Did Peak Oil Arrive in 2014?

The recent price crash in crude oil, if it lasts for any length of time, will certainly affect oil production. The question is, just how great an effect will it have an how soon? But in this post I want to concentrate on what is, or was, happening to world oil production even before the price crash.

Russia, the largest producer of crude oil in the world, will peak in 2014. There are various estimates of how fast their production will decline but best case, for Russia, puts their decline at about 2% per year. They say they are depending on the Bazhenov Shale and Arctic offshore just to keep production flat in 2015. Well that is not going to happen, not in the next few years anyway. And if prices stay in the current range it is unlikely to ever happen.

OPEC is a wild card but there is little doubt that they are producing flat out right now. Only Iran has any real any real chance of increasing production very much and that only if sanctions are lifted. Libya has already increased production significantly and could increase more but very little. With the violence still going on in Libya, there is a greater chance that their production will decline.

But before we go any further let’s look at what the EIA is predicting for 2015 for both the USA and the rest of non-OPEC? The below charts are from the EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook. Current data is through October 2014 and the projected data is through December 2015. All data is in million barrels per day. Also, very important, the data is Total Liquids which includes NGLs, bio fuels and refinery process gain. The EIA, for US production even counts refinery process gain on imported oil.

STOE USA

The EIA is predicting US average production total liquids will be up 1.49 million barrels per day in 2014 and up another 1.1 mbd in 2015. (I always use m for million and k for thousand.)

STOE non-OPEC

The EIA is predicting non-OPEC average total liquids will be up will be up 1.88 mbd in 2014 but only about half that, up .95 mbd, in 2015.

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AEO 2015 Preliminary Report

The EIA published, last month, AEO2015 Preliminary Oil & Natural Gas
Production & Price Results
. And just below the title they wrote:

                                    DRAFT – DO NOT CITE
But I am not citing anything, just informing you of what they said. 😉 What they mean however is that they reserve the right to change their mind before the report comes out early net year. And I can certainly understand that. All Oil data is in million barrels per day.

AEO 2015 1

They have lower 48 production hitting a slowly increasing plateau in 2016 and peaking at just under 8.4 million barrels per day in 2027.

AEO 2015 2

They have US Tight Oil production following pretty much the same profile, hitting a plateau in 2016 at about 5.5 million barrels per day and holding flat until starting a very slow decline in 2030.

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Post Carbon Institute’s LTO Reality Check

The Post Carbon Institute has just released a critique of the EIA’s Light Tight Oil projections. It is titled DRILLING DEEPER. The report is highly critical of the EIA’s projections and should be read by everyone interested in Peak Oil.

All data on all charts is in million barrels per day unless otherwise specified.

EIA Oil Projection

 First a look at the EIA oil projections for US production from all sources. They expect offshore to increase to 2 million barrels per day by 2016, an increase of almost 600,000 bpd from current production. Also note that the EIA has US almost peaking in 2016 and increasing only slightly until the peak in 2019.

EIA LTO Hi Lo Projection

The EIA has several projections, covering all bases. However the reference, or most likely, will be the only one covered in this post.
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Texas RRC Oil and Gas Report, August Data

The Texas Rail Road Commission just released their oil and gas production report with the August data. As you probably know by now that this data is incomplete. The latest months will all turn down but as more companies report their data, which can be up to two years late, the data will reflect what is actually produced.

There is something strange about the August data however. This is the first time since last November that all four data sets, Crude, Condensate, Gas Well Gas and Casinghead (Associated) gas, are show lower production than the previous month. So keeping in mind that the previous months data was just as incomplete as this months is, the data should, if production is increasing, still show an increase. This month however, it does not.

All oil data is in barrels per day and all Gas data is in MCF per day with the last data point August 2013.

Texas Crude Only

 The August crude only data was 124,723 bpd below July.

Texas Condensate

Texas Condensate was moving up rather smartly until June of 2013. Since then it has been erratic. It is clear that Texas condensate production is not increasing very much and may now actually be declining. Texas condensate (incomplete data) dropped 41,175 bpd, July to August.

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Texas RRC Data September Report

The Texas RailRoad Comission released their Oil & Gas Production Data with production data through July 2014. The data was actually released Thursday but was all messed up. They corrected their mistake Friday except for condensate. Then yesterday they updated everything. As I have stated before, the RRC data, for the last several months, is incomplete. Nevertheless we can gather some indication of what is happening.

Texas C+C

Texas C+C is still increasing at a pretty hefty clip. The EIA data is just an estimate of course but I think it is pretty close to what the data will show when it is all in. I have included six months of data to show how it is increasing month to month.

Texas Crude Only

Texas crude only was down in October and November but has been up every month since. The declines in the last few months is due to incomplete data.

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