The weekly Baker Hughes Rig Count for North America and the International monthly rig count is out. In the charts below the monthly data is through February 2015 and the weekly data is as of March 6th.
World Rig Count, counting oil, gas and miscellaneous rigs are down 684 rigs over the last three months. The annual spikes you here are caused by Canada.
Removing the seasonal Canadian spikes gives you a better picture of what is happening to the world rig count.
A few days ago the EIA published the latest update to its International Energy Statistics. The data is updated through May 2014. The data on all charts below is through May unless otherwise stated and is in thousand barrels per day. Also, all data is Crude + Condensate.
World C+C production was down 72,000 barrels per day in May to 76,540,000 bpd. It was down 708,000 barrels per day since reaching a new all time peak in February of 77,247,000 bpd.
Matt, on his blog Crude Oil Peak, is saying the same thing I have been saying for months. That is US shale oil growth covers up production drop in rest-of-world.
The trend is clearly down and is going to get worse. Below is my graph using the same data.
OPEC December Crude Output Falls to 2-Year Low: Survey
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.