Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Even if forecasting the exact date of the peak is a fool’s errand, only a fool would miss the signs that the world oil industry has entered a new, desperate era. Discoveries are down, costs are up. Production has flatlined, environmental impacts from petroleum operations are soaring.
In this paper, I briefly review recent global crude oil and liquids production numbers, and I review the Export Land Model (ELM). I also introduce the concept of the Export Capacity Index (ECI), which is simply the ratio of total petroleum liquids production to liquids consumption in net oil exporting countries. I then compare the ELM to actual case histories, and I discuss Global Net Exports of oil (GNE) and what I call Available Net Exports (ANE), or GNE less the Chindia (China + India) region’s combined net oil imports.
