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Energy News Round-Up:
Stoneleigh, The Oil Drum: Canada
Many stories in Stoneleigh’s mix today, with a heavy emaphasis on the financial crisis.
(21 August 2007)
World Oil Forecasts Including Saudi Arabia – Update Aug 2007
ace, The Oil Drum
Executive Summary
1. World total liquids production (Fig 1) remains on a peak plateau since 2006 and is forecast to fall off this peak plateau in 2009. According to the IEA, the current peak production of 86.13 mbd occurred on July 2006 and only one year later, June 2007 total liquids production fell to an unexpectedly low 84.28 mbd. As long as demand continues increasing then prices will also continue increasing.
2. Forecast world crude oil and lease condensate (C&C) production retains its 2005 peak (Fig 2). The forecast to 2100 shows declining C&C production, using a bottom up forecast to 2012 (Fig 3). The forecast to 2012 shows a 1%/yr decline rate to 2009, followed by a 4%/yr decline rate to 2012.
3. World oil discovery rates peaked in 1965 (Fig 4) and production has exceeded discovery for every year since the mid 1980s. Discoverable reserves in giant fields also peaked during the mid 1960s (Fig 5). The time lag between world peak discovery in 1965 and world peak production in 2005 of 40 years is similar to the time lag of 42 years for the USA Lower 48 (Fig 6).
4. World C&C year on year production changes to April 2007 and May 2007 (Figs 7,8) show significant declines for Mexico, North Sea and Saudi Arabia and significant increases for Russia, Azerbaijan and Angola. As Russia is likely to be on a production plateau and Saudi Arabia has probably passed peak production, the world C&C production will continue to decline slowly.
5. Key producer Saudi Arabia retains its 2005 C&C peak (Fig 10), which is the same as the peak year for world C&C (Fig 2). Saudi Arabia C&C production has now dropped to 8.6 mbd which is 1 mbd less than its peak in 2005. It is now almost a certainty that Saudi Arabia passed peak C&C production of 9.6 mbd in 2005 (Figs 9,10).
6. World natural gas plant liquids is forecast to increase due to new OPEC projects (Fig 11). World ethanol and XTL production is forecast to double by 2012 (Fig 12). World processing gains are forecast to decline slowly to 2012 (Fig 13).
(22 August 2007)
ODAC News – Wednesday 22 Aug
Doug Low, The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre
Economics – Subprime Crisis
1/ Global financial problems continue
1a/ City hit by biggest crisis for a decade (The Telegraph, Sat 11 Aug)
1b/ Global stock markets tumble on credit fears (The Telegraph, Fri 17 Aug)
1c/ Hedge Funds Are Squeezed by Investors and Lenders (The NY Times, Mon 20 Aug)
1d/ Business comment: Sub-prime crisis is the edge of a financial hurricane (The Telegraph, Mon 20 Aug)
Russia – car production / Shtokman update
2a/ Truck Production in Russia Up 20%, to 158,000, in Seven Months [Car Production] (FC Novosti, Fri 17 Aug)
2b/ Gazprom Chooses First Supplier for Shtokman Project (FC Novosti, Mon 20 Aug)
UK – electricity
3a/ Revealed: cover-up plan on energy target (The Guardian, Mon 13 Aug)
3b/ UK gencos to invest $14 billion in low-carbon plant by 2012: AEP (Platts, Mon 13 Aug)
3c/ Go-ahead for gas-fired power station (Financial Times, Mon 20 Aug)
3d/ No New UK Nuclear Power Likely Before 2020 – Poyry (Planet Ark [Reuters], Tue 21 Aug)
Turkmenistan / Azerbaijan / Kazakhstan oil and gas
4a/ Turkmenistan seeks other outlets besides Russia for gas exports (Platts, Fri 17 Aug)
4b/ Kazakhstan and China sign oil and gas pipelines agreement (Financial Times, Mon 20 Aug)
Peak Oil – Switzerland
5/ “Peak oil” becomes burning issue (Swiss Info, Mon 20 Aug)
Coal Imports – Asia
6/ Asia’s thermal coal supply squeeze to worsen in ’08 (Reuters, Fri 17 Aug)
Big Oil – R&D Spending
7/ COMPANIES INTERNATIONAL: Oil groups put faith in R&D as states lock up (Financial Times, Tue 21 Aug)
Iran – Natural Gas Exports
8/ Tehran advised not to export gas (The International News [Pakistan], Mon 20 Aug)
Russian Oil Production
9a/ For Russia, An End To Growth is In Sight (ASPO-USA, Wed 15 Aug)
9b/ Russia Oil Report (Whiskey and Gunpowder, May/June 2007 ?)
India – natural gas supplies
10/ Exit Iran’s oil minister, and a pipeline too (Asia Times, Fri 17 Aug)
(22 August 2007)
