Peak Oil Update - June 2007: Production Forecasts and EIA Oil Production Numbers

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An update on the latest production numbers from the EIA along with graphs/charts of different oil production forecasts.

World oil production (EIA Monthly) and various
forecasts (2001-2027)
World oil production (EIA Monthly) for crude oil + NGL. The median forecast is calculated from 12 models that are predicting a peak before 2020 (Bakhiarti, Smith, Staniford, Loglets, Shock model, GBM, ASPO-[70,58,45], Robelius Low/High, HSM). 95% of the predictions  sees a production peak between 2009 and 2011 at 78.23 - 87.12 mbpd (The 95% confidence interval is computed using a bootstrap technique). Click to Enlarge. 

Executive Summary:

  1. Monthly production records are unchanged except for NGPL: 
    1. All Liquids: the peak is still July 2006 at 85.43 mbpd, the year to date average production in 2007 (2 months) is  84.26 mbpd, up 0.2 mbpd from 2006.
    2. Crude Oil + NGL: the peak date remains May 2005 at 82.08 mbpd, the year to date average production for 2007 (2 months) is  81.24 mbpd, down 0.06 mbpd from 2006.
    3. Crude Oil + Condensate: the peak date remains May 2005 at 74.15 mbpd, the year to date average production for 2007 (2 months) is 73.09 mbpd, down 0.25 mbpd from 2006.
    4. NGPL: the peak date is now February 2007 at 8.24 mbpd, the year to date average production for 2007 (2 months) is  8.15 mbpd, up 0.19 mbpd from 2006.
  2. Decline in crude oil + condensate continues: February 2007 estimate for crude oil + condensate is 73.35 mbpd compared to 73.47 mbpd one year ago.
  3. New forecasts added: Projections from Frederik Robelius and the Hybrid Shock Model.
  4. Average forecast: the average forecast for crude oil + NGL based on 12 different projections is showing a kind of production plateau around 83 +/- 4 mbpd with a decline after 2010 +/- 1 year.
Notations:
  • mbpd= Million of barrels per day
  • Gb= Billion of barrels (109)
  • Tb= Trillion of barrels (1012)
  • NGPL= Natural Gas Plant Liquids
  • CO= Crude Oil + lease condensate
  • NGL= Natural Gas Liquids (lease condensate + NGPL)
  • URR= Ultimate Recoverable Resource

EIA Last Update (February)

Data sources for the production numbers:

  • Production data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2006 (Crude oil + NGL).
  • EIA data (monthly and annual productions up to February 2007) for crude oil and lease condensate (noted CO) on which I added the NGPL production (noted CO+NGL).

The All liquids peak is still July 2006 at  85.47 mbpd, the year to date average production value in 2007 (2 months) is down from 2005 for all the categories except for NGPL. The peak date  for Crude Oil + Cond. is May 2005 at 74.15 mbpd (see Table I below).

World production (EIA data)
Fig 1.- World production (EIA data). Blue lines and pentagrams are indicating monthly maximum. Monthly data for CO from the EIA. Annual data for NGPL and Other Liquids from 1980 to 2001 have been upsampled to get monthly estimates. Click to Enlarge.


Category Feb 2007 Feb 2006 12 MA1 2007 (2 Months) 2006 (2 Months) Share Peak Date Peak Value
All Liquids 84.68 84.41 84.48 84.26 84.46 100.00% 2006-07 85.43
Crude Oil + NGL 81.59 81.43 81.30 81.24 81.30 96.35% 2005-05 82.08
Other Liquids 3.09 2.98 3.18 3.02 3.16 3.65% 2006-08 3.54
NGPL 8.24 7.97 7.99 8.15 7.96 9.73% 2007-02 8.24
Crude Oil + Condensate 73.35 73.47 73.31 73.09 73.34 86.62% 2005-05 74.15
Table I - Production estimate (in millions of barrels per day (mbpd)) for February 2007 taken from the EIA website (International Petroleum Monthly). 1Moving Average on the last 12 months.


