I väntan på Jesus

 

I got some critique from peakoiler Dennis Coyne at the blog "Peak Oil Barrel" for my recent blogpost "Update on oil: The decline of global oil production continues. And some calculations of the present decline in global net oil exports."

 

His comment with the critique is found here. I quote this graph from it:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Dennis, I think you're right (if you also add condensates), because the numbers of "Statistical Review of World Energy" are about 25 mbd higher than Brown's numbers, which is exactly the difference between "crude+condensate" and "All Liquids" in overall global oil production numbers (and now I don't mean oil exports). I actually figured it out before I read your comment.

I think, by the way, that Brown is justified in his way of counting only "crude+condensate" when calculating oil exports, because we cannot really count on the unconventionals in our economy, if we seek sustainability, we cannot rely on them for a very long time to come, because they are so very expensive, and increasingly so, exponentially.

But your answer in some way confirmed my calculations, because I have indeed said in my book that Brown counted only crude+condensate, if I remember it correctly."

 

 

 

"Preliminary data indicates that global liquids production in September was 0.1 Mb/d less than last month and averaged 100.6 Mb/d."

 

 

If we take a very conservative, linear approach, and project a global oil production decline of 1,2% upon the future, fifteen, twenty years from now, then the decline of global net oil exports ("GNE") is at least the double of that (2), i.e. a 2,4 % yearly decline, which is 2,4 mbd lost per year (if we fix the amount of decline, because in percentage declines the amount of decline slows down with time, which it doesn't do in our case), which gives us almost 23 years of GNE if we begin with 55 mbd of GNE, which brings us to the year 2046 (about the time when our conventional oil reserves are used up, according to systems ecologist Charles A.S. Hall's calculations, His end point was 2047). Observe that I have not taken into account that the real decline of both global oil production and global net oil exports is exponential (it's a mathematical certainty, according to professional licensed oil geologist Jeffrey J. Brown), i.e. have an accelerated rate of decline, goes faster and faster (I use the term "exponential decline" to mean that in this blogpost). With that in mind, the end of GNE could very well happen well before 2046, which harmonizes with the thesis in my book on the end of global net oil exports. It could happen already in 2039-2042, which must be the absolute upper limit in our calculations, for "All Liquids" exports. So this is only 16-19 years into the future.

 

 

Add then the exponential factor, and we are easily at 2034-2037.

 

This, 2034-2037, is pretty much the best case scenario for the end of "All Liquids" global net oil exports, and is based on the results of "Statistical Review of World Energy's" global net oil export calculations. 

 

 

 

There are many data sets about global net oil exports out there. See how EIA calculates the global net crude+condensate oil exports from 1992-2018:

 

 

 

(Maybe EIA is double counting oil exports, as is hinted at in this comment by "Hickory"? This is very easily done)

 

So according to EIA we were at about 41 mbd of global net crude+condensate oil exports in 2018, not 35-36, which Brown would have it at, I think. How many years of "ANE oil" would that give us, if we calculate that we have about 41 mbd now, which is a conservative estimate? 41 mbd divided by 4 (see the footnote 2) mbd gives us about 10 years. It brings us to the beginning of the year 2034. Remember that this is a linear scenario. Add then the exponential factor, and we are easily at 2027-2030, in about the area where Brown and I have ended up. This is strange, that beginning with very much higher numbers, gives us so similar results. Even beginning with the 55 mbd in the "All Liquids scenario" doesn't buy us many years, only a few, relative to Brown's and my scenarios. This should alarm everybody. How many years are three years actually? It's nothing in the grand scheme of things, and passes by very fast, at least for those who are 40 +. 

 

 

 

See how EIA and OPEC together calculates the global net crude+condensate oil exports from 1992-2022 or 2023:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2) In this article on "The Energy Bulletin" from October 18, 2010, Jeffrey J. Brown and Dr. Samuel Foucher calculated the decline rate of oil production in the North Sea between 1999 to 2009 to be at 4.8%/year. During the same time oil exports from the area fell by more than double the percentage, yes almost a triple. Brown and Foucher says: 

"Note that the net export decline rate exceeded the production decline rate,  starting out in double digits, at 12.8%/year, and accelerated to close to 30%/year at the end of the net export decline period."

So my estimate that the decline rate of oil exports is at least 2,4 % right now, is conservative and minimalist, at solid ground, I think. 

If we shall calculate the end of "ANE" global net oil exports with an almost tripling of the 1,2 % of overall global oil production decline, then we have to calculate with, say, an at least 3,2 % decline of "GNE oil", and about a 4 % decline of "ANE oil" *. 4 % of global oil production is about 4 mbd (which, subtracted yearly from our amount of oil exports, translates to a loss of as much as 333 000 mbd "ANE oil" every month). How many years will a yearly decline of 4 mbd "ANE oil" give us? 55 divided by 4 gives us about 13,75 years. 13,75 years from now we are in 2038. Add then the exponential factor, and we are easily in the years 2032-2034. 

