EIA C+C Data and Jean Laherrere on Reserves

The EIA just released their International Energy Statistics with world production numbers through October 2014. There were no big surprises in this report.

World C+C production was up 731,000 bpd to 78,967,000 bpd. This is a new high.

All the gain in the last few years has come from non-OPEC. Non-OPEC production was up 374 kbd in September and up another 370 kbd in October to 46,002,000 bpd.

OPEC C+C has been on a bumpy plateau for the last several years. Also most of the gain has come from increased production of condensate, especially from Qatar. OPEC C+C production was up 21 kbd to 32,965,000 bpd.

Canadian production was revised dramatically in this report. July was revised up by 120 kbd, August revised up by 250 kbd and September was revised down by 210 kbd. October production was 3,677,000 bpd, up 20,000 bpd.

Mexico, after holding a plateau for about 4 years has started to decline again.

The World less USA and Canada has been on a 10 year bumpy plateau. I am predicting they, the World less USA and Canada, will turn down around mid 2015. US and Canada will still be increasing but at a much slower rate than the past 4 years.

Charts of all non-OPEC nations can be found on my page Non-OPEC Charts, and the page World Crude Oil Production by Geographical Area has also been updated.

Jean Laherrere on oil reserves.

There was a news article posted February 17th on oil discoveries in  2014, Discoveries of new oil and gas reserves drop to 20-year low. This is a Financial Times article and you may be asked to register to receive three free articles per year. I have already used up all mine. Anyway the link was posted by both Jeffrey Brown and myself on this blog.

The article stated: New finds of oil and gas are likely to have been about 16bn barrels of oil equivalent in 2014. Barrels of oil equivalent includes natural gas. Counting both oil and natural gas the world uses over three times that amount each year. So the world found less than one third the oil the world used last year. And discoveries are falling while oil consumption is rising.

The article was picked up and re-posted over on PeakOil.com where Rockman made a long comment, part of which is quoted below, but first he quoted the article:

“…and there are large known reserves — both “unconventional”, including shale in North America and heavy oil in Canada and Venezuela, and “conventional” in countries including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates.”

I’m not sure when FT wrote this piece but I suspect recently. Apparently FT is aware of the definition of PROVED RESERVES. It isn’t the amount of oil in the ground. It’s the amount of oil that can be COMMERCIALLY produced. With the decline in oil prices (a key component in the determination of commerciality for reserves) the world has lost tens of billions of bbl of PROVED RESERVES from the ledger book. The cornucopians were justified in converting non-commercial shale reserves to a commercial status. But that ole double edged sword had rushed back and poked them in the ass.

This is all very nice but Jean thinks Rockman confuses 1P with 2P reserves.

Jean Laherrere:

The plot of the 2P discovery (excluding extra-heavy) is as follows up to 2010.

The discovery peak is in 1971 with 300 Gboe with the discovery of North Dome (two thirds in Qatar = North Field and one third in Iran = South Pars). IHS to please Iran reports South Filed in 1991 but everyone knew that North Field discovered in 1971 extended into Iran)

My plot excludes extra-heavy when IHS reports in Venezuela 215 Gb from 1936 to 1939.

The main problem is that economists rely on the published political 1P oil reserves always on the rise and ignore the confidential technical reserves declining since 1980; since 1980 the oil production (light green) is over the the oil discovery (dark green): same for oil and gas (in blue) since 1990.

Economists argue that technology will save the world but ignore the technical data

Economists do not think wrong, they think on wrong data.

In Jean’s second plot if you extend the technical backdated 2P reserves from 2010 to the current date, you will see that Jean thinks there are just over 800 billion barrels of 2P reserves left. And in his last plow he states that ultimate production will be about 2,200 billion barrels. And you will notice that he has the peak… well… about right now. With all three assessments I whole heartily agree.

• “1P reserves” = proven reserves (both proved developed reserves + proved undeveloped reserves).
• “2P reserves” = 1P (proven reserves) + probable reserves, hence “proved AND probable.”
• “3P reserves” = the sum of 2P (proven reserves + probable reserves) + possible reserves, all 3Ps “proven AND probable AND possible.

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