The share of CO is now only 86.6% of the total liquid production.


Share of each liquid category to the total liquid
Fig 3.- Share of each liquid category to the total liquid production. Click to Enlarge.

The figure below is giving the general context where all the forecasts are situated, in the following we will focus on the 2000-2025 period shown as a gray box.

World oil production (Crude oil + NGL) and various
Fig 4.- World oil production (Crude oil + NGL) and various forecasts (1940-2050). The light gray box gives the particular area where the Figures below are zooming in. Click to Enlarge.


Business as Usual


  • EIA's International Energy Outlook 2006, reference case (Table E4, World Oil Production by Region and Country, Reference Case).
  • IEA total liquid demand forecast for 2006 and 2007 (Table1.xls).
  • IEA World Energy Outlook 2006 : forecasts for All liquids, CO+NGL and Crude Oil (Table 3.2, p. 94).
  • IEA World Energy Outlook 2005 : forecast for All liquids (Table 3.5).
  • IEA World Energy Outlook 2004 : forecast for All liquids (Table 2.4).
  • A simple demographic model based on the observation that the oil produced per capita has been roughly constant for the last 26 years around 4.4496 barrels/capita/year (Crude Oil + NGL). The world population forecast employed is the UN 2004 Revision Population Database (medium variant).
  • CERA forecasts for conventional oil (Crude Oil + Condensate?) and all liquids, believed to be productive capacities (i.e. actual production + spare capacity). The numbers have been derived from Figure 1 in Dave's response to CERA.


Production forecasts assuming no visible peak
Fig 5.- Production forecasts assuming no visible peak. Click to Enlarge.

PeakOilers: Bottom-Up Analysis

  • Chris Skrebowski's megaprojects database (see discussion here).
  • The ASPO forecast from April newsletter (#76): I took the production numbers for 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2050 and then interpolated the data (spline) for the missing years. I added the previous forecast issued one year and two years ago (newsletter #58 and #46 respectively). There was no revision since August 2006.
  • Rembrandt H. E. M. Koppelaar (Oil Supply Analysis 2006 - 2007): "Between 2006 and 2010 nearly 25 mbpd of new production is expected to come on-stream leading to a production (all liquids) level of 93-94 mbpd (91 mbpd for CO+NGL) in 2010 with the incorporation of a decline rate of 4% over present day production".
  • Koppelaar Oil Production Outlook 2005-2040 - Foundation Peak Oil Netherlands (November 2005 Edition).
  • The WOCAP model from Samsam Bakhtiari (2003). The forecast is for crude oil plus NGL.
  • Forecast by Michael Smith (Energy Institute) for CO+NGL, the data have been taken from this chart in this presentation (pdf).
  • PhD thesis of Frederik Robelius (2007):  Giant Oil Fields - The Highway to Oil: Giant Oil Fields and their Importance for Future Oil Production. The forecasts (low and high) are derived from this chart.


Forecasts by PeakOilers based on bottom-up
Fig 6.- Forecasts by PeakOilers based on bottom-up methodologies. Click to Enlarge.

PeakOilers: Curve Fitting

The following results are based on a linear or non-linear fit of a parametric curve (most often a Logistic curve) directly on the observed production profile:

Forecasts by PeakOilers using curve fitting
Fig 7.- Forecasts by PeakOilers using curve fitting methodologies. Click to Enlarge.

Production Growth

The chart below gives the year-on-year production growth (or decline) for each month. Growth has been weak (below 1%) since 2005..

Year-on-Year production growth
Fig 8.- Year-on-Year production growth. Click to Enlarge.


