OPEC April 2020 Production Data

Ron Patterson Uncategorized

by RON PATTERSON posted on 05/16/2020 [EDIT]

All OPEC data in the charts below are from the OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report. The data is through April and is in thousand barrels per day.

OPEC 13 crude oil production was up 1.8 million barrels per day in April. They are about 3 million barrels per day below their November 2016 High.

As you can see the increase came from only three countries, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.

OPEC April 2020 Production Data

Algeria has been in decline for about a decade.

Angola has been in decline for over three years.

The Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon are among the also-rans. Their production has little effect on OPEC overall production.

Iranian production continues to decline due to sanctions. They are now under two million barrels per day.

Very surprisingly, Iraq did not increase production in April. I think Iraq does its own thing and pays little attention to what OPEC dictates.

Kuwait increased crude production 259,000 bpd in April and 460,000 over the past two months. How is this possible?

Libya’s export ports are still being blockaded.

Nigeria is still producing what they can, down over 600,000 bpd from their 2005 high.

Saudi Arabia increased its crude oil production by 1,553,000 barrels per day in April. Two big questions, how did they manage this and why did they do it?

The Unite Arab Emirates increased crude production by 332,000 bpd in April and by 774,000 bpd over the last two months. Again, how and why?

Venezuela reached a new low in April, 622,000 barrels per day.

Saudi+UAE+Kuwait were up 2,144,000 barrels per day in April while the rest of OPEC was down 347,000 barrels per day. I cannot explain these numbers. I am hoping someone else has an explanation. However, I do not believe that these three countries could just open their spigots a bit wider and increase production that much.

While OPEC crude only was up 1.8 million barrels per day, World total liquids were down 180,000 barrels per day. That means Non-OPEC really took a hit in April. OPEC says that hit, total liquids plus OPEC NGLs, wat 1,980,000 barrels per day.

Russian C+C production was up 51,000 barrels per day in April to 11,302,000 bpd.

The EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook came out a few days ago. Below are their projections for the rest of 2020 and 2021.

The non-projected data here and below is through April 2020.

87 thoughts to “OPEC April 2020 Production Data”

  1. Thanks Ron as always interesting.
    Didn’t saudi kuweit come to an agreement about neutral zone and started production again? Perhaps a few 100 boepd from that?

    Rest from storage and defered maintenance?

    I assume on top of that they run every resource flat out ignoring long term effects doubtful they could have maintained this for a prolonged time.

  2. Thanks for your untiring work.

    Maybe Saudi, UAE and Kuwait supplied from inventories. Saudi numbers are especially surprising as they were hit in Abqaiq last September.

    The Sydney Morning Herald has this article:

    ‘Peak oil’ risk returns – but with a twist
    https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/peak-oil-risk-returns-but-with-a-twist-20200515-p54t8e.html

    My research on airlines:

    3 May 2020
    How the first phase of peak oil brought Virgin Australia into minus after 2008
    http://crudeoilpeak.info/how-the-first-phase-of-peak-oil-brought-virgin-australia-into-minus-after-2008

  3. Very weird evolution of oil production for UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. I guess that the agreement of oil cut production about 9,5 Mb/day will take time to be implemented. But the agreement was announced April 12. It’s illogical that they decided to increase their productions so brutally if they wanted to increase the price of oil barrel. Unless they chose to profit of the relative increase of price oil barrel on the different markets before cutting in their productions. Perhaps, in part, they sold oil which was stored in tankers and in other places.

  4. STEO World Liquids Projection Feb 2020- Dec 2021, with international EIA data from Jan 2017 to Jan 2020.

    1. It’s not going to come back to the levels of production after january 2018. Conclusion : shortages of oil for some people!

      1. World peaked in November 2018. Period.

        It will never be clear if it had also peaked without Covid-19, but my strong assumption is: yes.

        1. Westtexasfanclub,

          For a very conservative tight oil and extra heavy oil scenario, we could still see a new peak if the economy recovers and oil prices rise to more than $65/bo.

          1. Using the scenario above for tight oil and extra heavy oil and combining with a shock model for conventional oil with extraction rate for conventional (excludes tight oil and extra heavy oil) oil as shown in chart (on right hand axis) we get a peak in 2028 for the scenario below. Note that the extraction rate was between 6.7% and 11% from 1980 to 1993.

            1. Dennis, who am I to tell the future …
              But if things don’t turn out very rosy very soon, we will have a couple of years here on the forum to disagree. While my personal view is much closer to Ron’s, I always enjoy the disagreements here and find them very inspiring. Who had thought that we can enjoy this for a couple of years more? Inspiring times, I would say.

            2. Westtexasfanclub,

              I did not mean to imply that you are incorrect, only that there are other possibilities. Also you tend to focus on monthly output maximum and I focus on the annual average output peak (to date this remains 2018 for World C C), so for me the peak month of World C C output is unimportant in comparison to peak annual C C output.

