The OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report is out with OPEC crude only production numbers for March 2015.
OPEC production was up 812,000 barrels per day. The increase came primarily from three countries:
Saudi Arabia was up 347,000 barrels per day to 10,010,000 bpd.
The JODI data just came in with production numbers for January 2015. I really don’t like JODI all that much but they are about two and one half months ahead of the EIA with their world data. And their data is incomplete so I have to substitute the EIA data for the countries that do not report to JODI. So the data I use is about 95% JODI and about 5% EIA. The last data point is January 2015 and is in thousand barrels per day.
We peaked in December at 75,342,000 bpd but dropped 356,000 bpd in January to 74,986 bpd.
JODI has the US at 9,226,000 in December but dropping 34,000 bpd in January to 9,192,000 bpd. The US did not start its grand ascent until the summer of 2011 when the shale oil boom exploded.
The latest OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report is out with all the OPEC crude only production numbers for January 2015. There were very little revisions in the December numbers this month.
Total OPEC production of crude only was down 53,000 barrels per day in January to 30,153,000 barrels per day of crude only.
Algerian production has leveled out in the last year and a half but down slightly the last couple of months. January production slipped 13,000 bpd to 1,130,000 bpd.
In this life nothing is certain. Therefore I am not declaring, absolutely, that we are at peak oil, only that it is a near certainty. But I am putting my reputation on the line in making the claim that the period, September 2014 through August 2015 will be the year of Peak Oil. Below are my reasons for making this claim.
First of all, Peak Oil is not a theory. The claim that Peak Oil is a theory is more than a little absurd. Fossil hydrocarbons were created from buried alga millions of years ago and they are finite in quantity. And as long as we keep extracting them in the millions of barrels per day, it is only common sense that one day we will reach a point where their extraction starts to decline. In fact most countries where oil is extracted are already in decline. So obviously if individual countries can experience peak oil then the world as a whole can also experience peak oil.
All charts below are in thousand barrels per day of Crude + Condensate with the last data point September 2014.
First I want to deal with the portion of the world that reached peak oil about four years ago, in January 2011. That is everywhere else in the world except the US and Canada. I am not saying that every country outside the US and Canada has reached peak oil, but combined they have reached peak oil
The world outside the United States and Canada has been on a bumpy plateau for ten years now and now, even with that last September 2014 surge, is still 1,670,000 barrels below the peak of January 2011. However only a few countries is responsible for this plateau.
The bumpy plateau actually began back in 2005 where the peak was in July. Since them, outside the USA and Canada, there have been 15 countries with production increases and 21 countries with production declines. Here is a look at the 15 winners outside the US and Canada.
Dealing with the winners one at a time:
The latest OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report is out with OPEC production data for. The data is “Crude Only” and does not reflect condensate production.
Also the charts, except for Libya, are not zero based. I chose to amplify the change rather than the total.
All Data is in thousand barrels per day with the last data point December 2014.
OPEC 12 production has averaged slightly above or below 30 million barrels per day for about two years now and there is little chance it will go anywhere very fast. But what is obvious from the above chart is there has been no surge in OPEC oil production. OPEC’s December production f 30,204,000 barrels per day is still more than 1.4 million barrels per day below the peaks of 2008 and 2012.
Algeria is struggling to keep production relatively flat.
Angola is holding its own… so far.