The Oil Drum

I haven't seen this mentioned on The Oil Drum yet. Petroleum Review have produced a report (available from the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre here) looking at the annual and quarterly production from publicly quoted oil companies. Their study looks at the average daily extraction rates for oil and gas from the top 22 publicly quoted oil companies from 2002 up to the second quarter 2005.

Quite remarkably, in the first half of 2005 the top five, the top ten and the top 22 publicly quoted oil companies all produced less crude and NGLs than they did in 2004 and only slightly more than they did in 2003 and 2002.

Given the global increase in production and demand over the last three years it is clear that, in aggregate, the largest private oil companies are losing market share. For ten of the top 22 companies, and for four out of the five largest private companies, the first half of 2005 saw lower crude and NGLs production than in 2004.

Ten companies also produced less in first half 2005 than they did in 2003, while nine companies produced less than in 2002. Clearly, it is no exaggeration to say that the world's largest publicly quoted oil companies are now really struggling to hold production levels, with only a few managing to maintain their market share of global production.

Here are the oil extraction rates ('000 barrels per day) from the Petroleum Review report:
                   2nd QTR    2nd QTR
                   2004       2005
Total Top Five     10,935.1   10,708.9
Total Top Ten      14,718.7   14,463.9
Total Top 22       16,909.6   16,717.3

Extraction Rates Fall At Major Oil Companies