              Chart below keeps the tight oil and extra heavy oil output as in my first chart above, but modifies extraction rate a bit so the peak is 84 Mb/d in 2026 and 2027. I show a longer period of historical extraction rates for conventional oil to give some perspective on “reasonable” extraction rates, in 1973 the extraction rate was 12.1% and in 1979 the extraction rate was 11.7%, by 1985 the extraction rate had fallen to 8.1% and by 1990 to 7.5%.

              Chart small, bigger chart by clicking on chart.

      2. Jean,

        I would say we don’t know what will happen, odds are good that the STEO projection will be incorrect, we surely do not know what happens after Dec 2021.

    2. penny farthing !

      so what’s the distance between lamp posts and traffic lights ( uh perhaps you don’t have such posts to lean on when having to stop at junctions ) ?

      new or refurbished ?

      thanks for posting

  6. Could the dramatic increase in production from SA,UAE and Kuwait be a coordinated action to undermine the USA oil industry (via low prices)? A so-called ‘hit them when they’re down’ strategy, hoping for more damage and thus less competition in the upcoming few years. This despite the public agreement on limiting production.

    1. Hickory, to me it seems to be exactly this: hit them when they’re down, while everybody was expecting production cuts, thereby being caught off guard (especially the US fracking industry).

      A nice additional side effect for the OPEC countries (they certainly pulled this off with storage): the freed capacity will be very useful in the weeks to come.

  8. The virus is a cover.

    ‘Conventional’ oil (pressurized medium weight oil produced in a primary/secondary regime) peaked in 2005. Hence the “Greatest Recession Ever”.

    Since then all growth has come from tertiary reserves; tight shale, tar sands. Now it’s all in collapse. That is what counts. The rest is blather

    1. The virus is a cover.

      You mean the Covid-19 epidemic was created to cover the fact of peak oil and all the problems it will create? Pardon me, but that is the very stupidest conspiracy theory I have ever heard. Even stupider than Obamagate.

      Peter, your oil theories may have some merit. But you screw your whole damn theory up by proposing such a dumb-ass conspiracy theory. The two just don’t go together.

      1. It was once thought that lack of access to good information resources contributed to more people being stupid. The Internet has proven that to be false.

        1. Survivalist,

          Lots of bad and good information out there, critical thinking is required to filter the bad information. Most people never learn to think.

      2. I agree Ron . Correlation is not causation . At the same time I like to inject that the financial collapse was a ^ work in progress ^ since 2008 and would have hit the wall by end of 2020 . The virus is the catalyst that has accelerated the process . Though not a conspiracy theory, but it gives TPTB an excuse to shift the blame from their own screw up .

      3. Ron, I don’t know what all Peter Starr has in mind, but all he said is “The virus is a cover” That does not mean that we are free to extrapolate that to saying that Peter is sure that the virus was created in a lab or that this virus is no worse than an average flu or any other disingenuous extrapolation.

        Be that as it may; The best test case that I am aware of, that we have so far, is the Diamond princess. Roughly 3,600 passengers and crew. Only 712 ever tested positive even though they were all together in very close contact on that ship for weeks. So far 13 have died and 4 are still in critical so in my book that would be same as dead or worse.

        We don’t know for sure whether more would have got it if nothing would have been done but at a minimum 0.47% and if all would have got covid 19 and an equal percentage die then we could extrapolate at a maximum 2.4% of all folks on board would die.

        Now if anybody thinks that 0.47% to 2.4% or even 5% of all people on this planet dying within a year or two, is to many than obviously those people are not prepared intellectually or emotionally for the effects of peak oil within the next decade or for the effects of the projected climate change in the next two decades.

        1. Agreed, Farmland.
          The virus might not be implemented as a cover (could this be done?), but certainly will be (or already is) used as a cover for a malfunctioning economy and wrong and harmful political decisions.

          1. Viral Opportunism & Live Exercises

            We don’t have to necessarily have conspiracies to have opportunities that many different governments around the world can leverage/benefit from in many different ways.

            Opportunism can go viral too and it can be very contageous.

            – Extinction Rebellion protests
            – Yellow Vest protests/riots
            – Underfunded pensions
            – Greta Thunburg
            – Canadian railway blockade
            – Climate Change (IPCC says we’ve got ~11 years to ‘brake’ economy)
            – Hong Kong protests/riots
            – China’s economic issues
            – Syria/Yemen/Venezuela (Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Soleimani…)
            – Fracking’s Denoument/Unprofitability
            – Business/Government activity/competition for decreasing FF sources
            – KSA’s oil resource question and recent internal politcal shakeup
            – MAGA and reverse outsourcing
            – Resilience and Relocalization
            …
            What Did U.S. Intel Really Know About the ‘Chinese’ Virus?

            “The bottom line is explosive: the Trump administration as well as the CDC had an advance warning of no less than four months – from November to March – to be properly prepared for Covid-19 hitting the U.S. And they did nothing. The whole ‘China is a witch!’ case is debunked.

