CERA: Global Oil Capacity Will Continue to Grow

A well known Cambridge research firm challenges the notion that the world is running out of oil:

Global oil and liquids supply capacity could increase as much as 25% by 2015, with unconventional sources, including  gas-related liquids and extra-heavy oils accounting for a major proportion of  net capacity growth, according to Cambridge Energy Research Associates’ (CERA) July, 2006 benchmark field-by-field analysis of worldwide hydrocarbon liquids production capacity.

CERA’s examination of actual activity and production data covered existing fields and 360 new projects -- 250 new non-OPEC and 110 new OPEC development projects -- expected to start production by 2010. The analysis points to global productive capacity rising from 88.7 mbd in 2006 to 110 mbd in 2015

CERA projects potential capacity growth of 13.3 mbd in the five years from 2006 through 2010, followed by 8 mbd in capacity growth from 2010 through 2015, producing a total of up to 21.3 mbd in new capacity over the next ten years.  These are projects which are either approved and under development or very likely to be approved.

They identified five primary factors affecting strong capacity growth:

• High oil prices and strong competition for access to reserves and pressures on the service sector
• The search for new sources of conventional crude and non-traditional supply
• Increasing global gas productive capacity driving up the volumes of associated liquids
• The pace and scale of deepwater discoveries and development
• E&P company diversification

“During 2000, unconventional liquids represented 16% of global capacity, and by 2006 this had grown to 24% of the total,” they write.  “We expect this strong growth to continue to over one-third of total global capacity (38%) by 2015.

“These levels of growth depend on continuing high rates of investment,” write CERA Director of Oil Industry Activity Peter M. Jackson and CERA Director of Global Oil and Gas Resources Robert W. Esser in Expansion Set to Continue, Global Liquids Capacity to 2015.   “The reference case includes assessments of the 10-year consequences of current disruptions, and assumes that disruptions over the next 10 years will average more or less the same magnitude as the current level with a similar impact.

Contrary to what seems to be a common belief, the overall proportion of lighter liquids is expanding faster than heavy and extra-heavy crudes, according to the CERA report.  Although the market seems to be very focused on heavy and extra-heavy crudes, there is a strong trend toward an expanding stream of light crude, condensates and natural gas liquids (NGLs).

This report is in line by previous reports by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), founded by Daniel Yergin, and outspoken critic of peak oil. I'm sure The OIl Drum, who is on the other side of this issue, will have some comments on this soon.  I think there is a lot of truth in what they say, but they are probably overoptimistic and do not attempt to discuss how the cost of oil will be affected with 40% of our oil coming from unconventional sources and how that might effect demand.

World Oil & Liquids Production Capacity to Grow Significantly through At Least 2015: CERA Update, Press release, August 8, 2008

Comments

[petropest]

I do not believe OPEC has the capacity for the type of production increases that they purport.

[mcr]

I agree - Saudi Arabia won't open up its reserves to internation scrutney and Shell was found to have had incorrect RESERVE DATA two years ago (possibly delibrate misleading information for financial gain by unscrupulous individuals). So at best these are "BEST GUESSES".... over estimates.

ALSO DOES SYNTHETIC OIL VIA FISHER-TROPSCH SYNTHESIS ACTUALLY COUNT IN THIS??? THEY'VE INCLUDED THIS IN THEIR DATA!!!

Did anyone notice this at the beginning of the month - from the world's second largest oil field in Mexico... make up your own minds people...

Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) – “Mexican crude oil output at Cantarell, the world's second-largest field, fell faster than expected in June to a four-year low, signaling the government will miss production targets. The field, which accounts for about half of Mexico's crude production, yielded 1.74 million barrels a day in June, 13 percent less than a year ago and the least since November 2001, according to data on the Energy Ministry's web site. Cantarell is the world's No. 2 field by output and Mexico's biggest.”

“Production is falling faster than the government anticipated, worsening the outlook for Mexican crude exports and public finances. Petroleos Mexicanos, the state oil monopoly, forecast Cantarell output would decline 6 percent this year to average 1.9 million barrels per day.

``The situation is probably much graver than the government would like us to think it is,'' said David Shields, an independent oil consultant based in Mexico City who has covered the industry for 18 years. ``Oil production and oil exports are going to decline considerably over the next three years.''

Officials at Pemex, as the oil company is known, weren't available for comment today, a company spokesman in Mexico City said.

Chief Financial Officer Juan Jose Suarez Coppel will hold a conference call tomorrow to discuss second-quarter earnings. Pemex hasn't published second-quarter output by fields on its web site.

Production at Cantarell has averaged 1.84 million barrels daily during the first six months of the year, 10 percent less than in the same period a year ago, according to Energy Ministry data. Taxes on oil sales account for almost 40 percent of the Mexican government's revenue.

