It's official: New monthly world crude oil production record

[AgentR11]

That is scary scary flat for a world trying to add millions and millions of additional middle class consumers.

[Lore]

That is scary scary flat for a world trying to add millions and millions of additional middle class consumers.

Especially when you consider producers are going balls to the wall on every conventional and unconventional fossile fuel resource known.

With only two to four million barrels of spare capacity left for any hiccups, the markets are just beginning to wake up. The next three years are going to be ugly.

[Pops]

I'd make a big announcement that long term average prices are also higher than at any time in the history of oil but of course everyone knows that already don't they?

I will point out that price is the proxy for demand and that regardless of how much supply has increased it obviously isn't able to rise fast enough - hasn't been about to rise fast enough for about 10 years now.

[ralfy]

Sorry if this is a repost:

"Running dry"

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailycha ... onsumption

A member in another forum also pointed out that consumption appears to have been exceeding production since 2006 or so. Also, as pointed out in the update, we've been using biofuels, etc., just to meet demand.

Sounds like those who wish to count only conventional crude should beware. If we can make up increases in demand with anything and everything else, no matter what it is, then the relevance of peaking conventional crude becomes...less.

It's actually bad news because we're not supposed to be using non-conventional sources, especially biofuels, as that drives up the cost of food. Rather, we should be increasing production from conventional sources significantly, something which can be seen in the thread title.

[misterno]

I don't understand

Howcome oil production is breaking records but oil price is close to all time high ($125/bbl)

It does not make sense

[Pops]

Basically people in the poor world were given one US factory job, they divided it 50 ways and all 50 became oil consumers. Since each one can get much more utility from a gallon of gas than what a $50 an hour guy in the rich world can get, they can also afford to buy more out of their 50 one dollar incomes.

Put another way,
A glass of water is worth more to a guy in El Paso than to a guy in Houston.

[pstarr]

It's all about definition creep. Lease condensate, but especially so-called natural gas liquids (NGL) are counted by EIA as liquid petroleum. But that is disingenuous and intended to confuse the issue. Lease Condensate and NGL are really alkanes, mostly unsuitable as substitutes for the complex, complete hydrocarbons that most regular people (non-cornies) refer to as "oil." Yes, you can light a cigarette with butane but it will not drive the Prius to the soccer game.

[OilFinder2]

Perhaps pstarr's computer isn't working properly, but if he actually cared to click on the link, he would have noticed the numbers are for "Crude Oil including Lease Condensate." He needed only to pull down the menu on the link to learn that natural gas liquids are a different category which were not included in those numbers. And as pointed out numerous times on this forum, lease condensate has been included in this particular EIA data set along with crude oil since the EIA began tabulating the figures in the early 70's. So, there is nothing new in this data.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. May I have your attention please.

The EIA has now reported that the world has a new crude and condensate production record. As of December, 75.4 million barrels/day were produced, compared to the previous records of 74.8 million barrels/day in November, 75.2 million barrels/day in December 2010, and 74.6 million barrels/day in July 2008. Numbers are rounded off.

We also have a new yearly crude & condensate record of 73.964 million barrels/day, eclipsing the previous record of 73.889 million barrels/day set in 2010. Yes, that's correct: Last year the world produced nearly 74 million barrels per day.

Thank you, and have a nice day.

[pstarr]

lease condensate has been included in this particular EIA data set since the EIA began tabulating the figures in the early 70's.

Exactly. The EIA has been mis-reporting and inflating petroleum production ever since the US peak in 1971. How long have they been redefining corn liquor as oil? That's fairly new? What about 5 years?

[KingM]

lease condensate has been included in this particular EIA data set since the EIA began tabulating the figures in the early 70's.

Exactly. The EIA has been mis-reporting and inflating petroleum production ever since the US peak in 1971. How long have they been redefining corn liquor as oil? That's fairly new? What about 5 years?

1971 was the year I was born. If we're in the middle of a peak oil collapse, it's such a slow-moving collapse that it is unlikely to have much of an effect on my life.

I don't know why people point to a plateau as evidence of a collapse. This is the best-case scenario. It keeps enough energy in the system to complete a transition without increasing the scope of the problem. With any luck, the plateau will continue for another twenty years until petroleum becomes a smaller and smaller fraction of the entire economy.