            Moreover, the Israeli disclosure supports what’s nothing less than extraordinary: U.S. intel already knew about Sars-Cov-2 roughly one month before the first confirmed cases detected by doctors in a Wuhan hospital. Talk about divine intervention.

            That could only have happened if U.S. intel knew, for sure, about a previous chain of events that would necessarily lead to the ‘mysterious outbreak’ in Wuhan. And not only that: they knew exactly where to look. Not in Inner Mongolia, not in Beijing, not in Guangdong province.

            It’s never enough to repeat the question in full: how could U.S. intel have known about a contagion one month before Chinese doctors detected an unknown virus?

            Mike ‘We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal’ Pompeo may have given away the game when he said, on the record, that Covid-19 was a ‘live exercise‘. Adding to the ABC News and Israeli reports, the only possible, logical conclusion is that the Pentagon – and the CIA – knew ahead of time a pandemic would be inevitable.”

        2. Farmlad,

          Apropos to your comments on case fatality rates, the situation with the Diamond Princess is telling. It has now been 61 days since the last person tested positive. Everyone aboard was tested, with 712 confirmed. As you noted, thus far there have been 13 fatalities. So: 13/712 • 100 = 1.8% for a case fatality rate (CFR). This is 18 times seasonal influenza and is worth paying attention to. Of course, the average age of people that go on cruise ships is quite high, so this might be considered a ≥50 year old type of CFR.

          At the opposite end of the spectrum is the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, which had at least 1,102 cases out of a crew of over 4,800. All were tested. Last time I checked, one person has died (age 41). The CFR in this instance is 1/1,102 = 0.1%. This is about equivalent to seasonal influenza and does not look so concerning. The average age on aircraft carriers is much lower than cruise ships. Thus, this gives us a snapshot of what things are like for younger people.

          For a general population CFR, the mean for the entire population, just average the conditions from the two vessels: 1.8% + 0.1% / 2 = 1.0%. This is ten times seasonal influenza. An order-of-magntiude higher is truly significant, and clearly explains the world-wide implementation of social distancing and “lockdown”. I note that estimates have now been made for the situation in New York using the serology tests, with around 2.7 million suspected of being infected so far. Taking the current number of deaths at the time I saw this figure reported (about a week ago), a staggering 24,039 in that state alone (most of them in New York City), the CFR can be estimated at 0.9%, which is very close to the estimate from the two vessels, and about 9 times that of seasonal influenza. This virus, SARS-CoV-2, is most definitely a concern.

          -best,

          Wolf

          1. Great observation, Wolf.
            To put it very roughly: this virus WITH quarantining is within the ballpark of influenza WITHOUT special measures. Now, to make it a little bit more complicated: how many lifes does the quarantine cost, for example because of delayed chirurgical interventions or economic mayham? I didn’t make my mind up yet, which strategy would – or rather would have been – the correct one (still having certain sympathy for Sweden). This, of course, is a very comfortable contemplation, done by somebody who doesn’t have to assume any responsibility. This said, I’ve got utter respect for all those who had to take decisions swiftly – and did not chose the perfect solution (if there is any).
            This virus is a bitch and we’ll have to cope with it for a long, long while.

            1. Indeed we will be living with this for a long time. One thing to think about is that lives have been saved with the lockdown, work-at-home orders and job losses because people are driving less. This effect has been observed after big earthquakes in California. After the 1994 Northridge quakes, driving was down for many weeks, and the net effect was to offset the lives lost due to fewer vehicle crashes. Here in British Columbia there has been a major reduction in insurance claims for example, to the tune of about $160 million so far. Many people also cancelled insurance, reflecting the reduction in car use–to the tune of approximately $250 million in revenue. However, I will add that up here in Canada the early data on fatalities points to the idea that excess deaths from the pandemic will be high enough to be above “background”, even considering the positive benefits of stay-at-home orders, and will be significant.

            2. Examples from boats, even assuming they are anywhere near internally scientifically-rigorous, are not necessarily representative of general populations nor referenced-disease outbreaks and, for example, can echo the kind of shallow, misleading and/or irresponsible representations (‘fear porn’, etc.) of some legacy mainstream media.

              See also here.

          2. Nice analysis. Apply to the whole of the USA 1% gives you 3 1/2 million dead with millions more suffering consequences for months or whole of life.

            The current mortality rate is with health services that are barely coping. If restrictions and other preventative measures are removed so that the epidemic spreads uncontrolled, I do not see health services coping and, very quickly, collapsing. If that happens I also expect many health workers giving up as they fail to see any way they can stop it and decide the only way is self preservation. The result will be mortality rate well in excess of 1%.

            NAOM

            1. NAOM

              You really have bought into the fear mongering.

              Friends of mine who have your fear laden mentality tend not to have a grasp of the actual risk of dying.

              They see the deaths each day and have no other data to bring any perspective to the situation.

