows roughly what World output might be with this more realistic, but still optimistic scenario. There is a plateau in output at 85 Mb/d from 2025 to 2030 with annual decline rate peaking at 2.1% in 2044 and then falling under 2% per year from 2048 to 2070.

blogchart/

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Australian Public Broadcaster ABC unable to look at oil statistics

May 7, 2016

Australian Public Broadcaster ABC unable to look at oil statistics

Four times in as many months did ABC publish inaccurate statements about US shale oil. A glut of mis-information. This is unacceptable because it leads to wrong policy decisions and has ultimately damaging economic and financial consequences.

(1) “US shale producers pump like never before”
Just in time for last year’s X’mas we received these reassuring news:

Peak oil losing credibility as renewables shift accelerates
24/12/2015
“US shale producers are pumping like never before and adding to stockpiles”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-24/peak-oil-losing-credibility-as-shift-to-renewables-accelerates/7052196

(2) “US virtually self-sufficient in oil”

This was broadcast on the 7 pm news (ABC channel 1)
16/1/2016
“The United States is now virtually self-sufficient in oil, while Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest producer, has stepped up production to protect its market share.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-16/benefits-of-falling-oil-prices-not-fully-passed-on-to-motorists/7091862?section=business

(3) “US oil output rises”

Two months later the headline was:

Oil output rises even as US rig count falls to historic lows
18/3/2016
“The US Energy Information Agency said, despite the dramatic decline in rig numbers, production has steadily grown, indicating that drilling has becoming increasingly efficient”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-18/oil-output-rises-even-as-us-rig-count-falls/7259566

This ABC article included the following graph

Fig 1: EIA’s annual US oil production

Coming from this post by the EIA:

Hydraulic fracturing accounts for about half of current U.S. crude oil production
15/3/2016
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=25372

The graph shows that indeed 2015 production is higher than 2014 but the ABC author failed to look at monthly statistics where a turning point was already visible.

(4) “New shale oil technology the end of OPEC”

In the most recent article “Saudi Arabia to sell part of Aramco as part of shift from oil” we find this para:

New shale oil technology ‘the end of OPEC’
26/4/2016
“With US shale oil producers pumping more than ever before and Iran production coming back on line with US sanctions lifted, the planned Saudi reforms underscore the damage from falling revenues.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-26/saudi-arabia-to-sell-part-of-aramco-as-part-of-shift-from-oil/7360388?section=business

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oil Production Vital Statistics March 2016

April 4, 2016

Oil Production Vital Statistics March 2016

Since the possible double bottom at $26 formed on February 11th the oil price has staged a rally to $40 (WTI). Traders lucky enough to buy at $26 and sell at $40 have pocketed a tidy 54% profit. Very few will have been this lucky. The trade was stimulated by news that Saudi Arabia and Russia had agreed to not increase production this year which is hollow news since neither country could significantly increase production no matter how hard they tried. Profit taking has now driven WTI back towards $37 as of 1 April.

What next? There is precious little sign of significant production falls anywhere. US and international rig counts continue to plunge. And there is little sign of global demand recovering as OECD economies buckle under the weight of misguided energy policy and debt. There is a risk of the plunge in oil price resuming.

The following totals compare Feb 2016 with Jan 2016:

World Total Liquids down 180,000 bpd
USA down 60,000 bpd
North America down 100,000 bpd (includes USA)
OPEC up 100,000 bpd
Saudi Arabia up 20,000 bpd
Iran up 220,000 bpd
Russia + FSU down 10,000 bpd
Europe up 220,000 bpd (YOY)
Asia up 60,000 bpd

This article first appeared on Energy Matters.

EIA oil price and Baker Hughes rig count charts are updated to the end of March 2016, the remaining oil production charts are updated to February 2015 using the IEA OMR data.

Figure 1 WTI tested the $26.68 low set on Jan 20 by returning to $26.19 on Feb 11. Since then a rally to $40 has been staged and the price has moved above the near term downwards trend line. Charts have limited value in prediction and must be used in conjunction with fundamentals. For now I don’t believe this chart is providing clear direction. Fundamentals remain chronically weak and the next chart points to an on-going plunge in price. But only time will tell.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Advantage U.S. In The Global Petroleum Showdown?

April 4, 2016

Advantage U.S. In The Global Petroleum Showdown?

