CERA Page (or is it year) 2 projects
Posted by Heading Out on September 8, 2005 - 8:21pm
Well with due apologies to Rembrandt and others who have commented, I would like to get these sites into our record (since I can then come back and reference them later) before arguing too much on the reality that some of them reflect.
And so tonight we turn to the projects that CERA anticipate will come on line in 2006.
These are supposed to generate a total of 2.1 mbd by 2010 and they are:
- Buzzard, UK North Sea, is expected to produce between 180,000 and 190,000 bd by 2007. Rigzone has the details. CS has it for 180 kb. And there is a bit of the history here and more information.
- Bu Hasa which is in Abu Dhabi, or the United Arab Emirates, depending on which you choose to call it. The field will produce 730,000 bd but this is an increase from the current 550,000 bd so I guess we should count it at 180 kbd. CS has it for 250 kbd. Here is a bit of history.
- Erha is a Deepwater Nigeria project run by ExxonMobil who have the site information. It will produce 150,000 bd and is scheduled to start at the end of this year. CS has it for 150 kb starting this year.
- Atlantis is a Deepwater GOMEX Not far enough along to be affected by Katrina. Though other potential problems appear to have been addressed. CS has it down for 150 kbd.
- Dhalia is a Deepwater Angola project, run by Total that CS has down for 240 kbd. Finding information is a little harder, since the name can be spelt several ways. Current production is anticipated at 225,000 bd though there are negotiations to get it up to 240 kbd, and it appears on schedule for start-up in 3rd Quarter 2006. There is also some discussion of increasing this ultimately to 500,000 bd.
- Roncador II is Deepwater Brazil (at 1,800 m this is really deep). CS has this down to start in 2004, ramping up to 140,000 bd by 2008.
It is sometimes difficult to separate the bits of the Roncador program. in the Energy Bulletin for example, it is considered as a single development.
- Tengiz is in Kazakhstan and is a bit controversial. It currently produces about 290,000 bd and the EIA anticipates it will be up to 700,000 bd by 2010, for a gain of 410,000 bd. CS has it down for between 200 kbd and 450 kbd (cynic !)
- Haradh Phase III is at the Southern tip of the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia, and Aramco are trying some of the latest technology here (maximum reservoir contact with concurrent waterflood, multi-laterals and "smart" wells that contain controllable valves, to minimize the water cut). It is scheduled for next year at 300,000 bd. (and CS has it down in the Potential Projects category at that level). We have previously discussed it, as has Matt Simmons in "Twilight in the Desert", where he worries about the rock structure.
- Sakhalin II is just off the island of that name just north of Japan (and we talked about Sakhalin 1 in the first of these). Shell is having some difficulty with this project (which I don't see on CS list) both politically and financially, and it appears slated for about 155,000 bd. It even has an opposition website as well as one of its own. EIA has it at 90,000 bd, which would fall below the CS watermark.
- Chinguetti is offshore Mauritania and is scheduled for 2006, but with a production of 75,000 bd, would also not make the CS cut. There is more information on the field here .
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- Estimates of depletion rates.
- The two groups are not so different over the next two-four years. That's about the lead time for all but the largest or most uncertain oil* projects (e.g., pipelines, major offshore facilities, severe political instabilities, far-frontiers, etc.). So each group can look at the announced projects and be sure that they've got all production that will come on line simply because unless something is being done in secret (Saudi?), if it hasn't been announced yet it won't be finished within the next few years.
- More than three-to-five years out (2008-2010) the assumptions diverge sharply: depletion rates, mythical (?) Mid-East reserves, Saudi production ability, price levels, new discoveries, and levels of new production proposed to meet what everyone agrees is rising desire for oil.
CERA implicitly assumes that there is LOTS of oil that can be profitably developed in the $30-40** range. Just as prices stayed largely flat at ~$19-22 for over 15 years (1986-2002), they can hover around $30-$40 for at least a decade (with inflation and dollar depreciation, that's $33-44 in 2005, perhaps as high as $50 by 2010).By contrast, most Imminent Peakers necessarily assume that a large percentage of the $40 oil was developed between 1975 and 1985 when inflation adjusted oil prices were above $40, and that although prices were VERY low in 1998-1999 (supposedly making oil executives VERY cautious about initiating lots of new production projects), prices have been above $30 and rising for two years already so the $30-$40 oil should be sufficiently far along the development process that the projects are announced. That is, the new production listed by HO is the $30-$40 production - and so we can already tell that there simply isn't enough of it!