              One child dies and they say close all schools, yet those same children have a thousand times more risk of being killed on the roads.

              Fact 70% of deaths are obese, 95% of people who die from covid have one of the following heart disease, diabetes, dementia, or are over 80.

              People under 70 who regularly do regular exercise and eat a good balanced diet have a survival rate of 999 out of a thousand.

              In other words those 999 people out of a thousand healthy under 70 year will die of something else!!

            2. 1 in 1000 of 50 million people is 50,000 excess deaths. If you are suggesting those who have a medical condition, that is no fault of their own, are welcome to die then you are a piece of shit. Goodbye.

              NAOM

            3. Meta-Pseudo Virus Danger

              Wayne, it looks like notanoilman, in his ideological safe-space quarantine-cum-panopticon, just meta-pseudo-crapped his meta-pseudo-diapers and confused the result with you. Please accept my apologies for him.

              I’d be willing to sign a bureaucratic governpimp form that says that if I caught the virus (assuming I didn’t already), I would refuse any governpimp-funded hospital medical treatment for it, especially if it meant that those ceaselessly quivering in and of FUD, social-distanced (even better, quarantined) and left the rest of us alone and free.

              Kukkurukuu

            4. Yes there are rich people with plenty of food and a big garden who have no concept of what it is like to go to food banks for the last 8 weeks.

              Morons like NAOM also have no idea that in the UK 50,000 people will die due to delayed cancer treatment. Many far younger than COVID victims.

              That is more than all the COVID victims.

              This is one disease among so many

    1. Okay, I guess this explains it. Saudi and Kuwait brought the Neutral Zone back online and the UAE is somehow ramping up. I do not understand how or why they did not do this earlier when prices were high. But….

      1. Is it plausible to suggest that KSA et al had a lot of oil in storage that they released and claimed instead that it was fresh out the well aka produced that month? Perhaps in order to goose the stats re their surge capacity capability? Any takers?

    1. Ron,

      If the 1 frac crew estimate is not a typo, that would suggest only 3 or 4 new wells for the month of May.

  11. Ron, I described it as a ‘cover’, not an invention. It certainly exists, is rightfully a concern, yet while it is a pandemic in the technical sense (global, as per SARS), it is certainly not a general mass ‘killer’. Why is demographic data not roundly published, when we know that preconditions play heavily into mortality?

    The virus seems to be abating. We are now entering the summer season (the flu/covid killer), and fears of a double peak are unlikely. To ask whether this media circus has ulterior motives, was aided or abetted by the Medical-industrial Complex or in fact is deliberate Compliance Training for a real post-peak lockdown seems to to be a reasonable question. I thought this forum among all others might be the place to ask it. I was wrong.

    1. “The virus seems to be abating. ”
      Its rate of growth has slowed, as a result of all the dramatic measures the individuals of the country have taken to protect themselves, but the numbers of confirmed deaths is still climbing briskly- will reach over 100,000 by June 1st. As of today, deaths in the USA have doubled in the last 29 days.
      But certainly not abating- which means contracting or disappearing.
      When you say the virus is a cover- it sounds like you are saying it is being used as an excuse related to oil production. Not sure what you mean by that. I find your media/medical/post-peak lockdown allegation of ulterior motives just outright bizarre, to be frank.

    2. The virus seems to be abating.

      Bullshit! The virus is definitely not abating, it is growing like there was no tomorrow. And for many who get the virus, there is no tomorrow.

      Why is demographic data not roundly published, when we know that preconditions play heavily into mortality?

      And just what the fuck does that mean? Does it mean that those who die deserve to die because they have preconditions?

      We are now entering the summer season (the flu/covid killer), and fears of a double peak are unlikely.

      The virus, worldwide, shows no sign of slowing down. And why do you think a double peak is unlikely when the medical profession says it is very likely?

      To ask whether this media circus has ulterior motives, was aided or abetted by the Medical-industrial Complex or in fact is deliberate Compliance Training for a real post-peak lockdown seems to to be a reasonable question.

      Okay, what would those ulterior motives be? Do you believe, like Trump, that the media is “The Enemy of the People”? That their motives are to destroy America? If you believe that then you believe total bullshit. And just what the fuck is “Medical-industrial Complex”? And why would they want a post-peak lockdown? I smell a conspiracy theory somewhere but I am not sure just where it is. And I don’t think you know where it is either, but you seem sure there is one buried in there somewhere.

      I thought this forum among all others might be the place to ask it. I was wrong.

      Yes, I think you were wrong. I hope this blog never becomes a platform for right-wing nut cases to launch their stupid conspiracy theories.

      2. I was interested to see if there’s any evidence of seasonality to the virus, like influenza is for example. It seems reasonable to me to look for the first evidence of seasonality in the virus as it impacts communities that occupy the southern end of the temperate zone.

        1. Okay, the virus is worldwide, not just in the USA. Ecuador, where it is warm, or more correctly hot, year-round is being ravaged by the virus. So no, hot weather does not diminish the viruses’ ability to infect people.

