The OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) for January 2025 was published recently. The last month reported in most of the OPEC charts that follow is December 2024 and output reported for OPEC nations is crude oil output in thousands of barrels per day (kb/d). In the OPEC charts below the blue line with markers is monthly output and the thin red line is the centered twelve month average (CTMA) output.
Output for October 2024 was revised lower by 9kb/d and November 2024 output was revised higher by 58 kb/d compared to last month’s report. OPEC 12 output increased by 26 kb/d with most of the increase from Libya (53 kb/d.) Nigeria also increased by 30 kb/d while UAE saw a decrease of 44 kb/d. Other OPEC members had small increases or decreases of 23 kb/d or less.
The chart above shows output from the Big 4 OPEC producers that are subject to output quotas (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq, and Kuwait.) After the pandemic, Big 4 average output peaked in 2022 at a centered 12 month average (CTMA) of 20849 kb/d, crude output has been cut by 2599 kb/d relative to the 2022 CTMA peak to 18290 kb/d in December 2024. The Big 4 may have roughly 2599 kb/d of spare capacity when World demand calls for an increase in output.
Most of the increase in the Other 8 OPEC nations (those OPEC 12 nations that are not part of the Big 4) came from Iran and Venezuela (about 423 of the 503 kb/d average annual increase), with the remaining 6 nations that were subject to quotas having relatively flat output over the 37 month period covered in the chart above (December 2021 to December 2024) . See chart below for OPEC Other 6 (OPEC 12 minus Big 4 minus Iran minus Venezuela) with an average annual increase of only 80 kb/d over past 3 years.
OECD Commercial petroleum stocks remain near the bottom of the 5 year range from 2019 to 2023, so far the market seems to need less oil than earlier periods as oil prices remain relatively low.
OPEC expected growth in 2025 is unchanged from last month’s report and the 2026 estimate for World liquids growth is the same as the 2025 estimate at 1.4 Mb/d, this month is the first estimate for 2026 demand growth and non-DOC supply growth.
Chart above shows the significant difference between EIA STEO forecast for World Oil demand from 2024 to 2026 compared with the OPEC forecast which is 1.5 Mb/d higher in 2026 and 1.1 Mb/d higher in 2025. Much of the difference in 2025 and 2026 is accounted for by the higher demand estimate by OPEC for 2024 (about 930 kb/d higher than the EIA estimate).
The chart above is based on the EIA’s Jan 2025 STEO estimates for World liquids and World crude, with non-crude Production equal to World liquids minus World crude. From 2018 to 2024 World crude output decreased by about 2 Mb/d while non-crude liquids output increased by 4.2 Mb/d. A significant portion of the non-crude output is ethanol (lower energy density than crude) and bottled gas such as ethane, propane and butane which are useful, but less so as transportation fuels compared to crude oil and the products refined from crude oil.
The chart above is included to show that demand for crude oil (input of crude to refineries constitutes most of crude oil demand) has increased from 80.8 Mb/d in 2023 to 80.84 Mb/d in 2024, an increase of only 40 kb/d.
The chart above is from the January 2022 MOMR and shows that World crude refinery throughput averaged 81.7 Mb/d in 2018. World demand for crude has decreased by roughly 860 kb/d from 2018 to 2024, though the estimate may change a bit over time.
Chart above uses data from OPEC MOMR Jan 2016 to Jan 2025, World refinery crude throughput has not yet returned to the 2018 peak.
The tight oil estimate for 2024 was revised higher by 60 kb/d compared to last month’s report, the 2025 tight oil output estimate was also increased by 60 kb/d, this is the initial estimate for 2026 tight oil output at 190 kb/d higher than 2025 output. In the chart that follows is my estimate and forecast for US tight oil output, for 2024 I have tight oil output at 9.3 Mb/d, about 500 kb/d higher than the OPEC estimate, for 2025 I have 9.5 Mb/d and for 2026, 9.6 Mb/d. The increases in tight oil in my forecast are about 100 kb/d smaller in both 2025 and 2026 than the OPEC forecast.
The next 3 charts all use the same vertical and horizontal scale so they can be more easily compared (16000 kb/d on vertical scale from minimum to maximum and 9 years on the horizontal scale.)
The chart above compares the OPEC 12 monthly crude output estimates from the MOMR secondary sources charts with the EIA’s Jan 2025 STEO estimates from Jan 2018 to Dec 2024. The annual average estimates are based on the MOMR data up to 2024 and for 2025 and 2026 use the EIA STEO forecast. Note the small increase of only 294 kb/d in 2025 and somewhat larger increase of 448 kb/d in 2026, OPEC has spare capacity for further increases after 2026 if the STEO forecast is accurate.
The chart above is based on the EIA STEO from Jan 2025, non-OPEC crude output increases by 955 kb/d in 2025 and by 514 kb/d in 2026 according the the EIA.
This World crude estimate and forecast also comes from the Jan 2025 STEO. World crude output increases by 2058 kb/d from 2024 to 2026 according to the EIA. Given how slowly crude demand has grown since 2018 (demand has actually decreased by about 860 kb/d based on refinery throughput) this forecast seems quite optimistic.
Thanks, Dennis!