4. CERA also assumes that just because Western consumers WANT to buy $40 oil for $40, the National Oil Companies (NOCs) that control the reservers will WANT to rapidly expand production and sell it at $40. Far more likely is that OPEC and the non-OPEC NOCs (especially Russia) will be content to let prices drift higher. At the very least, like Indonesia they will find it more politically expedient to ensure that their own citizens pay below-market rates for petrol than to raise domestic prices (by cutting fuel subsidies) and collect additional revenue from international sales.
The result will be that even if total global production continues to rise gradually, the amount of oil available to Western consumers may begin to decline well before the peak. After all, one assumption we all make is that cheap oil fuels GDP growth. If you want to develop your country, don't sell the oil; use it to fuel economic development just like the West did. Indonesia is the most salient example of this, but similar circumstances may occur in other large-population producer countries like Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, and Russia.
-- E.v.T. (aka Silent E)
Gas develops faster and so marginal gas production is more responsive to prices. Estimates for gas production are therefore more uncertain, but the peak date is much farther off.
*
All prices in inflation-adjusted 2000 dollars. Prices are year-end crude prices from EIA.the text at the end was supposed to be the footnotes, but the Auto-Format read the asterices for bolds.
* Note 1: Gas develops faster and so marginal gas production is more responsive to prices. Estimates for gas production are therefore more uncertain, but the peak date is much farther off.
** Note 2: All prices in inflation-adjusted 2000 dollars. Prices are year-end crude prices from EIA.
Petroconsultants was acquired by IHS Energy in 1996.
http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/company/cnn80709.htm
IHS Energy acquired CERA in Sept. 2004
http://cera.com/news/details/1,2318,6834,00.html
so no-one can effectively replicate their work or critique their assumptions.
IHS can. I'm telling you folks, something is fishy here. Are you telling me Boone Pickens, who runs a billion dollar energy hedge fund, hasn't purchased the detailed data from CERA/IHS? And yet he's going on TV saying:
"Never again will we pump more than 82 million barrels."
-- T. Boone Pickens, 9th August 2004. On the Kudlow and Cramer Show, MSNBC.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/08/23/living-with-the-age-of-entropy/
"Global oil [production] is 84 million barrels [per day]. I don't believe you can get it any more than 84 million barrels."
-- T. Boone Pickens, addressing the 11th National Clean Cities conference in May 2005.
http://www.peakoil.net/BoonPickens.html
"I don't believe that you can increase the supply beyond 84 or 85 million barrel as day."
-- T. Boone Pickens, on "CNN In the Money", June 25, 2005.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0506/25/cnnitm.01.html
"Supply is--you`ve just about had it on supply; 85 million barrels a day world supply is about it. "
-- T. Boone Pickens, on Hardball with Chris Matthews, MSNBC, Aug. 26, 2005
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9118826/
Very fishy. I'm telling you, Boone knows the CERA data, and the data Rembrandt put together. He knows oil isn't going to peak until 2012 at the earliest. It strains credulity to think otherwise.
Matt Simmons has the money and the motive (as an energy investment banker) to buy the CERA data too. He didn't??
Matt Simmons has done a field by field survey also,
Do you have a cite for that?
"Very fishy. I'm telling you, Boone knows the CERA data, and the data Rembrandt put together. He knows oil isn't going to peak until 2012 at the earliest. It strains credulity to think otherwise."
I'm not sure what you're saying--are you implying that Pickens is speaking out this way to push up oil prices? Or do you think he did it for some other reason?
Also, I'm not convinced Pickens has actually seen the CERA data, or if he has, why should we assume he believes it? I think there's a good chance he's dismissed it in favor of other information, with or without actually seeing the CERA report. He's been an oil man for a long time, and he's old enough tha he could very well be, shall we say, a little set in his ways.
Please understand that I'm not being critical or argumentative here; my intent is solely to point out that we're all guessing about a lot of details, and when we start talking about the motivations of some highly visible people like Pickens, Simmons, Kunstler, or even each other, we're tap dancing on really thin ice.
"... and when we start talking about the motivations of some highly visible people like Pickens, Simmons, Kunstler, or even each other, we're tap dancing on really thin ice."
