The following June OPEC data is based on the latest July OPEM Monthly Oil Market Report and is in thousand barrels per day.

OPEC 14 crude only production was down 68,000 barrels per day in June.

Iran continues to decline, down 142,000 barrels per day in June.

Iraq is still pretending quotas do not exist.

I think the rebels are only having a slight effect on Libyan production. They appear to be producing at near maximum possible production even if there were no rebel problem.

Though Nigerian production was up 129,000 barrels per day in June, I think they are well past their peak and are now in slow decline.

Saudi Arabia, though their production was up 126,000 barrels per day in June, is still producing half a million barrels per day below their quota.

The UAE is holding steady at just over three million barrels per day.

Venezuela seems to have bottomed out at just over 700,000 barrels per day. Venezuela averaged almost 3,000,000 barrels per day in 2001, the first year I have records of their production.

Iraq, Libya, and Venezuela are exempt from quotas. Iraq is not exempt, they are just ignoring their quota and producing flat out.

I think OPEC’s estimate of world liquids production for June is just a tad optimistic.

Rystad Energy Shale Newsletter

In a previous commentary, we focused on the profitability of modern shale wells across the Wolfcamp A zone. This time, we are analyzing historical vintages of Wolfcamp A wells from 2014 to 2018. Figure 1 shows a historical three-stream production profile for these vintages from ShaleWellCube, along with the forecast for future periods. The combined output from all five vintages peaked at 1.452 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in December 2018 and it is expected to decline to 420,000 boepd by December 2022.

The above chart shows only production prior to 2019. The interesting thing about this chart is that it shows Delaware Wolfcamp production, prior to 2019, declining by 600,000 by December 2019. That’s how much it needs to produce in 2019 just to stay even.

Enno Peters’ Eagle Ford update through March