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Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.

Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby copious.abundance » Sat 28 Jun 2014, 22:06:10

Let us take a little trip down Memory Lane to find out what, according to the doomers, was supposed to happen with oil production in Texas. It was supposed to be the poster child of depletion, and everything! :shock:

Back in 1999, according to this, the following was supposed to be the trajectory of oil production in Texas. It was supposed to be all downhill! :?

Image

Then over on The Oil Drum we have doozey's such as this, in which production in Saudi Arabia, the North Sea or any other place of interest is projected based on what has happened in Texas. I wonder if those same people are willing to maintain that line of reasoning today! :lol:
westexas wrote:Based on the Texas model, one could argue that higher prices cause oil production to fall. By the way, note that the North Sea, since 1999, has shown declining crude oil production in response to a generally rising price environment.

In reality, Texas and the overall Lower 48 had simply consumed more than half of their recoverable reserves, based on the mathematical Hubbert Linearization (HL) model.

Image

And this
westexas wrote: In the real world, I think that the approach works because after decades of drilling in a given region--Texas; Saudi Arabia and now the world--there aren't many surprises left.

Here in Texas, the method predicted the peak of production (in 1972) within two years (assuming that peak production is at 50% of Qt). Texas peaked at 54% of Qt.

And so on, ad infinitum. Down, down, down it was supposed to go. A new peak was impossible! 8O

And yet ... Texas is now only 400K barrels/day from its all-time record! This wasn't supposed to happen! :?

Texas oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Image

And the doomers have had the nerve to ridicule the Cornucopians. :badgrin:
Stuff for doomers to contemplate:
http://peakoil.com/forums/post1190117.html#p1190117
http://peakoil.com/forums/post1193930.html#p1193930
http://peakoil.com/forums/post1206767.html#p1206767
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Sat 28 Jun 2014, 22:37:25

C-O: "And the doomers have had the nerve to ridicule the Cornucopians". I have to agree with you on this one. Their primary error was not anticipating the effect of a 300% increase in the price of oil. Any geologist worth his salt would have predicted big increase in Texas production if you had told him Americans would be paying an extra $400 billion per year for their oil consumption today. Yes indeed: a copious abundance of revenue for the oil patch. We thank you America.
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby Outsailing » Sat 28 Jun 2014, 23:09:47

ROCKMAN wrote:C-O: "And the doomers have had the nerve to ridicule the Cornucopians". I have to agree with you on this one. Their primary error was not anticipating the effect of a 300% increase in the price of oil.


Rockman, you are describing a real basic error here. Is there anything of value in assigning bell shaped curves to stuff without some big caveat like, "if nominal prices increase 300% then we should throw out all previous work and start doubling and tripling out recoverability estimates?

It is a common economic argument...if you price it right...more will come. But it seems to completely negate any claim of geologic limitation less than in-place values, or in this case, the one causing bell shaped curves in oil production.

Rockman wrote:Any geologist worth his salt would have predicted big increase in Texas production if you had told him Americans would be paying an extra $400 billion per year for their oil consumption today. Yes indeed: a copious abundance of revenue for the oil patch. We thank you America.


Well, this is certainly some good news for continued world production rates I guess. The geologists have all underestimated the amount of available oil and gas and it just requires another price bump to get more.
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby copious.abundance » Sat 28 Jun 2014, 23:21:39

ROCKMAN wrote:C-O: "And the doomers have had the nerve to ridicule the Cornucopians". I have to agree with you on this one. Their primary error was not anticipating the effect of a 300% increase in the price of oil.

As my quote from westexas above indicates, at least one doomer-peaker type did consider the effect of rising oil prices, but not only dismissed any positively correlated effect it might have, he actually told us there was a negative correlation.
westexas wrote:Based on the Texas model, one could argue that higher prices cause oil production to fall.

LOL!!
Stuff for doomers to contemplate:
http://peakoil.com/forums/post1190117.html#p1190117
http://peakoil.com/forums/post1193930.html#p1193930
http://peakoil.com/forums/post1206767.html#p1206767
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby Outsailing » Sun 29 Jun 2014, 00:01:30

copious.abundance wrote:
ROCKMAN wrote:C-O: "And the doomers have had the nerve to ridicule the Cornucopians". I have to agree with you on this one. Their primary error was not anticipating the effect of a 300% increase in the price of oil.

