expat writes: "Saudi Arabia is merely doing its part to help slow climate change"

In the last Monbiot article on biofuels: "Biodiesel from palm oil causes TEN TIMES as much climate change as ordinary diesel."

Nice try, but they must stop immediately and provide us with not-so-bad oil until we find a sustainable solution, if there is one.

Hello Westexas,

Sounds like the perfect job description for you to internationalize ELP and your Export Land Model! Heinberg and/or Colin Campbell could do the Energy Depletion Protocols too.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Definition of OPEC Sustainable Production Capacity from IEA & EIA

On page 15 of IEA March 2007 Oil Market Report is this table which shows OPEC’s spare capacity.

Footnote 3 from the table above states that
”Capacity levels can be reached within 30 days and sustained for 90 days.”

On page 28, Table 3a, of the EIA Short Term Energy Outlook March 2007,
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/mar07.pdf

There is a similar note for OPEC Surplus Capacity:

” “Capacity” refers to maximum sustainable production capacity, defined as the maximum amount of production that:
1) could be brought online within a period of 30 days; and
2) sustained for at least 90 days.”

This simplistic condition on OPEC maximum production capacity levels is disturbing and raises several questions.

How is the “30 days” calculated?

How is the “90 days” calculated?

What happens to production levels after the end of the “90 days”? Is the spare capacity gone?

Do the “30 days” and “90 days” apply to all OPEC countries? If yes, why is it the same for each OPEC country? Is it also the same for onshore and offshore production?

What is the origin of the “30 days” and “90 days”? I could not find a supporting definition on www.opec.org. Did the EIA and IEA just make up the “30 days” and “90 days”?

If the “90 days” is the maximum period for the maximum sustainable production capacity, then it’s not a long time period!

Can someone please help to clarify the true meaning of OPEC Sustainable Production Capacity?

(It is also interesting to compare Feb 2007 OPEC-12 spare capacities: IEA states 4.02 Mb/d; EIA, 2.54 - 3.04 Mb/d. That's a big difference!)

The IEA regularly revises supply figures downwards after a couple of months. Then they say in the blurb at the front of the OMR that production "increased" by x kbd, but when you do the math the increase is negative. Must be all that wine they drink at lunch time in Paris.

The latest month really is just an estimate, estimated on the high side in the hope that when it is corrected downwards a couple of months later that no one will notice.

They also include heavy oil from Orinoco and Alberta as well as biofuels in that 85.5mbpd. I strip out Orinoco (600kbd), Alberta (1mbpd) and the biofuels (340kbpd). That's nearly 2mbpd! 1940kbpd to be exact.

So total production for Feb 07 is not 85.5mbpd, it's 83.6mbpd which is for all intents and purposes the same as it has been since Q3 2004. Hidden within that of course are the situations in Saudi that Stuart and Euan have described so well, Mexico etc etc.

I have a question for anybody who still in the thread. I have heard over the months that sometimes oil producing countries buy crude from other countries to fulfill contracts if they cannot do so themselves. For instance I have heard that Venezuela has done this and Saudi did it in respect of some bunker fuels. Does this stuff get counted twice?

Could there be a whole trade going on below the surface whereby oil is counted twice in the production numbers? If Saudi was intent on maintaining their swing status they could do so by being buyers and sellers.