If we then account for the almost one million barrel that has been lost in overall global oil production since February 2023, and which is not accounted for in Statistical Review of World Energy's graph above, then we have to subtract almost the quadruple amount from oil exports (because "ANE oil" declines with almost the quadruple rate of overall global oil production, compare the 1,2 % with the 4 % above), which is about at least 3,4 mbd. So 55 mbd minus 3,4 mbd is about 51,6 mbd. How many years will a yearly decline of 4 mbd "ANE oil" give us if we start with 51,6 mbd? Answer: 12,9 years. This brings us to the end of the year 2036. Add then the exponential factor, and we are easily in the 2030-2033 range, which confirms Jeffrey J. Brown's calculations. But Brown calculated oil exports with only "crude+condensate", and here we are calculating the "All Liquids" oil exports. So the end of "All Liquids" oil exports could be in the 2030-2033 range, while the end of conventional, "crude+condensate" oil exports, could very well be around 2027, plus or minus a few years, which was what I predicted in my book. So, again, my numerous calculations in my book are confirmed. 

 

* I have in my book on oil exports calculated that the end of "ANE oil" comes about two years before the end of "GNE oil" (it has a much steeper decline curve). If our time window is ten years, then two years of that is 20 %. 4 mbd is almost 20 % more than 3,2 mbd (4 mbd is 0,8 mbd more than 3,2 mbd. 5 x 0,8 is 4. 20 % of 4 is 0,8). 

For confirmation, see this article from 2012 by Jeffrey J. Brown, where he says: 

"Our database shows that GNE fell from about 46 mbpd (million barrels per day) in 2005 to about 44 mbpd in 2011."

"We define available net exports (or ANE) as GNE less China and India’s combined net oil imports. ANE fell from 40 mbpd in 2005 to 35 mbpd in 2011 as the developing countries, led by China and India, consumed an increasing share of a declining volume of GNE."

So already from the beginning, ANE fell by a whopping 5 mbd in six years, while GNE fell with only 2 mbd in six years. A decline of 5 is more than double the decline rate of 2.

2 mbd in six years is a decline of 4,3 % of the original 46 mbd of GNE, and is a yearly decline of 0,33 mbd per year or a 1,43 % yearly decline. 

5 mbd in six years is a decline of 12,5 % of the original 40 mbd of ANE, and is a yearly decline of 1,2 mbd per year or a 3 % yearly decline. 

As you can see, 3 % is more than 2 times as much as 1,43 %. So much faster the ANE declined in comparison with GNE, in the beginning, according to Jeffrey J. Brown's calculations. 

4 mbd is not the double of 3,2 mbd, only 20 % more (see above). So my calculations are very conservative, leaving room for hope. If we would calculate that the end of "ANE oil" is 80 % sooner than what has been assumed of the end of "GNE oil", where would we land? 80 % of 2 years is 1,6. So the end of "ANE oil" would then come, not two years earlier than the end of "GNE oil", but at least three and a half year earlier, which would make the results of my calculations even more radical. The decline percentage of "ANE oil" would then be 2 X 3,2 %, which is 6,4 %, which, if I applied it on my calculations, would make the end of "ANE oil" come even sooner. Therefore my calculations here are conservative, but I stick with that, so I'm able to believe in my own calculations. Maybe Brown made some mistakes here, because it seems too radical. Just think about it, if we have 30 mbd of global net oil exports, crude+condensate, today **, then how many years of "ANE oil" do we have if the decline is by 6,4 % every year? With a linear approach, not even counting on an accelerated decline? Answer: only 4,6 years, in a linear scenario, which brings us to the year 2028. And with an exponential approach, we then arrive in 2024-2025. This reminds me of my calculations in my book on oil exports, and makes me understand why I arrived at so radical conclusions in it. 

 

* * We were at 97,7 mbd "All Liquids" oil production in October 2021, when Jeffrey J. Brown made his statement about us having 30 mbd of global crude+condensate net oil export left. This makes it tricky. We had our post-pandemic peak in February 2023 at 101,5. This is 3,8 mbd more than in October 2021. It translates to about at most 3-4 mbd of global net oil export gains, in crude+condensate, because at the same time oil exports followed the decline trend from 2005, and declined even more, this was the underlying reality. So we maybe gained at least 6 mbd of "GNE oil", but lost at least 3 mbd to the natural decline. So, if we were at 30 mbd of "GNE oil" in October 2021, we were probably at mostly 33-34 mbd of "GNE oil" in February 2023. Since then overall oil production (All Liquids) has declined by 0,9 mbd, which translates to about 3-4 mbd less oil exports (because the pace of decline of "ANE oil" is almost quadruple the decline of overall global oil production, see what I have said about it above), so we land at about 30 mbd "GNE oil" today. This is difficult to calculate, so the reality may be more than or lesser than this amount.