As my quote from westexas above indicates, at least one doomer-peaker type did consider the effect of rising oil prices, but not only dismissed any positively correlated effect it might have, he actually told us there was a negative correlation.
westexas wrote:Based on the Texas model, one could argue that higher prices cause oil production to fall.

LOL!!


Well, what might "not worth their salt" mean to Rockman? Maybe this westexas guy isn't really a geologist, he just dabbles?
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby americandream » Sun 29 Jun 2014, 04:54:09

ROCKMAN wrote:C-O: "And the doomers have had the nerve to ridicule the Cornucopians". I have to agree with you on this one. Their primary error was not anticipating the effect of a 300% increase in the price of oil. Any geologist worth his salt would have predicted big increase in Texas production if you had told him Americans would be paying an extra $400 billion per year for their oil consumption today. Yes indeed: a copious abundance of revenue for the oil patch. We thank you America.


The notion that capitalism is on its last legs whilst FDI is flooding China is pure fantasy. This system has a chameleon like adaptability and will only face its final showdown when decoupling becomes plain to see, even to the blind....at the point, one or more of it's inner contradictions will have fully surfaced...that may well be energy though not necessarily so.
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby Strummer » Sun 29 Jun 2014, 05:07:46

Outsailing wrote:Well, this is certainly some good news for continued world production rates I guess. The geologists have all underestimated the amount of available oil and gas and it just requires another price bump to get more.


The problem with this is that there are huge sectors of the global economy, indeed whole countries, that had been literally "thrown overboard" or "sacrificed" by the high prices. And that's what nobody predicted, because, frankly, it's insane in the long term, and it will have terrible consequences. And a related issue is that most Americans don't see this. The USA is an empire and its citizens enjoy the benefits of its imperial status, which shields them from most of the negative effects of the oil price rise, but those effects are in full swing all over the world. The price bump to $110 destroyed the future of countries like Greece, Spain, Ukraine and others. The next price bump, if it happens, will destroy more.

Of course the USA will be the last to feel the consequences. You could look at it as a food chain in nature. The USA is the predator on the top of the chain. When an extinction starts at the bottom of the chain, the predators are not affected at first. It's only after a while, when the extinction/overhunting moves higher up the chain, that the predators are affected.
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby americandream » Sun 29 Jun 2014, 05:12:39

Strummer wrote:
Outsailing wrote:Well, this is certainly some good news for continued world production rates I guess. The geologists have all underestimated the amount of available oil and gas and it just requires another price bump to get more.


The problem with this is that there are huge sectors of the global economy, indeed whole countries, that had been literally "thrown overboard" or "sacrificed" by the high prices. And that's what nobody predicted, because, frankly, it's insane in the long term, and it will have terrible consequences. And a related issue is that most Americans don't see this. The USA is an empire and its citizens enjoy the benefits of its imperial status, which shields them from most of the negative effects of the oil price rise, but those effects are in full swing all over the world. The price bump to $110 destroyed the future of countries like Greece, Spain, Ukraine and others. The next price bump, if it happens, will destroy more.


Not destroyed, merely put the workers in their "rightful" place. The Greek ruling class will be wealthier than ever before.
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby Pops » Sun 29 Jun 2014, 08:50:47

Actually the production of "Crude Oil" isn't 3Mb/d, the production of crude and condensate is 3Mb/d, big difference.

This ties in with the thread about exporting condensate, since all the increase in TX production (and all the fracked shales I guess) is essentially condensate. Condensate is light oil, naptha, natural gasoline, Coleman fuel, it is also the perfect feedstock to make plastics because it is easily (well, with lots of heat) cracked apart to make the ethylene, propylene etc that all our chachkas are made from.