          1. I agree, higher temperature doesn’t seem to be a suppressant. I’m curious to see if the lower relative humidity of the temperate climate’s warm season (compared to the tropics) lowers the R naught, however the link I posted below finds opposite results, but with indoor air not outdoor air. I’ve been scanning data of southern USA, as I feel it’s likely better than the data from northern Mexico. Flu season (influenza) in Arizona usually peaks around February, and can last as long as into May. So, if seasonality is to be observed, it should be now’ish.

            https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-humidity-may-affect-covid-19-outcome

            Another take from a data scientist

            https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/effect-temperature-humidity-growth-rate-covid-19-charles-wiles

            Are you anywhere near Az these days Ron? If so, any scuttlebutt from the south?

            1. Are you anywhere near Az these days Ron? If so, any scuttlebutt from the south?

              Yes, I am next door, in New Mexico. As to scuttlebutt, I have no idea. I am quarantined, I hear nothing except what’s on TV. And I only listen to national tv for news, CNN and MSNBC.

            2. “I hear nothing except what’s on TV. And I only listen to national tv for news, CNN and MSNBC.” ~ Ron Patterson

              You poor dear.

            3. Hey, don’t pity me. Pity those poor bastards that only watch Fox News. Their stupidity gets dumbed down further each day.

              I mean, when you start out stupid, it takes a real effort to make you even stupider. Only Fox News is capable of doing that.

            4. LOL Yes maybe it’s not as bad as Fox News, but then again, last time I looked, they seemed to be making some effort to be seen in less of an unflattering light. Maybe they didn’t succeed.
              In any case, I’ve been recently periodically watching tv elsewhere (no Fox News channel subscription) and it doesn’t cease to amaze me how bad it is. I can barely find anything I like. Sometimes I’ll end up watching these universe, planets, science type or home design shows or when nothing else, maybe Escape To The Continent.

          2. No seasonality.

            That’s because many or the majority of transmissions take place from human to human, where in most of the cases the viruses don’t stay for long outside cells.
            Equador has highlands where also Quito is situated. Daily average temperature is 18-20 degrees Celsius there, year round.
            An ever better example is Saudí Arabia. In Riyadh day time temperature from May-Sept is about 40 degrees C. Last 24 hours new registered covid-19 cases in the entire country almost 2500.

            One of the reasons that the flu is seasonal is that in the winter we spend more time indoors and have closer contact with each other, which makes it easier for the virus to spread.
            Covid-19 seems to be more contagious and nobody has (had) even the smallest amount of immunity against it.
            So, generally speaking for all countries, during warm weather we could see cases diminish as long as we respect physical distancing (but many don’t)
            How long will it take for the WHO to strongly advice the whole world to wear masks or face cloth covering in certain circumstances ? The CDC changed its guidance already on 6th April

    3. Peter,
      Since 2008 and fall of Lehman and subprime mortgage crises, exhausted global financial and economic mechanisms continued to operate. So do you know what was covered there if the crisis has not been talked about for a year only by a lazy person, and it has been going on for 15 years? And why would all governments pump trillions of dollars, and the total losses will be by an order of magnitude more. And all to deceive a plumber, and pretty Instagram girls? Pretty costly deception.
      And how the whole world could collude to promote the same narrative?

      The problem is this that blow with virus and quarantine came at a time of sharp exacerbation of the global systemic crisis. If this were happening at the time of a development rise, they would count the losses, shake them off and forget, and start to increase production again.

    4. “We are now entering the summer season (the flu/covid killer), and fears of a double peak are unlikely.”

      The virus seems to be doing well in hot countries, don’t forget that Brazil is Southern Hemisphere with the year reversed.

      “I thought this forum among all others might be the place to ask it. I was wrong.”

      Yep, better on the ‘Open Thread’

      NAOM

    5. There is an incredible amount of fake news surrounding what may well be called “the great lockdown”

      Wether you are catastrophist, moderate, conspiracist or simply don’t think that covid-19 was a thing outside a mediatic paranoia, there is plenty of information to support your opinion.

      The fact is, we don’t really know exactly how this is going to evolve. Summer may partly help, sure. But nothing is certain, and there is just too much complexity. Any opinion is probably wrong, especially the extreme ones. And this is where “probably” makes sense, it’s not impossible that the crisis come to a stop, and not impossible also that we get a worse second wave. Nobody knows!

      1. There is quite a lot of information that goes in both directions. You got that part right. I was looking at death rate per day of seasonal flu recently and comparing that to covid-19 deaths per day. The covid-19 deaths per day is higher than flu but by less than X2 and only if you divide annual flu deaths by 365, and covid deaths by 120. If you toss in doubts about overattribution of comorbidity deaths that were going to happen anyway, that goes in one direction of doubt. But in the other direction of doubt we have the reality that flu is very rarely listed on a death certificate as cause of death. It will be some complication from flu, and so the flu death totals are largely guessed.