[dolanbaker]

The Plateau is causing the global supply to be constrained, but the real issue is the fact that the BRICS are rapidly expanding and increasing their fuel consumption at a faster pace than the OECD nations are reducing their consumption.

The "energy crunch" will be quite sharp when we do eventually slip off the plateau as it will only slow down the growth in the BRICS, but will mean faster contraction in consumption in the OECD countries.

Businesses are prepared to pay more for fuel to maintain operation than commuters, commuters use more fuel in the OECD countries than in the BRICS.

[AgentR11]

1971 was the year I was born. If we're in the middle of a peak oil collapse, it's such a slow-moving collapse that it is unlikely to have much of an effect on my life.

If you were born in '71, and we're now in the middle of the plateau, then your economic experience simply doesn't include much contact with cheap and easy oil. That's OK, but you shouldn't pretend that it isn't having a substantial impact on our modern life. Do you REALLY think we'd sacrifice thousands of soldiers and trillions of dollars just to keep some tribal Arabs and Persians from killing each other, if it were not for the critical nature of every bit of capacity now? I do agree with you about "collapse", people looking for a post apocalyptic world as a result of resource constraints are in for a very long wait, but a crushing, grinding push down as a result of costly energy will drive the employment ratio down, step by step by step, and at each step it will only recover in the sense of leveling out at its new "normal". If you've made yourself comfortable enough with this reality, then there's no reason to expect anything terribly harsh; but a lot of people have not made themselves comfortable with how things are. They really do expect a return to "boom times" with easily available employment for anyone that is remotely willing to show up for work most of the time, even if they don't do much when at work; and that's just not going to happen again.

With any luck, the plateau will continue for another twenty years until petroleum becomes a smaller and smaller fraction of the entire economy.

I think this is almost guaranteed, but putting it that way makes it seem very benign. When the economy ends up consisting of a small number of productive people, utilizing the available energy at very high efficiency to create the goods and services needed to keep the population as a whole alive; it won't seem benign to either the producers, nor the dependents.

[Tanada]

It's all about definition creep. Lease condensate, but especially so-called natural gas liquids (NGL) are counted by EIA as liquid petroleum. But that is disingenuous and intended to confuse the issue. Lease Condensate and NGL are really alkanes, mostly unsuitable as substitutes for the complex, complete hydrocarbons that most regular people (non-cornies) refer to as "oil." Yes, you can light a cigarette with butane but it will not drive the Prius to the soccer game.

On the contrary Pstarr, as I and several others have pointed out to you on MULTIPLE occasions Butane is a major blending component of regular gasoline, the stuff that makes that Prius drive once the battery is unavailable. Pretending that 10% or more of your tank is not filled with Butane is disingenuous at best and a flat out lie at worst. Which is it?

[PeakingAroundtheCorner]

Very impressive. A new annual peak. Well, ain't that something? Looks like we've fluctuated within a range of roughly 1.5 mbd since 2004, an 8 year average of 73,253,300 barrels. Who woulda thunk that we'd tease 74 million barrels occasionally along a bumpy plateau?

I wonder what the EROI was for 2011's total... You know, for all the effort and the despite high oil prices for some time now, a band of 1.5 mb per annum seems rather narrow.

[pstarr]

It's all about definition creep. Lease condensate, but especially so-called natural gas liquids (NGL) are counted by EIA as liquid petroleum. But that is disingenuous and intended to confuse the issue. Lease Condensate and NGL are really alkanes, mostly unsuitable as substitutes for the complex, complete hydrocarbons that most regular people (non-cornies) refer to as "oil." Yes, you can light a cigarette with butane but it will not drive the Prius to the soccer game.

On the contrary Pstarr, as I and several others have pointed out to you on MULTIPLE occasions Butane is a major blending component of regular gasoline, the stuff that makes that Prius drive once the battery is unavailable. Pretending that 10% or more of your tank is not filled with Butane is disingenuous at best and a flat out lie at worst. Which is it?

Lead was a blending component of regular gasoline. That doesn't make it oil. And diesel, bunker oil, paraffin and myriad other distillates and sub-species remain oil-based. The point remains that we are running low on light sweet free-flowing crude and straining higher up on the tree to replace it.