Is the crude stock data in the EIA’s Weekly Petroleum Status Report (Table 1 in the report) a useful tool for judging the prospects for the U.S. petroleum industry— and therefore for the global petroleum industry—or is it misleading?

With few interruptions, U.S. crude stocks increased steadily during 2015 and have continued this trend in 2016. According to weekly EIA data, average commercial crude stocks levels were 7.82 percent higher on average in March than on average in January 2016, and 13.16 percent higher than in 2015 in the week ending January 2, 2015:

With the Weekly Petroleum Status Report’s publication each Wednesday, these steady increases reinforce skepticism on the potential for balanced crude supply and demand and therefore for higher crude prices domestically and internationally. Last week, when the EIA on March 23 reported a 9.3 million barrel build in U.S. commercial crude stocks—around the same time several Federal Reserve officials were suggesting a faster pace for interest rate hikes—WTI and Brent prices fell and continued to fall in the following days.

This week, after the EIA on March 30 reported a smaller build (2.3 million barrels), prices fluctuated, both up and down, despite encouraging words from Fed Chair Yellen on the pace of interest rate hikes in a speech the previous day (of course, other factors, such as OPEC member pronouncements on output policy, influence prices).

Sources of Increasing Crude Stocks

The impetus for gains in crude stocks through March 2016 comes from imports (capacity utilization increased to 88.88 percent from 88.33 percent in the corresponding 2015 period). Average daily crude imports have surged, increasing over 10 percent in January and February compared to 2015’s average daily imports in those months, and 8.63 percent cumulatively year-to-date through March 25:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Energy Wars of Attrition: The Irony of Oil Abundance

March 9, 2016

Energy Wars of Attrition: The Irony of Oil Abundance

Three and a half years ago, the International Energy Agency (IEA) triggered headlines around the world by predicting that the United States would overtake Saudi Arabia to become the world’s leading oil producer by 2020 and, together with Canada, would become a net exporter of oil around 2030. Overnight, a new strain of American energy triumphalism appeared and experts began speaking of “Saudi America,” a reinvigorated U.S.A. animated by copious streams of oil and natural gas, much of it obtained through the then-pioneering technique of hydro-fracking. “This is a real energy revolution,” the Wall Street Journal crowed in an editorial heralding the IEA pronouncement.

The most immediate effect of this “revolution,” its boosters proclaimed, would be to banish any likelihood of a “peak” in world oil production and subsequent petroleum scarcity. The peak oil theorists, who flourished in the early years of the twenty-first century, warned that global output was likely to reach its maximum attainable level in the near future, possibly as early as 2012, and then commence an irreversible decline as the major reserves of energy were tapped dry. The proponents of this outlook did not, however, foresee the coming of hydro-fracking and the exploitation of previously inaccessible reserves of oil and natural gas in underground shale formations.

Understandably enough, the stunning increase in North American oil production in the past few years simply wasn’t on their radar. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the Department of Energy, U.S. crude output rose from 5.5 million barrels per day in 2010 to 9.2 million barrels as 2016 began, an increase of 3.7 million barrels per day in what can only be considered the relative blink of an eye. Similarly unexpected was the success of Canadian producers in extracting oil (in the form of bitumen, a semi-solid petroleum substance) from the tar sands of Alberta.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

U.S. Has Too Much Oil. So Why Are Imports Rising?

March 4, 2016

U.S. Has Too Much Oil. So Why Are Imports Rising?

Despite domestic production declining and demand surging, the EIA reported oil inventories surge by more than 10 million barrels, or more than three times what was expected.

The 10.4 million barrel increase was mostly due to a near record increase in imports of 490,000 b/d (3.4 million barrels weekly) and an adjustment swing of 352,000 b/d (2.5 million barrels weekly) by the EIA. The latter has been a repeated pattern to exaggerate the levels of inventory, a pattern going back to 2015.

Thus, over half of the said increase in inventory was driven by higher imports and an arbitrary adjustment that seems routine by the EIA. Domestic production actually fell by 25,000 B/D in the week ending on February 26. Also gasoline inventories fell 455,000 barrels, or nearly 5 percent, as capacity utilization rose 1 percent. Total gasoline supplied, which is a gauge of demand over last 4 weeks, has risen a whopping 7 percent.

Now the real question is with U.S. production declining and inventories at record levels, why are refiners still importing at such heights? The 8.2 million barrels per day imported in the week came very close to the record in December, missing by some few percentage points. U.S. commercial domestic crude oil stocks are now nearly 17 percent above last year levels. None of this adds up: We are producing less, inventories are rising, while demand is at records and yet we are using more imported oil? The chart below depicts these very odd phenomena.

