CrashWatcher posts; this is for the peak oil geeks...

[Lord Beria3]

http://crash-watcher.blogspot.com/2012/ ... Watcher%29

These are a fascinating set of posts (this is the 2nd) on future projected exports for all the regions of the world.

There is no way you can summarise this, the only way is to read the entire thing. Would be interesting to get a debate going on his posts.

[UndercoverElephant]

Summary: It is not in the interests of ME oil exporters to flog their fields to an earlier-than-necessary death.

[Little John]

Summary: It is not in the interests of ME oil exporters to flog their fields to an earlier-than-necessary death.

Thank god for the summary. I was losing the will to live reading through that lot....

[clv101]

Summary: It is not in the interests of ME oil exporters to flog their fields to an earlier-than-necessary death.

It wasn't in the UK's interest to maximise poduction and exports in '99 when the oil price was under $20, only to have to import a decade later at over $100.

Just because something isn't in a country's interest doesn't mean it won't happen. These ME oil exporters have they own immediate problems to deal with, just like everyone else, and probably won't act any more rationally than we did.

[ziggy12345]

The difference between north sea oil and the ME regions is that we didnt own ours. It belonged to the international oil companies. ME regions oil all belong to the state and if they wanted to could turn the taps off tomorrow

[biffvernon]

Nah, technical definitions of ownership don't count for much. BP went through phases of private, public and private ownership. Taxation takes it all into account. In the case of some ME countries, 'the state' is just a few families and friends.

[Lord Beria3]

http://crash-watcher.blogspot.com/2012/ ... Watcher%29

This is for the former Soviet Union...

In summary, things for the EU look very grim after 2030... unless we have found new sources of energy to replace Russia.

[PS_RalphW]

The Export Land Guru WestTexas over at TOD was predicting an imminent sharp fall in FSU oil production a few years ago. So far it hasn't happened, they have plateaued.

Predictions are never easy, especially about the future.

[Blue Peter]

The Export Land Guru WestTexas over at TOD was predicting an imminent sharp fall in FSU oil production a few years ago. So far it hasn't happened, they have plateaued.

Predictions are never easy, especially about the future.

Wasn't it Darwinian predicting the fall in production, as oppsoed to exports?


Peter.

[Lord Beria3]

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2 ... nations-do

It is with trepidation that independent petroleum geologist Jeffrey Brown has watched global oil exports decline since 2006. With all the controversy in the past several years over whether worldwide oil production can rise to quench the world's growing thirst for petroleum, almost no one thought to ask what was happening to the level of oil exports. And yet, each year a dwindling global pool of exports has been generating ever greater competition among importing nations and has become a largely unheralded force behind record high oil prices.

Interesting article on global oil exports.

Brown focuses on a key number which he calls cumulative net exports (CNE). It's the total expected volume of exports from oil-exporting countries over the entire period from now until global exports are presumed to drop to zero around 2060. It's based on the trajectory established in the data from 2005 through 2011. Though the timetable is likely to change, when he looks at CNE alongside the current rate of decline for exports, it's clear that the world's remaining exports are "front-loaded." The largest portion will be delivered in the years immediately following the export peak. It's why "we've experienced something close to business as usual" since the apparent export peak in 2006, he said.

In analyzing the production and export history of former oil-exporting countries, Brown has discovered a disconcerting pattern. "A rough, but fairly consistent rule of thumb is that [after an exporting country's oil production peaks] half of post-peak CNE tend to be shipped about one-third of the way into the net export decline period, which suggests that post-2005 global CNE would be about half gone around the year 2024," he explained. Think about this for a minute. Brown forecasts that half of all the oil exports that will ever be shipped from now on will have been shipped by 2024. That tells him that the economic pain associated with the loss of global exports is likely to become very acute in the not-too-distant future

This is a startling figure. Of course coal and gas will be substitutes for oil so the decline isn't quite as bad, but the picture is steady decline over the coming decades.

[Lord Beria3]

http://crash-watcher.blogspot.com/2012/ ... Watcher%29

This is for Africa...