Well said Lou! The sound/noise ratio really degrades when people start speculating on the motivations of others. Let's stick to understanding the concepts and data being put foreward and maybe we will all learn something.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Page/document/v4/sub/MarketingPage?user_URL=http://www.theglo beandmail.com%2Fservlet%2FArticleNews%2FTPStory%2FLAC%2F20050504%2FRTICKERITEM04%2FTPBusiness%2F%3Fq uery%3Dtalisman&ord=1126284581974&brand=theglobeandmail&force_login=true
In seperate but related news Rising oil demand could severely strain the world's oil production and transportation systems late this year, predicts Jim Buckee, chief executive officer of Talisman Energy Inc.He suggested that projected demand of 86 million barrels of oil a day in the fourth quarter may not be met by enough supply.
During the Talisman annual meeting in Calgary, Mr. Buckee said conservation and energy efficiency was the "most important" way to reduce oil demand, adding that widespread use of alternatives to oil and natural gas was "extremely unlikely."
I know some folks at EnCana, but unfortunately I trade the stock actively and can't speak to them about these things any more. I've no desire to end up like Martha LOL
If the Saudis have peaked and I think they have it is all over bar the shouting.
Rembrandt's paper refutes that myth as well. As he writes:
"An often heard comment is that if Saudi Arabia peaks the world will peak in world oil production. Given the amount of projects still coming on stream, this scenario is impossible given observed gross decline rates of between 5 and 12%."(P. 7)
If you've got a disagreement, argue with his numbers or his assumptions.
So the comparison of Skrebowski to CERA for 2005/2006 showing large numbers of projects in both reports is not unexpected.
What does CERA have for the 2007 to 2009 period? If there are few large projects placed into service in those years, we could expect depletion of pre-2007 projects to exceed new production from that time on (especially once the 2005 projects are ramped up) until any post 2009 projects (if any) come into play and offset depletion from pre-2009 projects. (By depletion I mean depletion of the production rate, not "depletion" of reserves).
Based of the fact there is NO spare capacity one would have to say he has a good chance of being right.
No, not really. Current market tightness is a function of many things that influence supply and demand, and it's entirely possible that we could have no spare capacity and still be years away from the peak. It's well documented that virtually all parts of the worldwide oil production and distribution infrastructure are at or near their limits. It's definitely possible that geology is the primary production bottleneck, but it's also possible that the bottleneck is one or more "above ground" factors.
Even assuming that crude oil output can increase for the next 5-10 years (technically meaning we have not hit the peak) does this mean we have not peaked with regard to energy delivery?
In multiple posts I have questioned if the entire infrastructure is not currently at peak production and can't increase fast enough to prevent shortages. My point is this. If the intrinsic demand for oil & gas products is increasing at 2.5% but the combined crude and distillate supply (my definition here is average of a basket of crude, NG, gasoline, heating oil) is increasing only at 2.0% don't we have serious problems?
Crude and distillates can increase for years and never catch up to demand. It is irrelevant if crude sometimes increases at 4% for a quarter or so. And sometimes refining can also increase by 4% or so at other times. If these increases are not happening in a coordinated way, overall supply will only increase as fast as the limiting step at any instant in time. No peak in supply for years but lots of bad things happen because supply is not keeping up with demand.
I have read all the posts that say that demand can't ever outstrip supply. My question is: Is it possible to not reach a true peak for years but still choke the world economy for lack of energy?
I re-post below part of my comments from the Late Night Open Thread about how intrinsic demand may not decline even when prices goes very high and supply increases slowly. Please destroy these arguments so I can sleep at night.
-----------------------------------------------
People are doing immediate economic risk analysis. How much money will I get to keep if I do A) vs if I do B). This leads to people buying SUV's after the price of gas has gone up 50% in 6 months. Just because the price is reduced on the SUV by $3000. You could still buy a more fuel efficient car, that seats 5, for less money but people thought they were saving money because they didn't pay list for an Explorer. No thought that since gas already went up by 50% it might just keep going up. They always wanted an SUV and got one cheap.
By this rational doesn't this mean that when oil and NG get scarce that old innefficient technology will get really cheap, but lots of people will buy it because they are on sale? They will rationalize that the money they save on purchase price will more than pay for increased fuel consumption cost. In aggregate we will use more oil than ever until all the inventory of old stuff is gone. There will be fire sales on everything inefficient, and if some manufacturers make profit on this stuff, they will keep making it.
