Calculating the end of global net oil exports, "All Liquids"
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."
What is 30 % of 59 mbd (the peak of global All Liquids exports, which happened in 2016 according to Statistical Review of World Energy. The North Sea oil peaked in 1999, see this article)? Answer: 17,7 mbd, not far from our 19 mbd decline pace in the last year of our modelled end of All Liquids exports, an annual pace that never reaches the end of the export barrels in our model. Probably global All Liquids oil exports decline will reach those higher levels in their end phase, especially because of the ongoing collapse of industrial civilization, which makes the end of oil production very steep indeed, which is accounted for in my 19 mbd of oil exports decline. The end of the North Sea oil exports never saw a collapsed UK, just for comparison. Now the UK is collapsing, though.
But, as I have pointed out before, the right thing to do is to follow the decline of conventional crude (minus condensate) oil exports, because we will never have only unconventionals without conventionals to export, because the former are so incredibly expensive, and exponentially more so as time passes by, the former being subsidized by the latter. And what is most important: It is in the latter, in the conventionals (minus condensate) where most of the diesel lies, diesel being the most important motor of our global civilization. Not even condensates make any substantial diesel, which is witnessed in this comment by an oil expert. He says "refineries get very little diesel fuel from condensate".
Shale oil, or "tight oil", belongs to the same category as condensates when it comes to its usefulness for diesel (other liquids in the same category are NGL [Natural Gas Liquids], biofuels and refinery gains). Shale oil from America is called "super light oil". This article from 2018 says the following about American shale oil, which creates problems for American refineries, focused as they are on heavier oil, oil that one can make diesel of:
"Making matters worse, Morgan Stanley expects so-called middle distillates like diesel and jet fuel to account for most of the growth in oil demand, and light crudes aren’t ideal for making these products."
This article by Whitney Sheng from 2020 also says the same: "Too much oil, too little diesel".
Diesel shortages, which in the US was such a hot issue in the end of 2022 (I remember it on youtube), has not gone away. See for example the following article from only half a year ago, September 17, 2023: "The World Is Struggling to Make Enough Diesel".
Diesel is really the fateful object in the end of oil exports and overall oil production. Therefore Jeffrey J. Brown did the right thing indeed, focusing on conventional crude oil minus condensate, where most of the diesel lies.