        It is disquieting that we can’t even do that simple of a computation with confidence.

        As for extreme opinions being wrong, if they turn out right suddenly they’re not extreme. So that part doesn’t really work.

        I’m pretty confident that as the various politicians hold their fingers up to the wind you’re going to find Democrats who think they may not be re-elected because of lockdown deciding to not be locked down. There won’t be any measurements that can vindicate a decision to remain locked down because the amount of testing is not constant. The more you test the more cases you find, regardless of whether you lock down or not. So campaign staff will figure this out and since their jobs as members of perhaps the governor’s staff depends on re-election, then the principled position will suddenly become getting re-elected, and presto, relax lockdown.

        Now, this may not be true of mayors. City constituencies are mostly on benefits. Only as benefits get threatened by necessary budget cuts would you see any pressures on those particular politicians. Cities will stay locked down much longer.

        1. Hate to go so far off oil here, but I hope everyone realizes that the red rural areas have only gotten more red as a result of the pandemic.

          In rural areas everyone knows who got infected, how they got infected (or at least likely how) and the result.

          In my part of the world, all deaths are in two nursing homes. It is tragic. Those who died are in their 80s and 90s. The nursing home closest to me has lost 7 so far. Everyone was tested. Over half of the nursing home residents who tested positive were asymptomatic.

          The other cases are primarily those who work in the nursing homes and their immediate family. All have recovered. None were hospitalized. None reported feeling very ill.

          A few cases likely travel related. I have a very good friend who is 74. His wife is 68. They both had it, think they caught it on a trip. Both are in good health. Both recovered at home. Both said it was like having a cold.

          The rural areas seem to not be hit as hard. Mostly in either meat packing areas or nursing homes.

          Have to wonder if there are many different strains of this, given some die and others don’t get very sick.

          Problem is, we already have more and more crazies out here in the sticks. Given the first hand view from here, and given the high numbers of wage earners who have lost jobs out here due to lockdowns, the conspiracy theories are running wild.

          It is almost like the perfect virus to divide our country even more. Hits the liberal cities hard, doesn’t hit the rural areas hard, but the rural areas pay anyway economically.

          2. Lots of time for this to correct. It doesn’t take a campaign genius to figure out there won’t be many votes for governors who make people miserable.
            The polling must be furious. The lying in responses, too.

            SS how long after a layoff will an employee disappear? Leave the wife behind to get the house sold, but he’s off for . . . Guyana or something.

            1. Watcher.

              From what I hear, many are very happy to be laid off, with the $600 extra a week.

              A few of the younger ones that weren’t laid off are upset that they weren’t.

              The gas stations and fast food places have signs in front stating they are hiring all shifts.

              The complaints about the lockdown were from the small business owners who see business as usual at Wal-Mart, But pretty much everything is open now in the rural areas.

              I think people around here view this as a temporary thing that is close to over, or is over.

              If everyone is wrong and this hits hard, will be a problem with limited hospital capacity.

              Also, people here did a really good job of social distancing for about a month. Then the videos of all of the parties in NY and Chicago started circulating, as did the videos of all the people at the beach.

              We have a lot of long haul truckers in the community who drive into Chicago, New York, New Jersey, etc. Would have thought one or more would have picked this up.

              I hate how badly this has already increased animosity in rural minds towards urban US. We need to be untied, not divided.

              I know it’s bad in some cities. Have a relative who has worn full PPE to work for over two months.

              No oilfield workers here will be going overseas. They will look for jobs outside the industry, a trend that started in 2015.

            2. shallow sand,

              That is too bad, when a tornado or flood hits a rural area, generally people from urban areas are happy to help if needed and don’t get mad at those conservatives for suffering a natural disaster. Weird response from rural folks, not really like that in the rural parts of the northeast, as far as I can tell, though I live in a “big city” of 10k.

            3. Dennis.

              I agree. I have never seen so many in my community so belligerent.

              You are likely not in a “red area”.

              Counties where I live voted 70-85% Trump in 2016. Lots here think this is all a hoax to defeat Trump in 2020.

              In 2008 40-45% voted for Obama in these parts. In 2020 I will be surprised if Biden draws 15%.

              It’s the same people, but something has gotten into them.

              In the past I used to like to debate the Reagan fans and the Bush fans. It was done in pretty good spirit. Now one just has to keep his head down around here.

              This has made it a lot worse.

            4. shallow sand,

              Yes my town is fairly blue, but most of my part of the state is red. I would think at some point your state will open up in rural areas as even New York has done so. Maybe doesn’t apply to your state if it one whose number of new cases is increasing rapidly.

          3. “On the other hand, a lot of this is about buying toys and costumes. So who knows?”

      2. I live in a tropical country. It is hot. There are many infections nationwide, comparable to ‘cold’ countries. Our state has low infections, why? We have taken it seriously with closures, social distancing and masks, that works. Hopeium of it going away in summer does not.