[mobbsey]

Wasn't it Darwinian predicting the fall in production, as oppsoed to exports?

I've seen this argument around since about 2004/5 -- I'm not sure it it was Jean Laherrère or Andrew McKillop

We could also throw in the issue of the "net energy cliff" because, especially with enhanced recovery/unconventional oil, the energy and economic return from many sources of energy is going down the plug-hole these days.

[Yves75]

Nah, technical definitions of ownership don't count for much. BP went through phases of private, public and private ownership. Taxation takes it all into account. In the case of some ME countries, 'the state' is just a few families and friends.

Exactly, and Aramco is indeed run as a private company

[Lord Beria3]

http://crash-watcher.blogspot.com/2012/ ... Watcher%29

Final thoughts
This analysis suggest that, even more than North America, Europe’s petroleum consumption rate and therefore its GDP are in for a very steep decline over the next two decades. If it was hard imagining how North America’s economy could grow in the face of a -2.2 %/yr decline in petroleum consumption, then it is even harder to imagine the same for Europe with a -3.2 %/yr to -3.8 %/yr decline rate in consumption.


With a consumption rate of about 5.4 bby and population of about 0.6 billion, Europe in 2011 had a per capita petroleum consumption rate equal to about 9 barrels per person per year (bpy). Now consider the prediction of a consumption rate of 1.26 bby in 2031 and of 0.8 bby in 2040 (from Figure 33). This is quite troubling. Even if Europe’s population just stays about the same, this would mean a per capita petroleum consumption rate of 2.1 bpy in 2031 and 1.3 bpy in 2040, whcih is lower than the 2011 per capita rate of consumption of about 4 to 5 bpy for South America or the former Soviet Union, or, even China’s 2011 per capita rate of about 2.5 bpy.


At least for North America, there was some suggestion of a light at the end of 20 years, in that it could become a net exporter of petroleum. This does not seem likely for Europe, because it primary petroleum resource, North Sea Oil, has been in decline for the last decade, and I see no signs in the data of this being mitigated. If the trends shown in this analysis continue, Europe will become somewhat like Japan, being almost totally dependent upon foreign sources of oil, mainly from the former Soviet Union and North America.

Interesting article... the comments were good as well.

I know that all of your analyses are based upon mathematics and are very useful as such, but I just can't see North America exporting oil 20 years from now, nor Europe being able to function on one-fifth of the oil it does currently. More likely, your charts will be accurate until the point when the social unrest and chaos resulting from economic collapse causes the export numbers to crash to zero.

It's funny that though your posts are quite scientific and dispassionate, they scare me as badly as anything I read on Peak Oil around the 'net. Keep up the good work.

Bill, I think that the most likely thing to happen is a continuation of the existing trends, although obviously the farther out one goes, the less reliable the prediction. Personally, I find that performing this kind of technical analysis help to reign-in my own personal biases, and other biases that one hears in the media (including both the uber-doomer and pollyanna biases).

Yes, maybe this is scarier because it’s harder to just right-off these trends as “crazy talk” when you see the data and analysis up close. And, I fully admit that most folks (especially politicians and economists!!) really don’t want to see this kind of analysis. That’s why I expect this blog to always remain as a small-nitche fringe blog—although I do appreciate your continued linking to it.

I also agree and fully admit that any number of events could disrupt the forecast trends shown here. For instance, a few times on this blog, once back in 2010 (http://crash-watcher.blogspot.com/2010/ ... art-4.html), and again this summer (http://crash-watcher.blogspot.com/2012/ ... which.html), I did posts trying to assess what might happen if the Strait of Hormuz were to close. But here we are in late 2012, with the Strait still open.

If-when, there is a major popular uprising, or, political or military crisis in one or more of these regions, then, yes these trends will likely change, and probably for the worse. However, perhaps all of the mini-crises we are seeing around the world are a reflection of an “adjustment process” to living with a whole lot less oil and a declining economy.

[Lord Beria3]

http://crash-watcher.blogspot.com/2012/ ... oo%21+Mail

Long but interesting article for those interested in his analysis on the future.