[meemoe_uk]

That is scary scary flat for a world trying to add millions and millions of additional middle class consumers.

The only thing that might be considered scary is that a cult of people have been brainwashed into thinking there's a plateau when there isn't one.
An 11.5Mbpd oil increase over 10 years is 2nd only to the 1960-1975 increase.
IEA : 88.48Mbpd average production in 2011
76.98Mbpd average production in 2001
That's a pretty healthy increase compared with history.

I'd make a big announcement that long term average prices are also higher than at any time in the history of oil but of course everyone knows that already don't they?

I will point out that price is the proxy for demand and that regardless of how much supply has increased it obviously isn't able to rise fast enough - hasn't been about to rise fast enough for about 10 years now.

I'd make a big announcement that average oil prices are usually at record highs, and so aren't an indication of oil crisis, but I know peakers can't read that.

>I will point out that price is the proxy for demand...
Do you hate and oppose Matt Simmons? Why have you insisted for the last 8 years in ignoring his teachings? The late leader of the peak oil gang told you over and over, the supply and demand mechanism in the oil market is broken.
For the hundredth time...
There is a different systen to supply and demand in place. The oil price is controled by the oil cartel. They increased the price of oil recently to fund the middle east oil war. The war is ongoing. Syria and Iran are still to be destroyed. Many other conquered countries still require billions in development and infrastructure.
Wars aren't free you know.
When the war is over by 2020, the oil price will collapse, as the big players will want to wipe out competition from the hordes of little oil companies that have thrived with all the cash being pumped into the oil industry. The little companies will be bankrupted and eaten up by the old establishment. Just like they were last time in the 80s and 90s. The cycle repeats.

[vision-master]

The only thing that might be considered scary is that a cult of people have been brainwashed into thinking there's a plateau when there isn't one.

Who do you work for, tell us who your masters are?

[PeakingAroundtheCorner]

That is scary scary flat for a world trying to add millions and millions of additional middle class consumers.

The only thing that might be considered scary is that a cult of people have been brainwashed into thinking there's a plateau when there isn't one.
An 11.5Mbpd oil increase over 10 years is 2nd only to the 1960-1975 increase.
IEA : 88.48Mbpd average production in 2011
76.98Mbpd average production in 2001
That's a pretty healthy increase compared with history.

Total average production of oil in 2011 was 73.96Mbpd, not 88.48Mbpd.

http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/i ... &unit=TBPD

The 10-year increase in oil production was 8.5Mbpd, not 11.5Mbpd, with most of the increase coming between early 2002 and mid-2004 preceding the now 8 year long bumpy plateau. Since mid-2004 annual average oil production increased by only 1.5Mbpd

[pstarr]

Folks might be curious as to the discrepancies between various reported production 'highs.' It's like this;

Back in 2000 oil was mostly considered to be the liqht-sweet crude that actually flowed out of the ground under a water/gas drive (73.96Mbpd.) (I'm not sure when condensate was added to the mix). But then over the last decade we have seen numerous episodes of definition creep by oil-industry flacks at the EIA and the IEA. And so today 'oil' includes lighter fluid, corn liquor, and bitumen (otherwise known as asphalt) that must be combined with H2 to recreate petroleum. (88.48Mbpd.) With enough manipulation (at a cost in eroei/net-energy-returned, aka $$$$$$$) most any organic material may be turned into 'oil.' Hence the two numbers.

[meemoe_uk]

>Total average production of oil in 2011 was 73.96Mbpd, not 88.48Mbpd.
Nonsense. 73.96 is what you get when doomers have used any and every excuse to dismiss 14,000,000 bpd of oil that don't fit into their POisNow fantasy.

>Back in 2000 oil was mostly considered to be the liqht-sweet crude that actually flowed out of the ground under a water/gas drive (73.96Mbpd.)...
Your having a laugh aren't you. Didn't you notice you've lost the support of the moderate peakers on the forum? I said last year, peakers will become more hysterical in their take on oil supply as the new 21st century golden age of oil floods the world's markets to record levels over the next couple of decades.
Most of the new supply is high quality crude from the 2001 middle east oil bonanza.