From DCoyne
Image

Here is a table from rbnenergy.com showing just how big condensate is:

Image

... including EOG these companies were producing between them 456 Mb/d in October 2012 and that 7 out of the 10 companies were producing condensate – a total of 319 Mb/d or 70 percent of output – leaving only 30 percent of output or 137 Mb/d as crude oil.
The companies used in the IHS survey are not named (except for EOG) but the October 2012 current production volume estimates on the chart (456 Mb/d) exceed the “official” RRC production numbers for YTD November 2012 – so the companies do represent a significant chunk of Eagle Ford production.



"Condensate" is good stuff if that's what you want, but it isn't the crude oil that the US oil biz was built around. It is very light on the API scale and while it can be made into gasoline, the refineries in the states aren't set up to refine it efficiently so it sells at a good $15-20 discount to crude oil.

--
This is important, at least to me, because I thought the reason "crude" in the Bakken was selling for such a big discount was because of transport costs, This little flap about condensate exports caused me to read up and realise that the reason for the discount is demand for condensate is lower than for crude. So lighter isn't always better.
--

To be fair, shortonoil has been saying this for a while and so has Pstarr in his way, LOL. Westexas has also been talking about the same thing, crude oil has peaked but condensate is growing. This also relates to the chart showing the only growth in the world in US Tight Oil and the point is all the US Tight "oil" increase is condensate.

I remember talk here 7-8 years ago about the refineries in the states reconfiguring away from light oils in order to process heavy crude from KSA and canada and everyone said that was a Big Dot. It is interesting that now several Co's are frantically building "Crackers" to allow export of minimally processed condensate.

So on the one hand it is great that the drillers got something for their trillions in investment, it just wasn't what they were looking for. That of course explains why gasoline is still $3.50-$4. Naphtha makes gasoline but gasoline consumption in the US is down. We do export gasoline but global demand is for diesel and there is an oversupply of gasoline refining capacity. Refiners want to export diesel and you don't make diesel from naphtha (as far as I can tell from my wikipedia education) so they adjust their output as far as practical to make diesel rather than gasoline. The gasoline price remains high in the US.

All that explains the push to relax the rules to allow exporting condensate with little or minimal refining.

It also explains why, if there is such a glut of "crude oil" why the price of gasoline is still high. There isn't a glut of crude, it is as peaked as it ever was.

There is a glut of condensate
.

https://rbnenergy.com/imagine-there-s-n ... condensate
https://rbnenergy.com/dont-let-your-cru ... condensate
https://rbnenergy.com/imagine-there-s-n ... -the-world
http://www.digitalrefining.com/article/ ... outes.html
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Sun 29 Jun 2014, 11:03:45

Pops - All valid points. But: "All that explains the push to relax the rules to allow exporting condensate with little or minimal refining." As pointed out condensate has been exported for a long time as upgraded "product" and non-upgraded exempt oil. But more importantly about 1.2 BILLION bbls per year of CRUDE OIL in the US is cracked and shipped out of the country as refined products. So in essence there isn't today nor has there ever been an "effective" ban on exporting the value of US oil. Just one big game of smoke and mirrors IMHO. No different then me being banned from paying you in $100 bills and then my paying you in $20 bills: the money still leaves my checking count. But there is bright side: all that oil we crack and export is imported into the country. At least in the accounting ledger it isn't US oil. Which also explains the other smoke and mirrors con tossed out by Canadian oil sands importers who pledge not to re-export it from the US. No need: just crack it in Gulf Coast refineries that are well designed to do so and then export all the products if it makes good economics to do so. Not that this is a reason to not import the Canadian production but in theory, other then providing refinery jobs and industry profits, those imports might not add anything to US economy or supplies.

The US consumes more oil then it produces. We have no NET oil to export. A mute point IMHO.
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby Outsailing » Sun 29 Jun 2014, 11:07:48

Strummer wrote:
Outsailing wrote:Well, this is certainly some good news for continued world production rates I guess. The geologists have all underestimated the amount of available oil and gas and it just requires another price bump to get more.


The problem with this is that there are huge sectors of the global economy, indeed whole countries, that had been literally "thrown overboard" or "sacrificed" by the high prices.