One note on non-crude production: a major portion of it is Condensate, which is close to crude and is often lumped with Crude. Condensate production has grown in recent years, because of the growth in natural gas production.
Kdmitrov,
Yes condensate output is forecast to increase by about 1400 kb/d from 2020 to 2026 and increased by about 896 kb/d from 2020 to 2024, I agree much of this is due to increasing natural gas production, but the percentage increase in condensate output was an annual rate of about 4.4% per year from 2020 to 2024, while World natural gas output increasd by about 1% per year from 2019 to 2023 so it seems the natural gas is getting wetter over this period.
From 2018 to 2026 condensate increases by about 1460 kb/d while non-crude liquids increases by 4200 kb/d, so the condensate increase is about 35% of the total non-crude liquids increase ( a significant portion indeed ).
gas from Quatar’s North Dome, the world largest gas field, is a condensate field which has Gas to Oil ratio at about 2~3:1, according to my isotope model,
https://youtu.be/BAb6-m0UX9c
whereas other reservoir simulation gives 3~5:1, which significantly lower the condensate production for certain amount of gas produced.
Perhaps if DJT also annexes Venezuela some heavy crude could be extracted from Orinoco, to be blended with the lighter blends from up a bit north? Not to give any ideas but it´s kind of an obvious business deal.
(If the Canadians with their tar sands get non-agreement capable, or such)
Just below the last graph:
“This World crude estimate and forecast also comes from the Jan 2015 STEO. World crude output”
Typo… should read Jan 2025 STEO
Thx for the correction
So OPEC is claiming 1.5MM bpd draws in 2024? Seems dubious….
Kdimitrov,
Yes that is what they claim in their balance of supply and demand and I agree this seems very dubious, I expect it will be revised. The EIA estimate for World demand is probably more accurate and would suggest a draw of 0.5 mmb/d in 2024.
“From 2018 to 2024 World crude output decreased by about 2 Mb/d while non-crude liquids output increased by 4.2 Mb/d. A significant portion of the non-crude output is ethanol”
Ethanol production requires crude oil input. In the US corn ethanol production is only weakly net energy positive.
Its more of an Ag sector jobs program/constituent subsidy than an independent energy source.
Including ethanol in the liquids production tally is an exercise double counting, to a considerable extent.
When it comes to oil production it seems that the World Refinery Crude Throughput is a more important aspect to track.
Hickory,
I agree, ethanol is not really an energy product from a net energy perspective. World consumption of biofuel was about 4.7 EJ in 2023 (includes biodiesel and ethanol) and total petroleum liquids consumption (excluding biofuel) was 196.4 EJ in 2023, so biofuel consumption was only 2.3% of the liquids total and ethanol consumption was about 2.48 EJ or about 1.2% of the total liquids energy consumption. Data from Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy.
In a comment in earlier post there was some discussion about US Shale Gas.
Below is a Hubbert Linearization using annual production and cumulatiive production.
Note that I think this estimate is likely far too low as the resource is likely to be 1400 TCF with a URR of roughly 1700 TCF with peak occurring at perhaps 850 TCF. The problem with a Hubbert Linearization at this early stage is the plot will be a curve rather than a line until annual production divided by cumulative production is under 4% or so.
Took a quick look at USGS continuous assessments and for my tight oil model the best guess URR is about 67% of USGS mean TRR, if we use this same number (67% of TRR for URR) for shale gas this would suggest a URR for US shale gas of 1090 TCF and if we assume peak occurs at 50% of URR (this is often a bad assumption) it would suggest about 545 TCF of cumulative production at the peak. Currently (end of 2024) US shale gas is at about 317 TCF for cumulative production, suggesting perhaps 228 TCF of production until the peak. Recently shale gas output has been about 31 TCF per year, so maybe 6 to 7 years until peak if we are near an undulating plateau in output for shale gas. So this suggests a peak around maybe 34 TCF per year in 2030 to 2032 for US shale gas.
Chart below has a very rough shale gas model for the US with very little detailed modelling behind it, unlike my tight oil scenario which has a great deal of underlying analysis for individual tight oil basins.
Up to 2023 is based on EIA data, 2024 is based on the STEO forecast for 2024, 2025 to 2052 is a WAG assuming 500 BCF per year increases to 2031 followed by similar decreases for 7 years from 2032 to 2039 and then 1800 BCF per year decreases mirroring the rate of increase from 2008 to 2022.
It goes without saying that this scenario/model is certain to be incorrect.
I came across this piece
https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/chinas-slowing-oil-demand-growth-is-likely-to-persist-and-could-impact-markets/
Excerpt:
During January–June 2024, China’s gasoline consumption grew by just 0.32 percent over January-June 2023, while diesel consumption decreased by 3.52 percent over January–June 2023.[11] Gasoline and diesel could cease to drive China’s oil demand growth in the next few years, if they have not done so already. A PetroChina research institute said that demand for both fuels peaked in 2023 (see Table 1). Other analysts expect gasoline and diesel demand to peak before 2030. Even if demand for liquefied petroleum gas and other products such as jet fuel and petrochemicals continues to grow for several years, China’s total oil demand may still peak before the end of the decade.