Extraction Rates Fall At Major Oil Companies
On the 2nd August this year I reported on some a collection of news stories that seemed to indicate that the oil extraction rate of the oil majors had fallen over the last year or so (Oil Majors See Extraction Fall). These news stories were backed up by analysis of quarterly reports from the organisations by Peakoil.com member, Ladyruby. It really looked like the oil majors had peaked.
Two months on and Petroleum Review have produced a report (available from the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre here) looking at exactly the same thing, the annual and quarterly production from publicly quoted oil companies. Their study looks at the average daily extraction rates for oil and gas from the top 22 publicly quoted oil companies from 2002 up to the second quarter 2005.
The results are astounding and in agreement with the early Vital Trivia article:
Quite remarkably, in the first half of 2005 the top five, the top ten and the top 22 publicly quoted oil companies all produced less crude and NGLs than they did in 2004 and only slightly more than they did in 2003 and 2002. Given the global increase in production and demand over the last three years it is clear that, in aggregate, the largest private oil companies are losing market share. For ten of the top 22 companies, and for four out of the five largest private companies, the first half of 2005 saw lower crude and NGLs production than in 2004. Ten companies also produced less in first half 2005 than they did in 2003, while nine companies produced less than in 2002. Clearly, it is no exaggeration to say that the world’s largest publicly quoted oil companies are now really struggling to hold production levels, with only a few managing to maintain their market share of global production. [my emphasis]
Here are the oil extraction rates (’000 barrels per day) from the Petroleum Review report:
The data is clear, production from the publicly quoted companies is falling. However we also know that total oil extraction rates have risen during this period, the balance is shifting away from these predominantly Western companies and towards the national organisations of OPEC, Russia, Mexico etc. I think this shows that the majority of oil provinces are decline with only a small number of areas in the world still able to increase their production; it could also mean that countries that can increase production are choosing not to allow Western, public companies in preferring their own national oil industry.
It is also important to note that the oil majors are only responsible for 17 mb/d (some 20%) of the whole market. When people think about the oil industry most only consider those with marketing budgets and share holders, when they are actually only a relatively small fraction of the whole industry.
This post was written by Chris Vernon
This entry was posted on Friday, October 21st, 2005 at 10:26 pm and is filed under Hydrocarbon Depletion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 22nd, 2005 at 11:56 am
interesting article there, it doesn’t surprise me at all. No wonder the oil companies are running these add campaigns telling us we need to search for alternatives (lol). As for Mexico i seem to rememeber reading an article 6 months ago saying how the largest oil field in mexico went into decline in 1999 but they used massive injections of nitogren gas to prop up the field pressure and now it looks like it maybe going into (irriversable) decline once again, and that we could possibly expect double digit decline figures by the end of the year. I’ve no idea if this has happened in pemex cantrell but it is interesting non the less. As for OPEC etc, it matt simmons is right, we are all doomed :p
October 23rd, 2005 at 4:02 pm
I saw this data on PO.com, but it’s good to see it blogged. Ian, you’re right on the money. Being new to the whole Peak Blogging thing (I use my MSN space for the purpose (that way all my MSN contacts are likely to be in the loop).
October 25th, 2005 at 4:19 am
[…] imaru.
2005年10月25日
Peaked?
Interesting write up, and how the Oil Major’s may have already Peaked?!! It’s all downhill from now. […]
October 25th, 2005 at 9:17 pm
I was interested in this author’s comment about K Deffeyes book Beyond Hubbert’s Peak. I loved reading it. He says about the oil shales on the Rocky Mt front that they should be able to produce far more with little effort. Came right out about a lot of insights like the Russian economic collapse-due to cheap Saudi oil.
Well, if that is true, then wouldn’t they now be able to restore their economy in as much as they avoided the planned pitfall of having their oil privatized, and while I’m at it, I was wondering about this cheap oil, doesn’t it benefit the container shipping industry and the military the most?
Here in the US there is a push that has become a landslide to cut not only wages which haven’t gone up in years but the long claimed, much vaunted retirement benefits in which the unions gave up wages for. Every time I hear about how our goods come from overseas where they work for dollars a day I think of the container ship delivering goods to be finished and taking the finished product back to be sold all at a profit and only because of cheap oil in the diesel bunkers on those ships. Thats where our jobs went, not overseas but into the diesel bunkers of the container ships. If it were not for the cheap oil allowing the ocean crossings profitably, the jobs and the wages would still be here.
Politics are devious fellows to have at loose in the world.