{"id":15782,"date":"2015-12-29T13:30:19","date_gmt":"2015-12-29T18:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15782"},"modified":"2015-12-29T13:30:19","modified_gmt":"2015-12-29T18:30:19","slug":"where-actually-is-that-much-hyped-global-oil-glut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=15782","title":{"rendered":"Where actually is that much-hyped global oil glut?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Where actually is that much-hyped global oil glut?<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n

The media is full with news that there is a global oil glut.<\/p>\n

There are now more than 3bn barrels of excess oil in the world
\n13\/11\/2015
\nhttp:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/finance\/oilprices\/11993687\/There-are-now-more-than-3bn-barrels-of-excess-oil-in-the-world.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Record oil glut stands at 3bn barrels
\n13\/11\/2015
\nhttp:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/business-34808487<\/a><\/p>\n

It was parroted by the Australian public broadcaster ABC TV, using this (unsuitable) opportunity to take a swipe at peak oil:<\/p>\n

Peak oil losing credibility as renewables shift accelerates<\/strong>
\n24\/12\/2015
\n\u201cWith the world awash with too much crude oil at the moment, the fear of an economic catastrophe when fossil fuels start running out is quietly fading in the background.\u201d
\nhttp:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2015-12-24\/peak-oil-losing-credibility-as-shift-to-renewables-accelerates\/7052196<\/a><\/p>\n

These stories go back to the IEA\u2019s Monthly Oil Market Report (OMR), November 2015 which reads:<\/p>\n

\u201cStockpiles of oil at a record 3 billion barrels are providing world markets with a degree of comfort. This massive cushion has inflated even as the global oil market adjusts to $50\/bbl oil.\u201d
\nhttps:\/\/www.iea.org\/oilmarketreport\/reports\/2015\/1115\/<\/a><\/p>\n

So how much is 3 bn barrels?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s have a look at the statistics in the latest IEA OMR of December 2015. It\u2019s only about OECD stocks, not the whole world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fig 1: OECD total oil stocks<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.iea.org\/media\/omrreports\/fullissues\/2015-12-11.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

We see that oil stocks in the period 2009 (light blue line) to 2013 (dotted line) varied between 2,6 bn and 2.8 bn barrels along with seasonal changes. The average stocks for this time of the year is 2.7 bn barrels. We can consider this range as the result of normal operating conditions allowing for accidents, refinery maintenance, transport disruptions, strikes etc but also demand side changes from a weak economy (2009) to high oil prices (2013).<\/p>\n

Therefore, that magic glut is 3 bn \u2013 2.7 bn = 300 million barrels or roughly 10% of the average. The long term trend of OECD stocks is shown in the next graph:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Fig 2: OECD stock changes since 1988<\/p>\n

In 1988, average stocks were 2.5 bn barrels One can put many trend lines into Fig 2, depending on which period one selects and which exceptional events are excluded.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Where actually is that much-hyped global oil glut? The media is full with news that there is a global oil glut. There are now more than 3bn barrels of excess oil in the world 13\/11\/2015 http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/finance\/oilprices\/11993687\/There-are-now-more-than-3bn-barrels-of-excess-oil-in-the-world.html Record oil glut stands at 3bn barrels 13\/11\/2015 http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/business-34808487 It was parroted by the Australian public broadcaster ABC TV, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11325,6292,328,512,3044,617],"class_list":["post-15782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-crude-oil-glut","tag-crude-oil-peak","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-media","tag-oil-glut","tag-peak-oil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15783,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15782\/revisions\/15783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}