(Click to enlarge)

Moreover, most incremental U.S. output is light sweet crude from shale regions, as is the imported oil. The only logical answer that seems possible is that OPEC is undercutting light sweet U.S. crude pricing, so as to incentivize refiners to use imports. So are we then to believe Saudi Arabia that it isn’t at war with U.S. shale?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oil Price And Its Effect On Production

February 26, 2016

Oil Price And Its Effect On Production

The JODI Oil World Database came out a few days ago. The data is through December 2015. The JODI C+C production numbers differs somewhat from the EIA numbers. The JODI OPEC numbers are crude. Also there are a few very small producers that do not report to JODI so their numbers will be slightly less than the EIA. But otherwise they are pretty accurate.

Also, JODI, for some reason, does not count all of Canada’s oil sands production. So for Canada I use Canada’s National Energy Board numbers instead.

The JODI C+C numbers, for Non-OPEC, will average about 2.4 million barrels per day less than the EIA. This is largely due to some countries not reporting to JODI. But these countries only have small changes in their overall production so would have little effect on any of my charts or calculations.

JODI World C+C

According to JODI, world crude oil production peaked, so far, in July and has declined by 339,000 barrels per day.

JODI Non-OPEC

The recent price collapse has had a greater effect on Non-OPEC production than OPEC production. Non-OPEC production peaked, so far, in December 2014 and in December 2015 stood at 650,000 bpd below that peak.

JODI Russia

No discussion of Non-OPEC production would be complete without Russia, Non-OPEC’s largest producer. I would never claim, just by looking at the chart, that Russia is peaking, or has peaked. But there have been reports coming out of Russia for over two years now that Russia is peaking. Some of those reports like this one Global and Russian Energy Outlook to 2040 have been reported on this blog. I think the charts lend strong credence to those reports.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oil Price And Its Effect On Production

February 25, 2016

Oil Price And Its Effect On Production

Also, JODI, for some reason, does not count all of Canada’s oil sands production. So for Canada I use Canada’s National Energy Board numbers instead.

According to JODI, world crude oil production peaked, so far, in July and has declined by 339,000 barrels per day.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

World outside US and Canada doesn’t produce more crude oil than in 2005

February 14, 2016

World outside US and Canada doesn’t produce more crude oil than in 2005

After a delay of several months the US Energy Information Administration has published the latest international energy statistics for October 2015

This is an opportunity to update crude oil graphs
http://crudeoilpeak.info/latest-graphs

Fig 1: World’s incremental crude oil production

How Fig 1 is created: for each country, the minimum production in the period Jan 2001 (original IPS start month) to October 2015 is taken (=base production) and deducted from the country’s total production, giving the incremental production which is then stacked in a way that allows to interpret which changes occurred. The stacking order is:

(a)    Base production
(b)   Countries with growing production
(c)    Countries with flat, peaking or declining production
(d)   OPEC and Middle East countries
(e)    Canada (mainly tar sands)
(f)    United States (mainly shale oil)

The numbers denote following events:

(1)   Venezuela strike
(2)   Iraq peak oil war
(3)   Saudi production declines
(4)   High demand for China Olympic Games
(5)   Iran sanctions introduced
(6)   Iraq reaches pre-war production level
(7)   US shale oil boom takes off

The red horizontal line is the maximum crude oil production level in May 2005 (the Katrina year). We can see that almost all additional oil produced now above that level is US shale oil. In other words: without US shale oil (which required cheap money from quantitative easing), the world would be in a deep oil crisis.

The grey line shows the September 2005 production level outside the US and Canada. The graph shows that the October 2015 production level is only slightly higher than in 2005, possibly within the accuracy of statistics.

We can therefore confidently say that growth of the world economy managed to make itself completely dependent on unconventional oil from the US and Canada.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Just How Accurate Are The EIA’s Predictions?

February 14, 2016

Just How Accurate Are The EIA’s Predictions?

The EIA recently published the February edition of their Short-Term Energy Outlook. If you follow this month to month, and I do, you will notice their prognostications change a little every month. And over several months those small changes can add up to some rather dramatic changes. Nevertheless, below are several charts with their current oil production projections.