And apparently they consumed such little amounts of oil that when they stopped consuming, oil production didn't even really go down...just sort of plateaued?

Sounds like in terms of "sacrifice", it is analogous to saying a cruise ship got lighter because everyone threw overboard their favorite tooth brush...sure the ship got lightened...but no one noticed.

Strummer wrote:Of course the USA will be the last to feel the consequences.


Based on projections showing the US increasing oil production back to peak rates in the 70's because of these price increases, I can certainly see why.

But the real question is, how our success translate to success in other areas, like Russia and Argentina and Mexico, and then can the world continue on its merry way until the next price increase?
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby Pops » Sun 29 Jun 2014, 11:19:26

ROCKMAN wrote:So in essence there isn't today nor has there ever been an "effective" ban on exporting the value of US oil.

You miss my point, the growth in US production is in condensate, not crude. US refineries shifted away from light oil (preparing to resorting to heavier grades) so now don't have the capacity to refine the surge of very light condensates.

Hence the new "crackers" and potentially the reclassifying of condensates as not crude oil, in order to bypass the ban on crude.

That is the real story here.
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Sun 29 Jun 2014, 11:29:12

Hmm..."But the real question is, how our success translate to success in other areas". Our "success" has translated into US consumers spending about $400 BILLION more per year for oil then we were producing less. Which means that in the last 5 years or our consumers have transferred an ADDITIONAL $2 TRILLION to the oil producers including foreign countries. We might be importing less oil but we are sending more $'s overseas then when we were importing more.

I suspect many Americans struggling to pay the higher bill don't feel very successful. But me and the other oil patch hands are feeling damn successful. LOL.
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby Synapsid » Sun 29 Jun 2014, 11:39:57

ROCKMAN,

I'd be happy to accept $20 bills. Send 'em along.
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby westexas » Sun 29 Jun 2014, 12:37:48

As Pops noted, the (so far) Texas peak in 1972 of about 3.4 mbpd was crude oil only (generally defined as 45 or lower API gravity crude oil). The Texas RRC data put the 2013 Texas condensate to C+C ratio at about 15%. If we apply this to the EIA C+C estimate for Texas, it implies that 2013 annual Texas crude oil production was about 2.2 mbpd. But of course, Texas is still on an upward trajectory in 2014, however, the rebound in Texas production--like the US overall--is built on the foundation of very high, and rising, underlying decline rates. I suspect that the underlying decline rate from existing Texas oil wells is at least 15%/year now, which would imply that the industry has to replace current 2014 Texas crude oil production in about seven years, just to maintain current production for seven years.

In any case, it's one of life's little ironies that the Cornucopians are using the examples of what are (so far) still post-crude oil peak producing regions, Texas and the US overall, to refute the Peak Oil "Theory."

Incidentally, regarding the Saudi C+C versus Texas crude only chart (which I believe was prepared in 2006), at the 2002 to 2005 rate of increase in annual Saudi C+C production (from 7.6 to 9.6 mbpd), Saudi Arabia would have been at about 18 mbpd in 2013. Saudi average production for 2006 to 2013 inclusive was 9.1 mbpd, although they did slightly exceed the 2005 C+C production rate in 2012 (at 9.8 mbpd, with an average rate of 9.7 for 2011 to 2013). However, the BP data show that 2013 was the eighth straight year in a row that Saudi net oil exports were below their 2005 net export rate of 9.1 mbpd (total petroleum liquids).

So to summarize:

Although currently rebounding, Texas and the US in 2013 were below their prior crude oil production peaks, with very high--and increasing--underlying decline rates.

Saudi Arabia averaged 9.1 mbpd (C+C) for 2006 to 2013 inclusive, versus 9.6 mbpd in 2005 (although the average for 2011, 2012 and 2013 was 9.7), but Saudi net exports in 2013 remained well below their 2005 annual rate.

Meanwhile, CNE (Cumulative Net Exports) depletion marches on. The BP data suggest that the Saudi ECI Ratio (Ratio of production consumption) in 2013 was down to about 66% of the 2005 value. Note that the Remaining post-2005 CNE by year are estimated, based on the 2005 to 2012 rate of decline in the Saudi ECI Ratio. Also, note that at the 2002 to 2005 rate of increase in Saudi total petroleum liquids + other liquids production, they would have been at 171% of 2005 production in 2012.

