April 2015 – Page 2 – Peak Oil Barrel

North Dakota Bakken February Production

04/14/201504/14/2015 Ron Patterson 396 Comments

The NDIC Bakken Production Data and the NDIC North Dakota Production Data is in. Production in the Bakken was down 11,941 barrels per day and production in all North Dakota was down 14,104 bpd. The numbers for January were revised slightly. January Bakken was down 35,064 from December and all North Dakota was down 36,331 bpd from December.

As I have pointed out before, the EIA’s Drilling Productivity Report, for some unknown reason, estimates the last six or seven months, when the actual data is available. In the above chart they estimate from October on. This throws their current numbers way off. The DPR data includes the Montana Bakken therefore their numbers will naturally be higher than the North Dakota data.

Of course the EIA DPR will eventually bring their numbers into what North Dakota is reporting. The above is what the eventual Drilling Productivity Report will look like. (In Orange). Here is the amount the historical DPR is off.

Read More

EIA’s April Drilling Productivity Report

04/13/201504/13/2015 Ron Patterson 154 Comments

The EIA just released its Drilling Productivity Report for April. In this report they have post what they expect the shale production data will look like through May 2015.

The EIA is expecting a rounded top for shale production. They are expecting a big drop of total shale production in May to the tune of 56,673 barrels per day. In April they had total shale production down 2,098 bpd.

The EIA has Bakken, Eagle Ford and Niobrara down but still has the Permian up by 10,647 bpd.

Read More

The EIA’s International Energy Outlook 2014

04/10/201504/10/2015 Ron Patterson 493 Comments

Last year I posted a lot of data published in the EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2014 published in May of last year, and the next one is due out Tuesday April 14. We are looking forward to that. But the EIA’s International Energy Outlook 2014, published last September, completely slipped by me. How did I miss that? But I looked at their predictions for world Crude plus Condensate production I found it very interesting.

In the below, though the data was posted in September, I have assumed the 2014 data was complete. Though it may be a little off it is close enough for, as the saying goes, “government work”‘. The data is in million barrels per day with the last data point 2040.

The EIA is expecting World C+C to reach just over 99 million barrels per day in 2040. That will be up 21.25 million bpd from 2014.

This chart shows just which countries, they believe, will be responsible for that 21.25 million bpd increase. That is except for OPEC. They do not break out OPEC production by country.

Read More

EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook + Texas

04/07/201504/07/2015 Ron Patterson 429 Comments

The EIA has released their latest Short-Term Energy Outlook. Below I compare the EIA’s ever changing outlook for future oil production. The STEO charts below are total liquids and are in million barrels per day.

The EIA increased their December 2014 all liquids estimate but dramatically decreased their January 2015 estimate. The EIA now says US total liquids production declined by 480,000 barrels per day in January.

The EIA still believes non-OPEC total liquids production will take off but not until 2016. They have non-OPEC liquids reaching a new high in December but dropping almost one million barrels per day in January and not reaching that December high again until July of 2016.

Read More

The Competitive Exclusion Principle

04/03/201504/03/2015 Ron Patterson 504 Comments

Evolution is all about a struggle for survival and reproduction. For predators it becomes an arms race. For hundreds of millions of years predatory animals have honed their offensive weapons while prey animals have evolved ever more effective defensive adaptations. Each animal, predator or prey, carved out their particular niche and occupied that niche until they were driven out, to another niche, or went extinct, or still occupy it today.

And that’s the way it went for hundreds of millions of years. Every species multiplying its numbers to the limit its niche or habit would support. Species waxed and waned, predator and prey maintaining a balance. When the prey numbers would expand the predator numbers would expand and when too many predators reduced prey numbers, then the predator numbers would also wane.

For millions of years nature kept every species in check. Population explosions of any species was soon met by either an corresponding explosion of predatory animals, or in cases were there were not enough predator animals, like rat or mice plagues, starvation would ultimately reduce their numbers to what the territory would support.