The EIA STEO only gives monthly data for total liquids. All C+C data is quarterly and annually. The monthly projected data begins in February 2016. Projections for quarterly and annual data begins January 2016.

ST Non-OPEC Liquids

The EIA says Non-OPEC total liquids dropped .5 million barrels per day in December and another .36 mbd in January. But then, other than another short drop in the first quarter of 2017, they see things leveling out for the next two years.

ST World Liquids

For the total world, the EIA expects far better production numbers than just for Non-OPEC. They expect new highs to be reached in 2016 and again in 2017.

ST US Liquids

They see US total liquids dropping in 2016 then they begin a slow rise through 2017, but not overtaking the peak in 2015.

ST Russia Liquids

Apparently the EIA thinks Russia has had it. They see a drop in December 2016 then a huge drop in January 2017. I have no idea why. However the scale here makes the decline seem greater than it really is. From January 2015 to December 2017 the decline is only 400,000 barrels per day.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

OPEC Will Not Blink First

February 11, 2016

OPEC Will Not Blink First

An OPEC production cut is unlikely until U.S. production declines by about another million barrels per day (mmbpd). OPEC won’t cut because it would accomplish nothing beyond a short-term increase in price. Carefully placed comments by OPEC and Russian oil ministers about the possibility of production cuts achieve almost the same price increase as an actual cut.

Bad News About The Oil Over-Supply from IEA and EIA

The International Energy Agency (IEA) and U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) shook the markets yesterday with news that the world’s over-supply of oil has gotten worse rather than better in recent months. IEA data shows that the global liquids over-supply increased in the 4th quarter of 2015 to 2.24 million barrels per day (mmbpd) from 1.62 mmbpd in the 3rd quarter (Figure 1).

Figure 1. IEA world liquids market balance (supply minus demand). Source: IEA and Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.

(click image to enlarge)

Supply increased 70,000 bpd and demand decreased 550,000 bpd for a net increase in over-supply of 620,000 bpd. The sharp decline in demand is perhaps the most troubling aspect of IEA’s report. The agency forecasts tepid demand growth of only 1.17 mmbpd in 2016 compared with 1.61 mmbpd in 2015. The weak global economy is the culprit.

EIA’s monthly data showed the same trend. Over-supply in January increased to 2.01 mmbpd from 1.35 mmbpd in December, a 650,000 bpd net change (Figure 2). Supply fell by 370,000 bpd but consumption dropped by a stunning 1.02 mmbpd.

Figure 2. EIA world liquids market balance (supply minus consumption). Source: EIA and Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.

(Click image to enlarge)

The January 2016 Oil Price Head-Fake

Recent comments about a possible OPEC cut were largely responsible for the late January “head-fake” increase in oil prices (Figure 3). WTI futures increased 27 percent from $26.55 to $33.62 per barrel between January 20 and 29.

..click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is The EIA Too Optimistic On U.S. Oil Output?

January 31, 2016

Is The EIA Too Optimistic On U.S. Oil Output?

After following the weekly production statistics avidly for some months and initially being smugly pleased by the data saying exactly what I wanted to hear, I then became completely befuddled by the data saying the opposite. I had almost reached the conclusion that the weekly production data wasn’t worth paying attention to.

I apologise to the EIA for saying that, it is a Herculean task to capture production data across the United States of America on a weekly basis and even that fleeting thought did them a disservice. But I have poked and prodded the data and I think lurking within it, like a chicken’s entrails on the altar, are the signs of what will happen in the year to come. So I have created a forecast of US production in 2016 and a forecast of how the 2015 data will eventually be revised (which is why I have titled this article a 2015 to 2017 production forecast).

This is the chart that first pleased and then befuddled me. It had pleased me to see the rapid drop off in US production, which sat well with my expectations of very high decline rates from shale oil wells, it befuddled me to see US production climb week after week, as companies cut back on investment and stacked rigs.

What I am showing in the chart above are three sets of data from the EIA, the dark blue line is made up from the weekly production estimates; the deep green is the monthly production data and the pale green is the monthly forecast production from the Short Term Energy Outlook. There is an important difference between the weekly estimates and the monthly figures. The latter get revised, the former don’t.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why Lower Gasoline Prices Are Not Stimulating Economy

January 27, 2016

Why Lower Gasoline Prices Are Not Stimulating Economy

Fed officials and financial news reporters are collectively wondering why the economy seems to be slowing down, even though lower oil and gasoline prices ought to be a stimulative factor. If consumers are spending less of their money on gasoline, then they ought to have more to spend on other stuff, or so goes the reasoning. So why is it not working?

