Peak Oil Update - December 2006: Production Forecasts and EIA Oil Production Numbers

An update on the last production numbers from the EIA along with different oil production forecasts.



World oil production (EIA Monthly) and various forecasts (2001-2027). Click to Enlarge.

What's new:

  • IEA forecast (World Energy Outlook, 2006)
  • IEA forecast (World Energy Outlook, 2005)
  • IEA forecast (World Energy Outlook, 2004)
  • Forecasts for Saudi Arabia
A French version is also available on TOD:Canada here.
Notations:
  • mbpd= Millions of barrels per day
  • Gb= Billions of barrels (109)
  • Tb= Trillions 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 (September)

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 July 2006) for crude oil and lease condensate (noted CO) on which I added the NGPL production (noted CO+NGL).

The All liquids peak is now May 2005 at 85.205 mbpd, the year to date average values (9 months) are down from 2005 for all the categories. The peak dates are unchanged for Crude Oil + Cond., NGPL and Crude Oil + NGL (see Table I below).


Fig 1.- World production (EIA data). Click to Enlarge.


Category Sept 2006 Sept 2005 12 MA1 2006 9 Months 2005 9 Months Share Peak Date Peak Value
All Liquids 84.64 84.01 84.43 84.41 84.45 100.00% 2005-05 85.21
Crude Oil + NGL 81.09 80.86 81.24 81.21 81.30 95.80% 2005-05 81.97
Other Liquids 3.55 3.15 3.19 3.20 3.15 4.20% 2006-09 3.55
NGPL 7.77 7.58 7.78 7.83 7.81 9.18% 2005-02 8.04
Crude Oil + Condensate 73.32 73.28 73.46 73.38 73.50 86.62% 2005-12 74.08
Table I - Production estimate (in millions of barrels per day (mbpd)) for September 2006 taken from the EIA website (International Petroleum Monthly). 1Moving Average on the last 12 months.

The share of CO is now only 86.62% of the total liquid production.



Fig 2.- Share of each liquid category to the total liquid production. Click to Enlarge.





Fig 2.- 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.



Fig 3.- 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 the last newsletter (#71): 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.



Fig 4.- 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:


Fig 5.- 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%) most of the year but went back in positive territory since last July.


Fig 6.- Year-on-Year production growth. Click to Enlarge.





Forecast 2005 2006 2007 2010 2015 Peak Date Peak Value
All Liquids
Observed (EIA) 84.49 84.41 NA NA NA 2005-05 85.21
Koppelaar (2005) 84.06 85.78 86.61 89.21 87.98 > 2011 > 89.58
EIA (IEO, 2006) 82.70 84.50 86.37 91.60 98.30 > 2030 > 118.00
IEA (WEO, 2006) 83.60 85.10 86.62 91.30 99.30 > 2030 > 116.30
IEA (WEO, 2005) 84.00 85.85 87.64 92.50 99.11 > 2030 > 115.40
IEA (WEO, 2004) 82.06 83.74 85.41 90.40 98.69 > 2030 > 121.30
CERA1 (2006) 87.77 89.52 91.62 97.24 104.54 > 2035 > 130.00
Lahèrrere (2006) 83.59 84.82 85.96 88.93 92.27 2018 92.99
Lahèrrere (2005) 83.59 84.47 85.23 86.96 87.77 2014 87.84
Crude Oil + NGL
Observed (EIA) 81.37 81.21 NA NA NA 2005-05 81.97
IEA (WEO, 2006) 80.10 81.38 82.67 86.50 92.50 > 2030 > 104.90
ASPO-71 80.00 81.90 84.48 90.00 85.00 2010 90.00
ASPO-58 81.00 82.03 83.10 85.00 79.18 2010 85.00
ASPO-45 81.00 80.95 80.80 80.00 73.77 2005 81.00
Koppelaar (2006) 81.76 82.31 83.68 91.00 NA > 2010 91.00
Bakhtiari (2003) 80.24 80.89 80.89 77.64 69.51 2006 80.89
Skrebowski (2006) 80.90 81.42 82.59 87.32 NA > 2010 87.92
Staniford (High) 77.45 77.92 78.31 79.01 78.51 2011-10 79.08
Staniford (Med) 75.81 75.94 75.97 75.52 73.00 2007-05 75.98
Staniford (Low) 70.46 70.13 69.71 67.92 63.40 2002-07 70.88
Loglets 81.12 82.14 83.02 84.65 83.26 2012-01 84.80
GBM (2003) 76.06 76.27 76.33 75.30 67.79 2007-05 76.34
Shock Model (2006) 80.76 80.43 80.01 78.27 73.74 2003 81.17
Constant barrels/capita 78.81 79.73 80.66 83.42 88.01 > 2050 > 110.64
Crude Oil + Lease Condensate
Observed (EIA) 73.58 73.38 NA NA NA 2005-12 74.08
IEA (WEO, 2006) 70.80 71.78 72.77 75.70 80.30 > 2030 > 89.10
CERA1 (2006) 76.49 76.89 78.60 82.29 83.83 > 2038 > 97.58
ASPO-71 73.10 74.45 75.87 78.00 72.00 2010 78.00
ASPO-58 73.00 73.80 74.65 76.00 69.50 2010 76.00
ASPO-58 72.80 72.56 72.25 71.00 63.55 2005 72.80
Deffeyes (2004) 69.81 69.81 69.71 68.90 65.88 2005-12 69.82
Table II. Summary of all the forecasts (figures are in mbpd) as well as the last EIA estimates.1Productive capacities.

Saudi Arabia

The Figure 7 below gives Saudi Arabia production for crude oil and NGPL (data from the EIA: Monthly Energy Review for CO and the International Petroleum Monthly for NGPL).


I've added a simple domestic consumption forecast based on a population forecast by the UN and a constant number of barrels per capita at (see here for details). In order for exports to remain at their 2005 level and assuming the aforementioned consumption model, production needs to grow by (orange dotted line on the charts).



Fig 7.- Saudi Arabia oil production (EIA Monthly) and various forecasts (2001-2020). The EIA estimate is a productive capacity (PC). Click to Enlarge.

Forecast 2005 2006 2007 2010 2015 Peak Date Peak Value
Crude Oil + NGL
Observed (EIA) 11.01 10.75 NA NA NA 2005-04 11.06
IEA (WEO, 2006) 10.60 10.83 11.03 11.60 13.30 > 2030 > 17.30
IEA (WEO, 2005) 10.62 10.85 11.09 11.90 13.62 > 2030 > 18.20
EIA (IEO, 2006) 12.13 12.79 13.37 14.40 14.80 2015 14.80
Crude Oil + Lease Condensate
Observed (EIA) 9.55 9.28 NA NA NA 1980-11 10.41
Consumption
Cont. Barrels/Capita 1.71 1.75 1.79 1.92 2.14 > 2050 > 3.43
Table III. Summary of all the forecasts (figures are in mbpd) as well as the last EIA estimates.1Productive capacities.

Next update in January.

Previous Update:

November 2006
October 2006
September 2006