The Oil Drum

150 comments on Drum(stick)Beat: November 22, 2007

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PeakTO on November 22, 2007 - 1:33pm

Why wouldn't Russia's production decline mirror North Sea's or worse?

The decline will be entirely dependent on the state of their fields(not taxes, tarriffs, and prices)...which would be poor in a conservative estimate.

Those fields had a rest since all time peak in the 90s, but recently (last 10) have been abused, mismanaged, and then nationalized(indirectly, of course).

So, worse, seems more plausible.

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dissident on November 22, 2007 - 8:46pm

This site and other peak oil sites discuss differences between sea-bed oil extraction and dry land extraction. The sea-bed cases have quicker decline rates. US oil production certainly has not mirrored the North Sea. The US is a more realistic analogue for Russia than the North Sea. It is not credible that Russian oil exports could decline 15% in few months for geological reasons. The export land model does not apply either since there has been no spike in domestic demand that would eat into exports on this scale. The validity of ELM and future natural production declines are besides the point for the current shortage and oil export drop situation.

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PeakTO on November 22, 2007 - 10:57pm

Yes...and NO!

Yes, it will not drop 15% in a few months, and it's model will not *normally* mirror a sea-bed extraction.

However, the age (very old) and state of fields suggests *strongly* that Russian fields will decline rapidly and at a greater rate than a well managed group of fields.

I don't think ELM is relevant to the immediate comment.

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SamuM on November 24, 2007 - 5:11am

One would tend to think that the extraction techniques used might also have some bearing on this.

Reading Lukoil's old annual reports, they were mostly using hydrofracturing (physical EOR) for their Enhanced Oil Recovery. Much of the gains for production was coming from EOR, but I think the growth trend from 2003->2004 was already abating. In the annual 2006, 27% of Lukoil's Russian oil field production came from EOR wells.