[mcr]

Also - DO PEOPLE IN THE US THINK CHAVEZ IS REALLY GOING TO GIVE THE US MORE ACCESS TO VENAZUELAN HEAVY-OIL RESERVES? WHEN HE HAS MEETINGS BOOKED WITH KIM-JONG-ILL OF NORTH KOREA???

Invest in geothermal ("HEAT MINING" and biorefinery technologies... and don't waste money on CO2 sequestration technologies that merely "HIDE" the CO2 underground!

I'll put money on the integrated geothermal-biorefineries being the future.... as a "TOTAL PETEROCHEM-COMMODITIES/ENERGY REPLACEMENT TECHNOLOGY"

I will put my money where my mouth is too.

[amazingdrx]

Yes, I've been saying peak oil is a scam perpetrated by by oil traders for years.

The limit to combustion generated energy is global climate disaster not lack of combustibles.

[Will]

We have been discussing how high energy costs are making many unconventional energy sources (i.e. Canadian tar sands) viable over at the Cut Oil Imports Message Board

[Cervus]

Peak oil is no scam. It's a geological certainty. There is no disagreement among oil experts as to if it will occur. But this report shows that they just can't agree on when. When world oil stocks start to drop steeply, we'll know.

[amazingdrx]

"There is no disagreement among oil experts as to if it will occur."

Hehehey, what a surprise!

[mcr]

I live in the UK... we had "peak oil" close to the year 2000... and our gas reserves are following a similar trend too.

Monitor national individual-oil fields (SEE MEXICO POST ABOVE) ... YOU WILL SEE PEAK OIL IS NO SCAM... It follows the sum of the average trends of INDIVIDUAL OIL FIELD PRODUCTIONS.

Also - the scam was AN OVER ESTIMATION OF ESTABLISHED RESOURCES ... NOT UNDERESTIMATION.

PEAK OIL IS A REAL AND MEASURABLE PHENOMENON ... in both economics AND nature (I think - scientifically provable within 95% confidence limits).

The problem is - data is so "scatty" as to make the task a very difficult one. Plus national politics begin to take over as to make the task even more harder.

Tar sands and coal - ARE NOT THE COMPLETE ANSWER. They too generate far too much CO2. The debate is - how "GREEN" and HOW INNOVATIVE do we actually want to be? Do we want to be back in this situation again in 50 years? Do we want to END THE CO2 debate for good???? These tar-sand and other syntethic energy-liquids and chemical technologies are only part of the solution -not the entire solution.

We need carbon negligable technologies to work hand in hand - to couple them to obtain the best results.
I think as I previously stated - we should look at integrated geothermal-biorefineries being the future.... as a "TOTAL PETEROCHEM-COMMODITIES/ENERGY REPLACEMENT TECHNOLOGY"

The idea is to use geothermal (and biomass)energy to make our fuel/chemical COMMODITIES AND SPECIALITY needs for the future.

With recycling of used materials. Excess geothermal energy can be wired to surrounding industrial and urban areas.
This way a much lower environmental impact results...

The question is - will anyone listen to these arguements?

[rcm]

I agree. Peak oil's a great scam on the gullible by oil speculators. You have to love how many credulous people they've sucked in.

You know when former execs of ADM are banding together to buy rights to cellulosic ethanol that people with inside info are starting to put their money toward biomass and renewables. The big die-off that pukester doomers are wet in the crotch over ain't happening.

There's not going to be an environmental disaster, either, unless it's an ice age. Ice ages are devastating. Global warming's not, just overhyped.

[Engineer-Poet]

Somehow, I don't find anything amazing about the existence of Yet Another Conspiracy Theorist.  They seem both very ordinary and very dull (in at least two senses).

[petropest]

EP, it appears we may have several things in common. Are you a poet?

[mcr]

See what I mean ... looks like no ones really listened...

Its not a conspiracy per-se ... maybe the Saudi Arabian and Shell ones are individual conspiracies...

Its more the UNWEILDY system we have ... that generates the conspiracy theories that is supposed to be transparent - but really isnt!

Looks like no one read my last post then ... *sigh*

[amazingdrx]

Conspiracy. This informal fallacy needs a name.

Whenever corporate friendly folk object to a characterization of manipulated markets as counter to real free market capitalism they bring out the old claim that we who object are theorizing a "conspiracy". Ad conspirinem maybe, hehey?

All that's needed for peak oil enthusiasm is an academia funded by those who profit from the point of view that peak oil is the major aspect of interest in the energy policy realm.

Those who would point out that peak global climate disaster is now the major limiting factor to oil (and other forms of fuel)production and combustion are shut out of the scientific debate starting out in their academic careers. Is that a conspiracy?

No, it is science for sale. Those people switch to an environmental career path. And then corporate friendly administrations replace government regulators and scientists with corporate friendlies. It's more of a life cycle of corruption in science and government than a conspiracy theory.

Kind of like the life cycle of a tapeworm for instance. It eats up the energy of the host organism (academia and government) from the inside then spreads its eggs in the effluent (government grant and hiring policy).