        NAOM

  12. Neutral zone oil output to reach 550,000 b/d by year-end: Kuwait
    Dubai — Crude oil production from the neutral zone where Saudi Arabia and Kuwait share output equally will reach 550,000 b/d by the end of the year after a pumping trial from the region started on Sunday, according to a new estimate from Kuwait’s oil minister.

    So only about a quarter of the Saudi-UAE-Kuwait increase in production of 2,144,000 barrels/day could have come from the Neutral Zone. The rest probably from storage tanks. This may have been done to avenge Putin who snubbed a deal and also an attempt to destroy US shale oil producers.

    1. “DUBAI (Reuters) – Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have agreed to halt oil production from the joint Al-Khafji field for one month, starting from June 1, Kuwait’s Al Rai newspaper reported on Saturday. ”

      May 16, 2020

    1. If I may, this graph is a personal compilation of us tight oil total production derived from the data released month by month by the IEA or is there a xls file giving precisely these data somewhere on the website of IEA? Actually, I use data called ”tight oil estimates by play” on this page (https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/data.php#crude) but I find values (after additions) which are different from yours (they are inferior). I think I miss something. Thank you.

      1. All data in the graph is from the EIA Drilling Productivity Report, linked in my post above. I added all seven shale basins and the chart is the result. The data in the chart is the sum of all seven basins.

        All data is from the EIA, not the IEA. The EIA is based in Washington, D.C. and is run by the US government. The IEA is headquartered in Paris, France.

        And yes, the EIA often has different data on different pages. However the DPR totals all oil, conventional and shale, that is produced in each basin. Your data is shale only. That is the reason for the difference.

  15. Supply projection using shale profile at link below

    https://shaleprofile.com/us-tight-oil-gas-projection/

    This assumes no change in rig counts in tight oil and shale gas basins after May 2020, it is for all US tight oil production. Tight oil output falls to about 5 Mb/d which might eliminate tight oil exports, which were about 3 Mb/d at the end of 2019.

    Completion rate for all of US falls from 1046 wells in April 2020 to 942 in May, 583 in June, and 405 in July 2020. The completion rate then remains at 405 until Dec 2029. It is assumed that there is a 2 month lag between changes in rig count and changes in completion rate in Enno Peters’ model.

    Output falls by about 1.6 Mb/d from May 2020 to Dec 2020 for this projection.

  16. Saudi Arabia to impose ‘painful’ austerity measures, triple VAT

    Saudi Arabia will triple its value added tax rate and suspend a cost-of-living allowance for state employees, the kingdom’s finance minister said on Monday, seeking to shore up finances hit hard by low oil prices and a coronavirus-driven slowdown.

    “The cost of living allowance will be suspended as of June 1, and the value added tax will be increased to 15 percent from 5 percent as of July 1,” Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan said in the statement reported by the state news agency.

  17. A few comments on numbers.

    KSA added 2000 virus cases yesterday and that’s about 3% of their total. I have not researched to see if that’s concentrated in cities or in the migrant worker villages near Ghawar. That would be good to know.

    For those who have not been carefully following what I will call testing internals, there are two kinds of tests. There is the right and proper nasal swab PCR test that finds evidence of the virus. And there is a serology test. This is a pin prick blood test that looks for antibodies to the virus. There is a CDC approved version, and there are versions much less expensive that are not CDC approved.

    In a bizarre fashion both sides of the political divide want serology tests to show enormous numbers of people who have had the virus and perhaps test negative now, or are completely untested with the nasal swab test (the one that counts).

    The reason both sides want this is because the death rate is the number of deaths / infections. A really big denominator there can get the quoted death rate down to very low numbers and make shut down look foolish. The other side wants a really big number in the denominator not in computing death rate, but in criticizing management of the crisis. They would claim Federal isolation procedures were too late and have failed by allowing so many people to be infected and die. All the fault of the president, you see.

    The serology tests done so far for various newspapers surveys are with cheap tests that are not CDC approved. The test makers need to avoid lawsuits and to avoid lawsuits they declare marginal results positive because declaring negative could leave someone choosing to ignore symptoms and get killed. So lots of false positives, and further, the surveys are being done in the most infested part of the most infested cities. They may yield many positive results per total number of tests, and then of course there is an extrapolation to the entire population and Presto you get huge numbers in the denominator. This is where the declarations that it’s no worse than flu come from. If you get a big enough denominator the death rate looks like flu’s. And we don’t shut down for flu.

    So we have a situation where in an election year both sides want the same result from a measurement. Both sides want enormous numbers in that measurement. The CDC announced last week that within a matter of just a few weeks it will embark on a huge serology study using their own tests and take 390,000 samples in 25 different cities. I would suspect we’ll see some interim results and not have to wait years. But with both sides wanting the same result, our odds of accuracy are not good.