Forecast 2005 2006 2007 2010 2015 Diff2 Peak Date Peak Value
All Liquids
Observed (All Liquids) 84.56 84.51 84.26 NA NA 2006-07 85.43
IEA (WEO, 2004) 82.06 83.74 85.41 90.40 98.69 -1.16 2030 121.30
IEA (WEO, 2005) 84.00 85.85 87.64 92.50 99.11 -3.38 2030 115.40
Koppelaar (2005) 84.06 85.78 86.61 89.21 87.98 -2.36 2011 89.58
Lahèrrere (2005) 83.59 84.47 85.23 86.96 87.77 -0.97 2014 87.84
EIA (IEO, 2006) 82.70 84.50 86.37 91.60 98.30 -2.11 2030 118.00
IEA (WEO, 2006) 83.60 85.10 86.62 91.30 99.30 -2.36 2030 116.30
CERA1 (2006) 87.77 89.52 91.62 97.24 104.54 -7.36 2035 130.00
Lahèrrere (2006) 83.59 84.82 85.96 88.93 92.27 -1.70 2018 92.99
Smith (2006) 85.19 87.77 90.88 98.94 98.56 -6.62 2012-05 99.83
Crude Oil + NGL
Observed (EIA) 81.45 81.33 81.24 NA NA 2005-05 82.08
GBM (2003) 76.06 76.27 76.33 75.30 67.79 4.91 2007-05 76.34
Bakhtiari (2003) 80.24 80.89 80.89 77.64 69.51 0.34 2006 80.89
ASPO-46 81.00 80.95 80.80 80.00 73.77 0.43 2005 81.00
ASPO-58 81.00 82.03 83.10 85.00 79.18 -1.86 2010 85.00
Staniford (High) 77.45 77.92 78.31 79.01 78.51 2.92 2011-10 79.08
Staniford (Med) 75.81 75.94 75.97 75.52 73.00 5.27 2007-05 75.98
Staniford (Low) 70.46 70.13 69.71 67.92 63.40 11.53 2002-07 70.88
IEA (WEO, 2006) 80.10 81.38 82.67 86.50 92.50 -1.43 2030 104.90
Koppelaar (2006) 81.76 82.31 83.68 91.00 NA -2.44 2010 91.00
Skrebowski (2006) 80.90 81.42 82.59 87.32 NA -1.35 2010 87.92
Smith (2006) 80.53 82.81 85.45 91.95 88.60 -4.21 2011-02 92.31
Loglets 81.12 82.14 83.02 84.65 83.26 -1.78 2012-01 84.80
ASPO-76 77.92 79.00 81.35 90.00 85.00 -0.11 2010 90.00
Robelius Low (2006) 81.45 82.19 82.50 81.84 72.26 -1.26 2007 82.50
Robelius High (2006) 81.45 84.19 86.67 93.40 92.40 -5.44 2012 94.54
Shock Model (2006) 80.76 80.43 80.01 78.27 73.74 1.23 2003 81.17
Crude Oil + Lease Condensate
Observed (EIA) 73.65 73.39 73.09 NA NA 2005-05 74.15
ASPO-46 72.80 72.56 72.25 71.00 63.55 0.84 2005 72.80
Deffeyes (2004) 69.81 69.81 69.71 68.90 65.88 3.38 2005-12 69.82
ASPO-58 73.00 73.80 74.65 76.00 69.50 -1.56 2010 76.00
IEA (WEO, 2006) 70.80 71.78 72.77 75.70 80.30 0.32 2030 89.10
CERA1 (2006) 76.49 76.89 78.60 82.29 83.83 -5.51 2038 97.58
ASPO-76 71.11 72.10 73.66 78.00 72.00 -0.57 2010 78.00
HSM (2007) NA 73.56 73.53 72.82 69.53 -0.44 2006 73.56
Table II. Summary of all the forecasts (figures are in mbpd) as well as the last EIA estimates.1Productive capacities. 2Difference between the observed production for 2007 and the predicted value (in mbpd), the value in bold indicates the best forecast (i.e. the oldest with the lowest difference.

Next update probably in September.

Previous Update:

Februray 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006

OilWatch last issue:

Oilwatch - June 2007

Khebab@theoildrum.com