The Oil Drum

Land Rover Man,
A funny thing you learn about the markets when you trade them full time is this: you never know before the fact, which piece of news traders will focus on. Right now the markets seem to be focusing on the current short term supply situation in the US, which appears comfortable, especially if you ignore the bubble of refined product imports from our fellow oil consumers in Europe. Furthermore, CNN carried the following Reuters story, which seemed to calm traders who might have worried about OPEC production cuts.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/14/news/international/kuwait_opec.reut/index.htm

I am as concerned about Burgan and what it means for peak oil long term as much as you are. But right as of this second, the preponderance of oil traders are not behaving as if they are.

One other point: right now the trend of oil prices, at least in the days-to-weeks timeframe, is down. If I were interested in trading oil futures I would not buck the trend; I would wait until prices got closer to support levels at $55 or even $50 before buying. If I were short I would stay that way for now, though I might buy to cover for at least a portion of the position if I had not yet taken any profits. This would be the instant message of a daily price chart, which most traders consult before making decisions, even if some traders also factor in fundamentals.

With respect to Canterell, you might find the comments made by an anonymous PEMEX executive to Crisis Energética, the Spanish peak oil website, of interest. Follwoing is my translation of pertinent parts.

"Interviewer: You've mentioned that Mexico will lose its oil platform "very soon" .  Why is this?

Engineer: Most Mexican oil production comes from just one field, the supergiant Cantarell, which is located in shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico some 65 km from the coast of the state of Campeche. By itself Cantarell's production represents 63% of all our production capacity.  This field has been exploited in a very careful manner using all the technical capabilities of geoscience to try to recover as much of its reserves as possible . The original volume of the field was estimated at 33 billion barrels, but the recoverable volume amounts to 16 billion. Exercising the utmost care, we've extracted, some 11 billion in the whole process of the life of this field; this field is now finishing its cycle.  The problem with Cantarell is that it's a carbonate field in which the decline is abrupt, up to 15% per year, and if to this factor is added the difficulty of extraction, we have that the rate of decline can be even greater.  Besides what's been said, we have to take into account that several fields are already in decline; for example, Abkatun has shown a 20% annual decline now for more than five years.

Interviewer: How much you think Cantarell will decline?

Engineer: Despite enormous efforts and technical work, it's calculated that the initial rate of decline will be at least 10% next year and its probable that in two years it will reach a rate of up to 20%...

interviewer: Can other reserves be found to take the place of a field of Cantarell's size?

Engineer: Large size Mexican oil fields are done with; all that's left to work with are very complicated fields like Chicontepec, Lakanhuasa and Chiapas, finding small fields and reinvesting in currently existing and deepwater fields.  The northern Yucatan fields are small because their geological structures are flat.  It's important to consider that to substitute for Cantarell these types of new deposits, of no greater than 200 million barrels, you would need some 20 finds.  At present weve only discovered three..."