[Jesse Jenkins]

Folks, in my opinion, we aren't really going to be looking at Peak Oil, certainly not in the sense that the doom-and-gloom/primitivist set is keen on discussing lately, but rather, what would more appropriately be called Plateau Oil.

As this report indicates (and I also consider it overly optimistic, but probably with a kernal of truth), is that what we can no longer make additions to traditional reserves fast enough to a) replace what we are consuming now, and b) meet exponentially increasing demand for oil. This is making the margin between supply and demand very small, leading to an unstable market, and higher and higher prices. These prices in turn enable other non-traditional oil supplies (as well as alternatives like coal-to-liquids and biofuels) to become competitive, enlarging the overall supplies of oil (at least for the next ten years or so).

However, the non-traditional oil supplies that are filling in the gap are harder and harder to recover and refine, and are more and more expensive, meaning that this increased supply is unlikely to ever cause oil prices to decrease ($75+/barrel oil is hear to stay, my friends).

As demand continues to rise, and we keep using up our easy-to-recover, cheap, traditional oil supplies, prices will continue to get higher until they begin to cause demand destruction, leading to a nice plateau in world oil demand as well as (eventually) the additional discovery of non-traditional supplies.

So, while we are unlikely to actually run out of oil, we will not be able to continue to exponentially expand our consumption, nor can we expect to ever see prices as cheap as we have been used to. While this isn't as scary as the Peak Oilers might describe, it will mean a fundamentally different energy scenario worldwide, and an investment in efficiency, conservation and alternatives (and we ought to strongly prefer carbon-free alternatives) is not only prudent, but increasingly necessary to simply sustain the current level of consumption and our energy-dependend global economy.

As we all now from past history, as well as current events, high oil prices have wide-spread repercussions on the economy of the United States and the world. If we want to be secure from what looks to be ever increasing oil prices, we must act proactively and with determination to significantly cut back oil consumption through conservation and efficiency (first) and the development of clean alternatives (second).

Peak oil is no hoax. It may be exaggerated, and the consequences may not be global apocalypse, but the End of Cheap Oil will nevertheless have global repurcussions. Do we want to simply react, or do we want to plan a proactive and prudent strategy to respond to this global phenomenon?

[Neil Hambleton]

Peak Oil is a scam. Have none of you heard of abiotic oil?

www.freeenergynews.com/Directory/Theory/SustainableOil/

www.vialls.com/wecontrolamerica/peakoil.html

http://www.rense.com/general54/ssust.htm

[Mel.]

LMAO!

I love me some abiotic oil theory. "Forget progress, more will magically appear when we need it".

Fart.

[Calvin Jones]

Hi all, just written an article for my blog(Climate Change Action) that isn't up yet. It is currently on my google discussion group.

Title:
Climate Change, Peak Oil and Canadian Oil Sands

I would appreciate any comments/suggestions/corrections.

Regards
Calvin Jones

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/climatechangeaction/web/peak-oil-climate-change-and-canadian-oil -sands

[Steve Missal]

I suspect that the post by Jesse Jenkins may be pretty close to the truth. While there may not be a drastic collapse, (although I wouldn't be the farm on this), we'll see the plateau he described, and all of the outcomes that would then be produced. Several other factors need to be considered: how the energy plateau/decline meshes with declining agricultural production/rising food demand, how it meshes with loss of arable land and potable water, how it meshes with deforestation (e.g. Southeast Asia losing the majority of its forest cover in past few decades with comcomitant problems for the populace) etc. etc. I'm not just slinging eco jargon around; all of these areas will be critical (and many others) because of a bewildering variety of interrelationships. Oil to keep agribusiness afloat; lack of wood (due to deforestation) placing third world people in jeopardy (not to mention the loss of entire ecosystems and what that might mean)for cheap fuel; the ability to manage (with 'cheap oil' energy) any and all transportation of goods, heating, cooling, you name it. The arguments (there is no 'e' in that word) that I see on all of these sites generally just stay in the narrow corridor of oil itself, and not how we are in a race to prevent all of the collateral damage and sustain basic economic engines. It's a mess. A huge mess. I doubt anyone has a clue how to solve it. But more oil won't. The simple fact is that oil/coal energy sources are dirty, expensive to run 'clean', and habitual. We may talk about clean coal burning, but the investment to make that happen is astronomical. Sequestering co2 is one of those typically questionable stop-gap solutions that give me hives. Why go to that trouble when alternate energy sources don't require such a risky and expensive solution. As a species, we have yet to really ponder the future, and the real consequences of our impact on this planet.

[Brendan Paull]

CEAR isn't really the only ones claiming that there will be prepetual growth.
Robert W. Watson, a professor at Penn State said recently about how much cheaper and widespread liquid fuels will become in the future.

Defies Physics....

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[アバクロ]

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[生薬]

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[アバクロ]

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