This violates all the economic theory that has been discussed at TOD over the last couple of weeks; Increased price always reduces demand. I'm not convinced it can work fast enough to make any difference in consumption on a global scale. Individual scale yes, global scale no, and that is the only thing important for peak oil.
Yes. That's why prices rise.
Sorry if that seems flip, but it's the heart of the issue. Econ 101: quantity demanded changes with price. If supply only rises by 2%, while constant-price demand would rise faster, then prices will rise until (a) constant-price demand growth slows to match supply growth ("demand destruction"), or (b) the profits for refining become large enough to spur faster increases in supply. Then prices will stabilize the the new - higher - level
----
My question is: Is it possible to not reach a true peak for years but still choke the world economy for lack of energy?
In a sense: the world economy would not choke for lack of energy, but for lack of energy at the price to which it has become accustomed. That's what happened in 1974 and 1979-82. In fact, nearly all post-WW2 recessions began with energy shocks, although in 1991 and 2000 the economic cycle was sufficienly advanced that while the energy shock may have been the last straw, the economy itself was fundamentally weak.
----
people thought they were saving money because they didn't pay list for an Explorer. ... They always wanted an SUV and got one cheap.
Some people are stupid. And some people have sufficient income that they can afford to spend more on gas. And some people like making the vehicle tax-deductible as a "work truck" just to commute to the office every day - tax savings of $10,000 or more! (factoring in the tax break, the Explorer is certainly cheaper than a fuel-efficient sedan or hybrid) Some people need a vehicle NOW and can't wait for six months on a hybrid waiting list. And some people actually need to haul heavy equipment or tow things or drive off-road.
In aggregate we will use more oil than ever until all the inventory of old stuff is gone.
Yes and no. More oil MAY be used by those drivers for commuting. But even after saving money on the purchase of the vehicle, they will still probably limit their driving.
More importantly, the TOTAL oil used by society will be less because of the energy cost of making the vehicles. Since the vehicles are already built, their future energy cost to construct is zero, while junking them and building hybrids or small cars instead has a substantial future energy cost. On that balance, the cost to replace the vehicle may exceed the total gains in fuel economy.
I think new production will fall. A lot of the Big 3 full size SUV and Pickup overproduction right now is just marking time until the 2007 labor talks. When the automakers can shrink the number of plants they have I bet there won't be such a glut. Also the automakers are moving into hybrids and looking at diesels. It'll take time for them to develop products based on these ideas that can be profitably mass produced (right now they can't make enough).
Thanks for response and thoughts. I agree that over a relatively long period of time price will indeed reduce demand. But I am thinking about a much shorter time frame. Think a supply shortage this winter with a simulaneous huge large increase in price.
There are an enormous amount of durable goods already in the system, either inventory or in the production stream. What happens to those goods during a price and supply shock?
My very limited economic understanding says that very high prices will strongly favor purchase of fuel efficient vehicles. But what if consumers, who now have less disposable cash and credit for replacement of vehicles are faced with the choice of low cost/inefficient vs high cost/efficient vehicles, furnaces, and light bulbs. What will people buy?
Wouldn't the sellers of inefficient goods keep dropping the price to move them? Wouldn't purchases of efficient goods be very reduced from model predictions because these new items can't be sold at lower price and still be profitable?
I agree that all smart and informed people will start switching to high efficiency goods no matter what the price difference. But what will the mass of humanity do? Because I don't see them being smart enoough or informed enough to see the consequences of purchasing cheap, but inefficient stuff in times of scarcity. They buy the cheap stuff because they can afford it NOW. They will worry about the future later. Repeat this thought process when later comes.
If money is driving the system, I agree that there will be a shift to efficiency. But what if scarcity is driving the system? What if there is a scarcity of gas at gas stations, will it be first come first serve to fill the tanks? If this is true than hybrid owners that get there late face the same problem as SUV owners - no gas at any price. When gas is delivered then everyone fills up, regardless of tank size or efficiency.
The only way to break this cycle, in my mind is rationing - you can only buy 10 gallons at once, say. This enormously favors high MPG vehicles and penalizes SUV's and trucks. But this is not a free market system. This is government imposing restrictions on the market. Price is not the driver anymore for supply and demand.
Nigeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, São Tome é Príncipe, Côte d'Ivoire, Congo, Edge of the Frontier, Chad (onshore)
Here's the scoop on this region West Africa Leads Deepwater Growth from the Oil & Gas Journal.
When discussing these projects, it is necessary to talk in terms of offshore "blocks". For example, Dalia (Angola) is part of Block 17. All blocks are listed by the by the EIA in Angola's Oil Exploration/Production Blocks. There's a map on that page.
"Above Ground" considerations are discussed in Role of West Africa in our Energy Security (State Dept) and this article America has its sight on West Africa's Gulf of Guinea (Alexanders). Also, look at this article The new Gulf oil states. You might want to take a look at Offshore West Africa.
CERA has a detailed report Potential versus Reality: West African Oil and Gas to 2020. It only costs $15,000 so I expect some people here at TOD to step up to the plate on this one.
"People are doing immediate economic risk analysis. How much money will I get to keep if I do A) vs if I do B). This leads to people buying SUV's after the price of gas has gone up 50% in 6 months. Just because the price is reduced on the SUV by $3000. You could still buy a more fuel efficient car, that seats 5, for less money but people thought they were saving money because they didn't pay list for an Explorer. No thought that since gas already went up by 50% it might just keep going up. They always wanted an SUV and got one cheap.
By this rational doesn't this mean that when oil and NG get scarce that old innefficient technology will get really cheap, but lots of people will buy it because they are on sale? They will rationalize that the money they save on purchase price will more than pay for increased fuel consumption cost. In aggregate we will use more oil than ever until all the inventory of old stuff is gone. There will be fire sales on everything inefficient, and if some manufacturers make profit on this stuff, they will keep making it.
This violates all the economic theory that has been discussed at TOD over the last couple of weeks; Increased price always reduces demand. I'm not convinced it can work fast enough to make any difference in consumption on a global scale. Individual scale yes, global scale no, and that is the only thing important for peak oil."
This is something I personally have never thought about, but now that I think of it that could actually be what's really going to happen. Thank you NC for bringing that up.
Also, I have a question. I quess we all know that in Canada they use natural gas to make synthetic oil out of tar sand. Well, somewhere I read that they use oil in coal mining (in other than fuel for the trucks, but can't remember what exactly it was). So if we lose the NG we won't be getting any oil from the tar sands. And without oil there won't be coal mining(?). So here's my question: What is the possibility of, shall we say, "secondary damage", to our energy suplies once we hit the peak? Could there be a "chain reaction" of supply/reserve loss?
And now that I think about it, don't LNG tankers have diesel engines?
Apologies for the long post.
And now that I think about it, don't LNG tankers have diesel engines?
"The best way to think about it is in terms of Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI). If it is low (as in the Canadian tar sands oil production using natural gas) then production is unsustainable. On the other hand, the amount of oil/diesel used in coal mining and LNG transportation is very low relative the amount of energy produced (high EROEI).
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Examples are book sales, where everyone focuses on the top 10 or top 100, yet Amazon makes a lot of money by stocking millions of books, profiting off the "long tail". Other exmaples include weblogs, the "A list" capturing most of the attention but there are millions of small ones, and companies like blogger make good money off of them. Web pages ranked by views, music ranked by sales, and many other types of items show the same effect.
I recently saw speculation that oil fields may have the same kind of distribution, what is technically called a Zipf distribution. We all focus on the few large fields, but there are huge numbers of smaller fields. At some point it is not economically viable to develop fields smaller than a certain size, but there may still be many small fields that can contribute useful amounts of oil.
Apparently the optimistic CERA report went out to smaller field sizes than the pessimistic ODAC did. If oil fields do have a "long tail" then it could be important not to neglect the medium and small sized fields. They can contribute enough oil to make a big difference, especially when consumption levels are edging up to be so close to potential supply. This long tail effect could explain much of the difference between CERA and ODAC.
What we're seeing -- and this is different from 1973 or the early 80's -- is that due to large discoveries having peaked decades ago and our unquenchable thirst for oil, we are starting to see historically the shift to an actual power law distribution with fewer big fields and more and more smaller ones (the tail).
This has an upside (more impervious to disruptions at any one small source) and a downside (less impervious to disruptions at any one large source). I agree that the CERA/ODAC discrepancies probably do reflect the broader scope of coverage by CERA. Any analysis of production estimates must take this into account as we go further out year by year.