The problem is one of magnitude, and most analysts fail to take the time to do the math. So at the risk of boring you with arithmetic, let’s look at some important numbers, with a bit of back-of-the-envelope math.

The EIA publishes data on consumption for a variety of energy products, including gasoline. In November 2015 for example (the most recent month for which there are data), Americans consumed gasoline at a rate of 358 million gallons per day. The 12-month average is 360 million gallons. That sounds like a really large number, but when you realize that there are roughly 322 million resident Americans, that works out to 1.11 gallons per day for every American.

The chart above shows the trend for that data. The high prices of just a couple of years ago sent people into dealerships to buy Priuses, Volts, Teslas, and other electrified cars to avoid paying high gasoline prices. But the falling prices for automobile fuel are making consumers eschew those more efficient choices, and consume more gasoline. They are also consuming more diesel, which is not part of these computations, but it is nevertheless a real factor.

Looking at the math, if the price of gasoline drops from $3.00 to $2.00 (round numbers to make the math easier), that means an extra $1.11 in your pocket every day, assuming you are the average man, woman, and child in America.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oil Markets Are Balancing Faster Than IEA Would Have Us Believe

January 22, 2016

Oil Markets Are Balancing Faster Than IEA Would Have Us Believe

Fundamentals point toward market balance but pessimism is dragging oil prices down. IEA has apparently succumbed to this negativity but their data suggests that things are getting better, not worse.

In a business-as-usual world in which nothing unusual happens, the world will be close to market balance some time in 2016. If anything unusual happens, all bets are off and oil prices could rebound much faster than anyone imagines.

A Year of Extreme Price Cycles

NYMEX WTI futures prices have fallen 34 percent since October 2015, and are below $30.00 per barrel for the first time since 2003. Prices have gone through four cycles of 30-40 percent increases and decreases over the past year (Figure 1).

Figure 1. NYMEX WTI futures prices and price cycles in 2015. Source: EIA, Bloomberg & Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc.

(Click image to enlarge)

The two price rallies from March-to-June and from August-to-October were based largely on hope and the price decline from June-to-August represented a return to the reality of supply and demand fundamentals.

The most recent price decline that began in October is a bit different. Here, confirmation bias has replaced critical thinking about the oil market. The ruling paradigm is that prices are likely to stay low for years or even for decades and evidence is easily found that favors and confirms this bias. I believe that this paradigm is incorrect.

Despite troubling signals of structural weakness in the global economy, data suggests that the oil market is stumbling toward balance. Although I have said that prices must go lower in order to flush out the zombie producers, IEA’s statement in the January Oil Market Report that the world could drown in over-supply is based more on sentiment and pessimism than on data.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The great condensate con: Is the oil glut just about oil?

January 18, 2016

The great condensate con: Is the oil glut just about oil?

My favorite Texas oilman Jeffrey Brown is at it again. In a recent email he’s pointing out to everyone who will listen that the supposed oversupply of crude oil isn’t quite what it seems. Yes, there is a large overhang of excess oil in the market. But how much of that oversupply is honest-to-god oil and how much is so-called lease condensate which gets carelessly lumped in with crude oil? And, why is this important to understanding the true state of world oil supplies?

In order to answer these questions we need to get some preliminaries out of the way.

Lease condensate consists of very light hydrocarbons which condense from gaseous into liquid form when they leave the high pressure of oil reservoirs and exit through the top of an oil well. This condensate is less dense than oil and can interfere with optimal refining if too much is mixed with actual crude oil. The oil industry’s own engineers classify oil as hydrocarbons having an API gravity of less than 45–the higher the number, the lower the density and the “lighter” the substance. Lease condensate is defined as hydrocarbons having an API gravity between 45 and 70. (For a good discussion about condensates and their place in the marketplace, read “Neither Fish nor Fowl – Condensates Muscle in on NGL and Crude Markets.”)

Refiners are already complaining that so-called “blended crudes” contain too much lease condensate, and they are seeking out better crudes straight from the wellhead. Brown has dubbed all of this the great condensate con.

Brown points out that U.S. net crude oil imports for December 2015 grew from the previous December, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the statistical arm of the U.S. Department of Energy. U.S. statistics for crude oil imports include condensate, but don’t break out condensate separately.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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