<DrumBeat: March 6, 2007 The Oil Drum DrumBeat: March 7, 2007>

36 comments on A Simple Oil Production Estimate for 2007

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version

westexas on March 6, 2007 - 11:58am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

Phil,

Good work.

Given how old Ghawar is, I assume that you agree that the field is almost certainly in decline. Assuming that this is the case, every field that is or was producing one mbpd or more is now in decline.

As you know, one can define Peak Oil as the point at which smaller fields coming on line can't offset the declines from the older, larger fields. I think that we hit that point in 2005.

I expect to see continued production declines in Saudi Arabia, perhaps with some temporary bumps upward in production as some new production comes on line.

I think that David Shields is right that Cantarell will probably decline at about 500,000 bpd per year, which will have a catastrophic effect on Mexico's production.

I think that the other big risk for declining production is Russia.

And of course, IMO, oil exports will fall much faster than overall production declines.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Phil Hart on March 6, 2007 - 4:56pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

thanks.

yes, despite the poor quality of data, i am personally convinced that production from Ghawar and Saudi production as a whole is in decline and that last year's slope was not by choice.

when i present to 'professional' audiences though, i am less bold since the evidence is not robust enough for sceptical audiences. i cannot believe we will get through another twelve months without a strong need for more Saudi oil and therefore expose far more clearly whether they have it or not.

i agree that Mexico could easily be worse than my estimate (but then i also saw a report saying their production was up in January, which will presumably be short lived?).

Russia really is the big one - it seems everything hinges on them now. They have continued expanding production longer than I expected - right up to the end of last year. Even if they decline from their December production, their average will probably match last year. But there is not yet any evidence that they are declining.. how much longer can they last?

cheers
Phil.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
westexas on March 6, 2007 - 5:28pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Khebab did a predicted production curve for Russia, based on the HL plot, using only the data through the 50% of Qt mark (1984) to generate the curve.

The post-1984 cumulative production, through 2004, was 95% of what the HL model predicted--still below the predicted cumulative production.

They are basically right around 100% now, so I expect to see a decline this year, or next year at the latest. The kicker is that, based on the HL plot, Russia is around 90% depleted (at least in mature basins), just like the Lower 48.

BTW, the Saudi decline rate, on an annual basis (not month to month), is so far quite close to the annual decline rate for Texas (around 4%).

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

36 comments on A Simple Oil Production Estimate for 2007

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version