[Peakoil] Tour d'horizon of peak oil, area-by-area

[Keith Thomas]

The following is a post on a Yahoo group which was written in response 
to a challenge from another group member (Richard) who happens to work 
for BP.

I am posting it here because it purports to give a snapshot of where 
all the major oil producing areas are with respect to their peaks with 
the bonus of a bit of geopolitical background thrown in.
Begin forwarded message:

  Re: Mortgage doom soon, or doom posponed?
Posted by: "Ron"

  Tue Jun 26, 2007 8:56 am (PST)
  Richard, I realize that as far as so-called “proven reserves” go, the 
EIA and the IEA are just as culpable as BP. They all use data supplied 
by the producing nations and guess at “yet to be discovered” data.

  That being said, I have examined production data and decided that the 
EIA is by far the most reliable. The EIA uses data from the IEA and 
also from BP and everyone else that can supply them data. But the IEA 
revises data for the previous month and that is about it. The EIA 
revises data as far back as necessary in an effort to make the data 
more accurate. For instance, just last month the EIA revised the data 
for Kazakhstan, every month, all the way back to January of 2005. As 
more reliable data becomes available, the EIA makes that data available 
to us. And that is month by month data. That alone makes the EIA more 
accurate than anyone else.

  Now I don’t follow BP that close because I have searched for nation by 
nation monthly production data from BP and have been unable to come up 
with that data. But looking at the EIA data I can tell you how much 
crude oil Oman, Denmark, or anyone else for that matter, produced in 
January of 2001, or any other month going back over six years. I cannot 
do that with BP or the IEA. So one reason the EIA is more accurate is 
that they just produce more data. No data at all is certainly not 
accurate data.

  And now for your other question, why do I say oil has peaked? Well 
peak is peak and no matter whose data you are using, the peak will be 
the peak.

  World oil production peaked in 2005 with an average of C+C production 
of 73.791 million barrels per day. So far this year we are averaging 
73.293 million barrels per day. The peak month was May of 2005 with 
74.272 million barrels per day. In March the world produced 73.358 
mb/d. So you can see the trend is clearly down. (A month by month graph 
shows it even more clearly.) But how do I know the trend will not turn 
up next month or next year.

  I have examined the oil production data from each nation and have 
discovered about 24 nations have peaked, another 5 or 6 are very near 
their peak and only and about 8 or 9 have clearly not peaked. That is 
of the 38 national divisions reported by the EIA. All the other very 
tiny producers are covered under “other”.

  OPEC peaked in September of 2005, a full 14 months before they decided 
to implement cuts. I think OPEC has clearly peaked. Saudi Arabia has 
peaked, so has Venezuela, Iran, Libya, Indonesia, and most likely 
Kuwait. Only Angola, the U.A.E., Nigeria, and Iraq have not peaked of 
the OPEC nations. And there is some question of how much more oil the 
U.A.E. can produce.

  Russia is at or very near her peak. Russian production is down about 
200,000 barrels per day from March to May. She may increase a minor 
amount but not enough to amount to much. Russia, recovering from the 
collapse of the Soviet Union, has been the only thing that has kept 
peak oil from becoming obvious to the world. Since May of 2005, three 
nations, Russia, Azerbaijan and Angola have increased their combined 
production by 1.514 million barrels per day. The rest of the world 
combined has declined by 2.436 million barrels per day. The lions share 
of that increase, 573,000 barrels per day, belongs to Russia. That will 
not happen again. I will say it again, If March 2007 was not Russia’s 
peak, it will be within 100,000 barrels per day of her peak.

  I know several other nations are yet to peak but only Azerbaijan, 
Angola and Brazil will increase their annual production by as much as 
half a million barrels per day over then next four or five years. Iraq 
and Nigeria could do that but above ground violence will likely keep 
them from doing it. Other not yet peaked nations such as Algeria, 
Canada, U.A.E. and Kazakhstan will produce much more modest gains. 
China, I believe, is either at or very near her peak.

  But increased production from these nations will not nearly make up 
for the decline in the rest of the world. The entire North Sea (The UK, 
Norway and Denmark) is in freefall. Mexico is in steep decline. U.S. 
production is currently falling but new oil from the Gulf of Mexico 
will stem that decline beginning next year. But declines in the lower 
48 and Alaska will keep the U.S. from any dramatic increase in 
production. And the OPEC nations of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Indonesia and 
Venezuela will continue their decline. Other nations, long in decline, 
Oman, Indonesia, Argentina, Gabon, Egypt, Syria, and Australia will 
continue their herky-jerky decline.

  And that Richard, is why I say the world has peaked.
--------------------------------------------
Keith Thomas
www.evfit.com
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