Ron Patterson – Page 75 – Peak Oil Barrel

Problems and Politics Keeping Crude Oil Production Well Below Expectations

01/02/201401/30/2014 Ron Patterson 24 Comments

OPEC December Crude Output Falls to 2-Year Low: Survey

Venezuelan Policies

Venezuelan production dropped 235,000 barrels a day to 2.45 million this month, the survey showed. The South American country pumped the least crude since October 2011. Resources have been diverted from energy sector into social welfare programs, sending production lower.

Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the state oil company, was purged after a two-month oil strike intended to oust President Hugo Chavez from power in 2003. Nicolas Maduro, who became president in March when Chavez died, has continued his predecessor’s policies.

“It’s hard to see how the situation in Venezuela gets any better,” said Bill O’Grady, chief market strategist at Confluence Investment Management in St. Louis, which oversees $1.4 billion. “Funds have been used to prop up the government instead of maintaining the oil industry since the PDVSA strike in 2003. It’s clear the country is on an unsustainable path.”

Data for the above graph is from the latest OPEC MOMR published last month and includes data through November 2012. It has Venezuela crude only production at 2,364,000 bp/d in November so it differs considerably from the Bloomberg report above. That report may be using production reported by Venezuela themselves which they reported as 2,854,000 bp/d for November or 490,000 kb/d above what the OPEC MOMR’s “secondary sources” said they produced.

The U.S. Monthly Energy Review

12/24/201301/30/2014 Ron Patterson 108 Comments

The US Monthly Energy Review is now up with all the US Oil and Gas data for November. US (estimated) Crude + Condensate production was 8,002 kb/d for November. I think that will be revised later because the Bakken had a bad month in November.

The average, so far this year, has been 7,438 kb/d and if December production is as much as November then the average for 2013 will be about 7,485 kb/d. AEO 2014 estimated 2013 production at 7,756 kb/d so it would appear that they are already a bit high with their prediction.

Natural gas liquids, along with natural gas is supposed to be a major player in our drive for “energy independence”, is up about 1 million barrels per day since 2006.

Will US Light Tight Oil Save The World?

12/20/201301/30/2014 Ron Patterson 136 Comments

There has been plenty of hoopla lately concerning the boom in shale (LTO) oil production. From the New York Times: Surge Seen in U.S. Oil Output, Lowering Gasoline Prices

Domestic oil production will continue to soar for years to come, the Energy Department predicted on Monday, scaling to levels not seen in nearly half a century by 2016.

The annual outlook by the department’s Energy Information Administration was cited by experts as confirmation that the United States was well on its way — far faster than anticipated even a year ago — to achieving virtual energy independence.

What the EIA is actually predicting: AEO2014 EARLY RELEASE OVERVIEW. The data is C+C.

The first two points were what was actually produced in 2011 and 2012 and the rest of the blue line is what they are predicting for the future. The orange line is what they predicted last year. The predicted numbers this year are a lot higher but the shape of the curve looks the same. They predict US Crude + Condensate will plateau in 2016, actually peak in 2019 and by 2021 be headed for a permanent decline.

Note the difference between AEO 2013 and AEO 2014. The difference rises to just over 2 mb/d and holds that difference util 2030 when it slowly closes down to 1.37 mb/d in 2040. And everything above about 5 mb/d is all Shale, or Light Tight Oil. They expect LTO to rise to about 4.5 mb/d by 2016, hold that level for almost 5 years and for LTO to still be above 2.5 mb/d by 2040.

Bakken Update, Is Production Slowing Down?

12/13/201301/30/2014 Ron Patterson 85 Comments

The Bakken production data published by North Dakota is out with October production data. ND Monthly Bakken Oil Production Statistics (Bakken Only) and ND Monthly Oil Production Statistics (All North Dakota).

The below chart is North Dakota Bakken barrels per day and All North Dakota Barrels per day. As you can see it’s mostly Bakken and very little “the rest of North Dakota.

It looks like there is a pattern developing. I charted the month to month percent change in the chart below with a line indicating a possible trend.

EIA Shale Oil Drilling Productivity Report

12/09/201301/30/2014 Ron Patterson 6 Comments

The new EIA Drilling Productivity Report has just been published with their shale oil production and prediction numbers out through January 2014.

I have discovered something very strange about their numbers. But first here is the Bakken data. I have shortened the time frame to just two years in order to better show what is happening. I have plotted what the EIA reported last month along with what they reported in this last report. The data is in barrels per day.

There was extremely little revision in the data from the report last month.

And now Eagle Ford Production in barrels per day.

Eagle Ford was revised downward and like the data, the revisions were extremely linear. But the dead give away was when I plotted the percent change of from month to month.