Image

http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i47 ... 963fe3.jpg

Following is a similar chart for normalized Six Country values (1995 = 100%). These are the major net oil exporters that hit or approached zero net exports from 1980 to 2010 inclusive, excluding China. Note that as production rose slightly from 1995 to 1999, they had already shipped 54% of post-1995 CNE (Cumulative Net Exports). Note the correlation between a declining ECI Ratio and CNE depletion for the Six Country Case History, versus the observed decline in the Saudi ECI Ratio.

Image
Last edited by westexas on Sun 29 Jun 2014, 13:37:29, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Sun 29 Jun 2014, 12:42:50

Syn - Yep...just like all the countries that are happy to buy our refined products. I've made a point about how the Chinese have been building leverage by trying to connect themselves at the hip with the oil exporters. To a degree the US has done so with our refiners. Just consider the 600,000 bbl/day Motiva refinery in Texas that is owned 50% by the Saudis. A good bet IMHO that they'll ship their oil to us if need be rather than let their multi $billion investment sit idle. The EU refiners are struggling to stay in business. Their loss is our potential gain. Besides the jobs and profits for our refiners there is the advantage of cracking imported oil here: if the market for products gets tight we have the edge over other countries that would have to pay transport costs as well as match our bid. Might not be critical today. But in 5 to 10 years?
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby Outsailing » Sun 29 Jun 2014, 20:23:17

ROCKMAN wrote:Hmm..."But the real question is, how our success translate to success in other areas". Our "success" has translated into US consumers spending about $400 BILLION more per year for oil then we were producing less.


Sure. And as you have already mentioned, you industry folks have been quite happy with the arrangement. You aren't suddenly feeling guilty now are you?

Your economic ideas would also cover other things going on since the price increased, more efficiency, more GDP/BBL, less use per capita, substitution in the form of different fuels for the American commuter, sudden desire to bicycle, etc etc.

I agree with you, the good old days are over, and good riddance. If you can take advantage of the American consumers who aren't changing their behavior fast enough to free up discretionary income that would otherwise go into their pockets, then good for you! I wouldn't count on folks being that ignorant forever however, jack the price for another doubling and while it might be enough to peak the US at even higher rates, the reaction could be ugly enough to create structural damage in demand.

Rockman wrote:I suspect many Americans struggling to pay the higher bill don't feel very successful. But me and the other oil patch hands are feeling damn successful. LOL.


Those of us who are already transitioning feel wildly successful. And for a business, this type of success becomes a competitive advantage. So bring it on Mr Industry, those of us out ahead of the curve aren't unhappy about these circumstances at all.
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby Outsailing » Sun 29 Jun 2014, 20:55:59

pstarr wrote:
ROCKMAN wrote:I suspect many Americans struggling to pay the higher bill don't feel very successful. But me and the other oil patch hands are feeling damn successful. LOL.


And entire states like North Dakota. Taxing the hard work of industry results in dollars for the state, same thing with the jobs created.

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2014/03/18 ... -shortage/


pstarr wrote:Some would say the $400 billion is still economy and contributes to jobs and welfare. But burning/wasting precious fuel on endless fract-water truck trips should not be the job of an advanced industrial society. This is where EROEI connects directly to ECONOMY. What goes down the drill hole and up in smoke contributes only minimally to the economy.


Steel goes down the hole. Hereto unseen oil and gas comes out. Extractive industries have been doing this, and creating economic activity, for quite a long time I think. The jobs, the taxes on those jobs, the taxes on the product extracted, the taxes on the manufactured product sold to the consumer, boy that all sounds like something far more substantial than "smoke".
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Re: Texas crude oil production reaches 3 million barrels/day

Unread postby americandream » Sun 29 Jun 2014, 21:44:26

Rockman has the right idea....earning the maximum he can whilst keeping an eye out for developments. No point being sentimental as every dollar will count in the years ahead.
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