    1. Reports that the concentration of KSA virus cases is in foreign worker compounds. Seems unlikely the Bangladesh types will flee in fear back to Bangladesh.

  19. Saudi’s income is US dollar based. So is their sovereign wealth fund. Yeah they have their local currency which can only be used locally. The whole case for them driving oil price down for market shares doesn’t make any sense. Never has. That is why that theory doesn’t hold any water. The longer price remains low the more US dollar reserves they burn through.

    It doesn’t matter if the Saudi’s have oil. They want dollars. Oil in the ground doesn’t mean shit. Oil at sea doesn’t mean shit until they trade it for US dollars. Can you see their sovereign wealth fund trading physical oil for share’s in say carnival cruise. Which they bought on the cheap. For what reason? To generate more income more wealth in US dollars.

    America’s standard of living really depends on the value of the dollar. What a dollar will buy and what it takes to earn a dollar. Well at least it does right up until you have a shortage of oil that can’t be fixed by price or with ever cheaper money to drill with. When the situation turns into you don’t have enough no matter what you do then standard of living declines by leaps and bounds no matter what you do.

    Who here believes that the amount of debt which will have to be issued in order to bring so called renewable energy up to a level that is sufficient to keep standard of living up can be issued on top of all the debt that is currently in the system? I think it would collapse our monetary system. I don’t see a viable way forward no matter what we do.

    I think we have to have a monetary reset and a greatly reduced standard of living before any transition to renewable economy can happen. And that is not acceptable. If you don’t believe it’s not acceptable then just go look at what central banks are doing globally. All in the name of keeping normal, normal.

    People think the virus related downturn is bad. Well the economy only contracted like 6%. So 94% of the economy is still there and alive. Think about a contraction of greater than 20% that is permanent and let me know if a debt based monetary system is still viable. Thats what in the future. Oil scarcity.

    1. HHH. Are you still seeing $170 WTI coming?

      Interesting to see around here a lot of wells returning to production. They are primarily because the basis to WTI snapped back to where it was prior to lockdown.

      But not all are. Some think it’s too early, while others appear to not be able to reactivate due to financial inability.

      As to renewables, I have watched Planet of the Humans. I have also read criticism of the documentary.

      We were offered a lot of money to have solar panels installed upon one of our farms. An annual rental arrangement. About 4 times what we would receive in cash rent for row crops currently.

      We declined the offer. The company offering appears shaky financially. Worried about them going BK. Worried about someday degraded panels being left on the farm. Worried about what happens to the soil under the panels. Maybe other issues we haven’t considered.

      How much electricity would be generated by 100 acres of solar panels? In the Mid-Continent?

      1. “But not all are. Some think it’s too early, while others appear to not be able to reactivate due to financial inability.”

        When you elevate from a very low base, your % increase is very high. But you are nowhere near where you were 1 January. This is true across the country. There are going to be huge headlines about explosive economic growth as lockdown is undone, but it will be many years to return to 1 January.

        If ever.

        1. Correct . A tractor company produces 1 tractor per year and the next year it produces 2 tractors . Growth is 100% . a company produces a 1,000,000 tractors and next year produces 1,100,000 . Growth is 10 % . Where will you put your money ? Fudging figures is not going to hide the fact that the world is insolvent and must /will file for bankruptcy shortly .

  21. It’s interesting production was up so much in April for OPEC. The cuts started on May 1st, so it seems like the next OPEC report will likely have the largest one-month drop for OPEC on record. That’s why 12 month averages are so important, April’s surge will hardly be noticeably a few months from now.

    With investment in oil fields dwindling, this is likely the latest peak for OPEC, one which they will never surpass.

    Even odds they will never produce 30 million a day ever again.

    1. Iraq will not deliver in June.

      https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/OPECs-No2-Cuts-Oil-Exports-To-Asia-In-Surprise-Move.html

      Saudis probably buy oil under the table from Iraq.
      The same Kuwait. The Arabs will huddle together now. They are all under threat.
      Maybe even Iran. Or Iran will not deliver to Iraq…
      According to Dr Bakhtiari no-sanctions prognosis of 2003, Iran should produce now (2020) circa 1,140 mbd.
      Sanctions are a perfect veil, though. If they do produce 2mbd with sanctions, they are very lucky, since they use exactly that amount. But we are almost never lucky in this way in life, that we have “just enough”.
      And we don’t hear anymore how EU is buying Iranian crude with its “special purpose vehicle”.
      The only advantage of this situation is that there is no reason for a war, should Iran have no oil more. And Iraq (which still has oil) is at least partly an Iranian condominium so the situation is as good for Iran as it can get.

      But a war with China may be. Both Iraq and Saudis are cutting their volumes for Asia. Sadly, the article does not mention who will not get the oil.

      Besides, oil is cheap in terms of gold now.

      Not good.

      Isnt oil called a black gold?

      The economy implodes, and the price of gold is creating singularity. This singularity does not belong to any economy anymore. Gold is not necessary part of economy.

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