(An update to this blogpost 1.11.2022)
1) According to licensed professional oil geologist Jeffrey J. Brown in the youtubevideo interview from 3.10. 2015 by Chris Martenson "Jeffrey Brown: To Understand The Oil Story, You Need To Understand Exports", there was a decline in global net oil exports of 3 million barrels per day (mbd) between 2005 and 2013 (from 46 to 43 mbd). 3 mbd in eight years. It is on average 0,4 mbd per year. Let's assume that the yearly decline is 0,3 mbd per year in the beginning, and 0,5 mbd in the end of this period. I think he counted only conventional crude, minus condensate, so small his amounts are, compared to the data of other experts. But this is my interpretation (1). Condensate does not make diesel. The amount of diesel we have is in the end the most important.
2) There was, according to Brown in the article "
The Road To Clean Energy Is Messier Than We Thought" from 14.10.2021, a decline in global net oil exports of 13 mbd between 2013 and 2021, from 43 to 30 mbd. But then we have to take into account
that during the peak of the pandemic, in 2020, overall oil production fell sharply by 10 %, so then we also have to subtract 10 % from global net oil exports in 2020 + add the natural decline of oil exports. In the end of 2021, the oil production had recovered a lot, perhaps 7 % from the bottom, so 30 mbd is 7 % higher than the bottom, which then should be about 27,5 - 28 mbd, if the pre-pandemic level of oil exports was about 31 mbd (my guess). In the end of the year 2022 we were back to the peak of overall global oil production that we had in November 2018, and we probably had 31 mbd of oil exports again, if we don't account for the shortfall of about 2,7 mbd in 2022, to the background decline of oil exports, which happens all the time, which take us to 28,3 mbd. In 2023 we lost about 4 mbd (because of the accelerated rate of decline of oil exports. Nowadays it declines very, very fast), so we had 24,3 mbd in the end of the year.
So the pre-pandemic level of global oil exports was, in 2019, about 31 mbd.
In 2022, we had 28,3 mbd of oil exports.
That makes a shortfall of 14,7 mbd since 2013. 14,7 mbd in nine years. It is on average 1,63 mbd per year. So our second step, the period 2013-2022, is a little more than four times, i.e. a quadrupling of the pace of the decline of net oil exports in our first period, the one described in 1). This rapid decline happens despite the fact that conventional crude oil (minus condensate) was pretty much flat during this period, which it also was in the first period, the one beginning in 2005 and ending in 2013. Therefore my calculations below are conservative, because overall oil production, All Liquids, not to speak of conventional crude only (minus condensate), will probably begin to decline this year or the next, 2025, probably sharply. Conventional crude (minus condensate) has declined a little since 2016, the absolute peak year (which could also be 2005, depending on how you see it).
Let's assume that the yearly decline is 0,6 mbd per year in the beginning, and 2,6 mbd per year in the end of the period 2013-2022. This estimate is important for our calculations below, so that we know where to start.
3) Brown projects (in the youtube interview 2015 above) a decline in global net oil exports of 30 mbd between 2021 and 2032, down to zero net oil exports. 30 mbd is what we had in 2021. 28,3 mbd was what we had in 2022.
In 2022 we had 28,3 mbd. If we count from that, we have 28,3 mbd in 9 years. It is 3,14 mbd per year. Not in line with the "accelerated decline rate" trend of the previous two paragraphs. This isn't even double the decline rate of 2), which was 1,63 per year (the doubling of this is 3,26 mbd). It should be four times the decline rate of 2), if we shall be in line with the previous decline pace.
4) If one tries to quadruple (in line with the trend in 1) and 2)) the average decline rate per year between 2013 and 2022, i.e. quadruple 1,63 mbd per year, then one gets a decline rate of on average 6,52 mbd per year for the period 2022 to 2032, and then one does not even reach 2032, but the volume of net oil exports goes down to zero already in 4,6 years, i.e. already in August 2026 at the earliest, if we assume that we had 30 mbd in the end of 2021 and 28,3 mbd in 2022. In this scenario the yearly decline could very well be 2,6 mbd per year in the beginning, and 14 mbd per year in the end of this period (so radical is the exponential factor!). Then we can construct the following model of how much oil exports we have each year:
In the end of 2021: 30 mbd
2022: 30 mbd - 1,7 mbd (these numbers mirrors the sharp rise in overall global oil production) = 28,3 mbd
2023: 28,3 mbd - 4 mbs = 24,3 mbd
2024: 24,3 mbd - 6,8 mbd = 17,5 mbd
2025: 17,5 mbd - 10,2 mbd = 7,2 mbd
2026: 7,2 mbd - 14 mbd = 0 (my model, which was somewhat difficult to build, is not exact, but it takes us into about the spring of 2026 as the end of global net oil exports)
Now, at last the decline goes so fast that 30 mbd of global net oil exports vanishes in 4,6 years (only 0,1 years more than my previous model, which did not take into account the pandemic shortfall), if we shall project out on the future the pace of the rate of acceleration that the decline had 2005-2021. That all net oil export vanishes for all countries in 2032, as Brown stated in the youtubevideo interview above, is thus a best-case scenario. This scenario above, the "2026-scenario", does not even take into account the end of "available net exports", "ANE", which is global net oil exports minus China and India's net oil imports, and if we take that into account, then we might land at 2025 as the end of global net oil exports, and, at worst, at 2024. But this last date feels too radical.
Maybe I have big faults in my calculation, so the end of oil exports come two years later (which is very much in the context), then we are at 2027 for the end of ANE.
"I should also have added to my book that oil exports behave like conventional oil production, that when we lose conventional oil exports, we also lose unconventionals. We will never be able to export only unconventionals, so expensive these are. I wrote something about this phenomenon, pertaining to conventional oil, in this recent blogpost."
(1) This, if Brown counted conventional crude minus condensate only, or "Crude + Condensate", or "All Liquids", is not so important. Because it is actually the decline rate that counts, not the exact amount we have of the oil. I have counted in this blogpost beginning with 55 mbd of global oil exports for 2023, and 41 mbd respectively, and I came to almost the same conclusions as in this blogpost. The difference was mostly 5-7 years (calculated with "Statistical Review of World Energy" data, which was "All Liquids" exports, which peaked at 59 mbd in 2016. This was a conservative guess. On these data I did a detailed calculation in this recent blogpost of mine, where the difference was only 3-5 years) and 0-3 years (EIA:s data, which were Crude+Condensate).
