[Triffin]

I was following the "Net Oil" thread which
got me thinking about another bit of data
that I haven't seen discussed here ..

Has anyone calculated the amount of Net available
export capacity from the oil exporting countries ??

What percent of Net available exports does the US
consume/import ??

What is the projected rate of decline of Net available
export capacity when factoring in expected depletion
rates and projected increases in domestic demand in
the exporting nations ??

The answer to the above questions will give a reasonable
timescale as to when the US will no longer be able to satisfy
demand via imports assuming we are willing to pay any price
for the soon to be shrinking available oil for export ..

Carter was right .. mitigation strategies should have been
initiated 30 years ago ..

Triff ..

[BigBear]

Very good point--one that is rarely considered it seems going by all that I read. I did bring this point up over a year ago and I cannot recall it being really thought out by many.
Another point of future supplies is the fact that heavier oils give off less distillates and gasoline as sweet crude. Therefore if oil extraction even remains constant for the next however long period of time--as the amount of heavy oils extracted increases the market place still ends up with less of what it wants at a greater price for producing what it does get.

[SoothSayer]

The downwards slope of Peak Oil seems to have all sorts of non-linearities built in e.g.

- exporters own demand increasing
- changing oil quality / composition
- increased extraction costs
- increased extraction energy needed
- more efficient & more rapid extraction processes than in past years
- commercial pressure to extract too quickly, thus damaging/reducing oilfields
- ageing & retirement of oil industry specialists
- government/corporate/personal hoarding

I'm sure that you can think of a few more!

I suspect that the overall effect of all these will lead to a
sharper entry into the "problem zone" where shortages start to seriously worry governments & individuals.

[nero]

I think this is a good point. Importers are not going to be able to significantly outbid the major exporters for their own oil. Even if it is a free market economy like Canada where the price of fuel is not (overtly) subsidized by the government the fact that the oil price increase would increase the money flowing into the economy would somewhat help them to match the importer's bids.

The relative size of the exporter's domestic market will be key. If they export over 90% of their production any increase in oil price will simply stoke their domestic consumption.

[pup55]

http://peakoil.com/fortopic7101.html

We did this about a year ago. Maybe someone energetic can graph them out for us.

We made some kind of friendly assumptions at the time about Mexico's depletion rate etc. so maybe this can be revisited.

But to make a long story short, you have to look for countries which have big oil exports, and at the same time, a big population. Mexico, Indonesia and Iran are the three classic examples of this. As they try to industrialize, and as their population gets bigger, they will burn more oil internally, and at some point, maybe pretty soon, they will no longer be able to export. Countries with big exports but a small population (Kuwait, and Saudi, for example, or Iraq for that matter, or even Canada) will never consume enough oil internally to make much of a difference unless we look way out into the future.

But, the problem child is clearly Mexico, particularly if they start to decline at the rates people are talking about. If this is right, they maybe have five to seven more years left before they start to become net importers of oil. This is obviously important because they are a nearby supplier, and also, their economy, such as it is, is really dependent on this oil revenue. Someone was saying on the order of 70% of the government revenues come from this, although this should be checked out, obviously. An economic collapse in Mexico would cause us a lot of problems.

[pup55]

I am wrong, it's 1/3 of government revenues:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n 2003, Mexico 's federal government relied on Pemex for about one-third of its budget, with
Pemex and its subsidiaries turning over an estimated 60% of their annual revenues to the
government.

[Taskforce_Unity]

I am working on this topic for the upcoming Peak Oil netherlands newsletter. Article is already finished and the newsletter will be released within a few weeks (need to translate it to english and do the finish touch, it's all voluntary work so thats why it takes so long).

[suyog]

[quote="pup55"]http://peakoil.com/fortopic7101.html

"But to make a long story short, you have to look for countries which have big oil exports, and at the same time, a big population. Mexico, Indonesia and Iran are the three classic examples of this."

Indonesia - inspite of being a member of OPEC - is an oil importer. They made the transition from exporting oil to importing oil a few years ago.