Department of Economics, University of Utah
E-mail: minqi.li@economics.utah.edu
July 2018
This is Part 2 of the World Energy Annual Report in 2018. This part of the Annual Report provides updated analysis of world oil production and consumption, evaluates the future prospect of world oil supply and considers the implications of peak oil production for global economic growth.
(See Figure 18 near end of paper) Read More
BOEM has March 2018 production at 1696 kbpd, which is down 1% month-on-month and 4% year-on-year (March 2017 was the peak production month for GoM so far). EIA numbers were very similar, although last month’s were higher and haven’t been revised yet – typically EIA numbers end up almost exactly corresponding to the BOEM reported total qualified lease production, whereas BOEM can be a little higher, maybe including test wells or non-qualified leases.
The major new project, Stampede, started in January, has no reported production numbers yet. BOEM and EIA estimate non-reported values and then retrospectively adjust their reports when actual numbers are available. I don’t know how they estimate new production but Stampede could produce around 60 kbpd with current plans, though likely a lot less initially as only one of two leases has been ramping up. I’ve assumed 20 and 40 kbpd for February and March respectively, which still might be high. Even allowing for that, and assuming other late numbers are the same as the previous month, since December EIA and BOEM both have estimates about 30 to 40 kbpd higher than the reported lease and well production numbers (which always match closely) would suggest. Usually the difference is no more than ten. It is unlikely that the other late numbers, of which there are few, and none for all four months, will show such large, sudden and unexplained increases so either I’m missing something (maybe a lease not yet included in the numbers, but also not reported as starting up) or there could be some future downward adjustments.
Rigel and Otis are still off-line following the failure at a subsea manifold last October and are taking out about 22 kbpd plus some gas (Otis is a small gas field). Great White, Stones (for the full month) and Caesar/Tonga all had noticeable downtime in March taking about 90 kbpd off-stream.
by Dennis Coyne
I have updated my scenarios for US LTO output, based on both EIA tight oil output data and average well profile data from Enno Peters’ shaleprofile.com. I have also created a scenario for the Niobrara shale oil play and for “other US LTO” which excludes the Permian Basin LTO, Eagle Ford, North Dakota Bakken/Three Forks, and the Niobrara.
This is NOT a non-petroleum open thread, see post below for those comments.
Comments on oil and natural gas output should be in this thread, thank you.
2017 was the highest producing year for oil in the GoM and included the record month in March. Gas, which has tended to come from shallow water wells, had accelerated decline. The production would have been higher but for some disruptions from Hurricanes, in particular Nate, though that had the least impact onshore, and some unplanned outages in November and December due to equipment failures. The failure to Delta House subsea manifold affected Rigel, Otis and Son of Bluto 2 fields, and the first two still appear to be off-line while Son of Bluto 2 resumed production in December (LLOG, the operator, I think calls the Rigel field Neidermeyer, which is much better for the Animal House theme). The Enchilada gas pipeline appears to have ruptured at the main platform and has resulted in Baldpate, Salsa, Llano, Cardamom and Magnolia going off-line. Plans were recently announced to restart Baldpate/Salsa, which do not go through the platform, but I haven’t seen any notice of the restart.
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|
Oil Average |
Oil Exit Rate |
Gas Average |
Gas Exit Rate |
Total Average |
Total Exit Rate |
| (kbpd) | (kbpd) | (mmscfd) | (mmscfd) | (kboed) | (kboed) | |
2016 |
1600 | 1728 | 3308 | 3363 | 2151 | 2289 |
2017 |
1685 | 1570 | 2955 | 2381 | 2177 | 1967 |
Change |
85 | -158 | -354 | -982 | 26 | -322 |
Ratio |
5.3% | -9.1% | -10.7% | -29.2% | 1.2% | -14.1% |
December production numbers were dominated by the unplanned outages, so comparisons with November don’t mean much. As well as the two issues given above the Tahiti and Caesar/Tonga fields were off line for a few weeks, though I have seen no news why (these share a common set of leases but are produced separately to the Tahiti and Constitution platforms). Each month that these are three issues hold current outages would knock about 10 to 12 kbpd off the achievable average production for 2018.
Despite recent variability it certainly looks like the new fields brought on since late 2013, and which have seen all the net growth since then, have peaked. Any average decline rate can’t really be extrapolated yet, given the recent upsets, but the BOEM reserve estimate updates, due in the next couple of months, will provide better R/P numbers as there will be longer operating data for all the fields.