"The United States contains over 500,000 producing oil wells, the vast majority of which are considered "marginal" or "stripper" wells"
With a total production of about 5 million barrels a day, on average each well produces only 10 barrels a day. I don't know how many wells are in the typical oilfield but there could be a lot of oil in fields producing less than 100,000 barrels a day that CS has excluded.
Saudi Arabia, in contrast, has over 1000 wells. That's about 10,000 barrels per day per well. That's probably why some people think that Saudi Arabia has a lot of oil to be developed. However, depletion, as shown by the US experience, is an issue though.
- Everyone agrees on what is about to come online, these projects have long lead times and they are a matter of public record.
- The primary points of divergence are depletion rates and the potential for new large projects in the out years. Do, you believe that the current and probably sustained high prices are going to generate another wave of large volume projects or is this wishful thinking?
I think we need to focus on depletion rates. That is where the divergence lies. The best reporting is in the North Sea. Ask yourself who's model looks to be more realistic compared to the data.Sakhalin II, expansion delayed for a year probably starting in may next year. Currently producing 70.000 barrels per day. Scheduled output to output is expected to reach 150,000-155,000 bpd when the Piltun Astokhskoye B platform becomes operational.
http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/company/cnr53567.htm
Other fields:
Golfinho Brazil (2003 discovery), supposed to come onstream around 2006 and adding 100.000 barrels per day.
Enfield-Laverda-Vincent, Australia, block supposed to add around 100.000 barrels per day
Kurmangazy, Kazakhstan, supposedly to add 600.000 barrels per day between 2006 and 2013. Don't know exactly how much it will add in 2006 though (guesswork, i added 80.000 barrels per day in 2006)
Then what i think about the difference between CERA and ODAC:
ODAC --> 100.000+ projects, Cera --> 75.000+ projects. Major difference. Means Odac's analysis is inconclusive and Cera's also. There are some small projects between 30.000 and 50.000 barrels per day. Which do add up to a few million barrels per day of production.
ODAC --> overestimates depletion and calculates it on a net basis. (not gross depletion). So what ODAC does is get net depletion and compare that with projects added. NOT a good way of doing things.
Then secondly ODAC bases their numbers on 1 year only, BP statistical review 2004. From that he (Chris Skrebowski) extrapolates absolute depletion into the future as increasing. Will depletion will actually decrease (as in absolute number not in percentages) as the decline base (the amount of oil declining) decreases.
CERA --> underestimates depletion, they do not take the smaller countries which have already declined in their analysis.
As to depletion rates and my analysis errors:
You have to be careful figuring in depletion rates and new projects. And i tend to think that you should see it as a trend. The coming 5 years there are enough projects planned to come on-stream. The trend is thus that we will not peak. Yes some countries may decline more, but there also will be a little bit more projects. It kind off cancels eachother out.
As to beyond 2010. Its a guesstimate based on logic.
As for the UK depleting 15%, check the UK thread i think that the assesment is wrong.
Actually my concern is not exactly with the instantateous depletion rates (and bear in mind that Nick's analysis was comparing relative production drop to last years equivalent figures, not the month to preceding month). I am concerned with overall depletion rates because there is a significant and growing body of evidence that when you go to MRC (maximum reservoir contact) with simultaneous waterflood that the depletion rate is much higher than with conventional techniques. Conventional has given us the widely used 7% depletion rate. If we are now seeing 14% (Oman, parts of Saudi, Cantarell & now the North Sea) then this has to be of concern, and seriously affects the energy balance and the down-slope sides of the curves that folks are plotting out. Further, as we have discussed earlier, in Deepwater (and even shallow offshore) when the production drops to a certain point it's "cap the well and let's go" time, rather than the land-based final answer which is a donkey engine and residual production for years.
Question is why the difference between norwegian and UK decline is so big?
Still not really clear were it is going to though.
Also, I myself would be never say its merely politics ... especially since a major producer (Russia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia!) could come crashing down due to "just" politics.
Running a comparison with Forties where we have a long history of data, its EUR is 2.7 Gbbls and yet peak rate was only 500k bopd.
If ratio of peak rate v EUR in Buzzard were the same as Forties that would indicate Buzzard peak at just 83.3k bopd. Is the c450m bbls EUR for Buzzard a big under-estimate or are we simply planning on pulling the wells real hard?
http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/11/markets/oil.reut/index.htm