An update on the latest production numbers from the EIA along with graphs/charts of different oil production forecasts.

mbpd= Million of barrels per day

Gb= Billion of barrels (10 9 )

Tb= Trillion of barrels (10 12 )

NGPL= Natural Gas Plant Liquids

CO= Crude Oil + lease condensate

NGL= Natural Gas Liquids (lease condensate + NGPL)

URR= Ultimate Recoverable Resource

EIA Last Update (March)

Data sources for the production numbers:

Production data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy (Crude oil + NGL).

EIA data (monthly and annual productions up to March 2009) for crude oil and lease condensate (noted CO) on which I added the NGPL production (noted CO+NGL).

The all liquid peak is now July 2008 at 86.65 mbpd, the year to date average production value in 2009 (3 months) is down from 2008 for all the categories. The peak date for Crude Oil + Cond. is also July 2008 at 74.80 mbpd (see Table I below).



Fig 1.- World production (EIA data). Blue lines and pentagrams are indicating monthly maximum. Monthly data for CO from the EIA. Annual data for NGPL and Other Liquids from 1980 to 2001 have been upsampled to get monthly estimates.

Category MAR 2009 MAR 2008 MAR 2007 12 MA1 2009 (3 Months) 2008 (3 Months) 2007 (3 Months) Share Peak Date Peak Value All Liquids 83.75 85.98 84.25 84.93 83.60 85.48 84.42 100.00% 2008-07 86.65 Crude Oil + NGL 79.97 82.35 80.92 81.14 79.79 81.73 80.96 95.49% 2008-07 82.88 Other Liquids 3.78 3.63 3.33 3.79 3.81 3.75 3.45 4.51% 2008-11 3.89 NGPL 7.97 8.06 7.95 7.89 7.86 7.93 7.96 9.52% 2008-07 8.08 Crude Oil + Condensate 72.00 74.29 72.97 73.25 71.93 73.80 73.01 85.97% 2008-07 74.80 Canadian Tar Sands 1.26 1.19 1.26 1.22 1.24 1.20 1.19 1.50% 2007-08 1.35

Table I - Production estimate (in millions of barrels per day (mbpd)) up to March 2009 taken from the EIA website (International Petroleum Monthly). 1Average on the last 12 months. Canadian tar sands production numbers are from the NEB and includes updagraded and non-upgraded bitumen.



Business as Usual





Fig 4.- Production forecasts assuming no visible peak.

PeakOilers: Bottom-Up Analysis



Fig 5.- Forecasts by PeakOilers based on bottom-up methodologies.

PeakOilers: Curve Fitting



Fig 6.- Forecasts by PeakOilers using curve fitting methodologies.

Forecast Performance



Fig. 7. - MASE values as a function of the forecast horizon.



Forecast Date 2006 2008 2009 2010 2015 MASE2 Peak Date Peak Value All Liquids Observed (All Liquids) 84.54 85.48 83.60 NA NA 2008-07 86.65 IEA (WEO) 2004 83.74 87.08 88.74 90.40 98.69 0.39 2030 121.30 IEA (WEO) 2005 85.85 89.35 90.98 92.50 99.11 0.64 2030 115.40 Koppelaar 2005 85.78 87.60 88.33 89.21 87.98 0.42 2011 89.58 Lahèrrere 2005 84.47 85.87 86.46 86.96 87.77 0.20 2014 87.84 EIA (IEO) 2006 84.50 88.23 90.00 91.60 98.30 0.65 2030 118.00 IEA (WEO) 2006 85.10 88.17 89.73 91.30 99.30 0.68 2030 116.30 CERA1 2006 89.52 93.75 95.34 97.24 104.54 1.89 2035 130.00 Lahèrrere 2006 84.82 87.02 87.99 88.93 92.27 0.46 2018 92.99 Smith 2006 87.77 94.38 96.98 98.94 98.56 0.39 2012-05 99.83 IEA (WEO) 2008 83.15 85.51 86.80 88.15 94.40 0.63 2030 106.40 Crude Oil + NGL Observed (EIA) 81.25 81.73 79.79 NA NA 2008-07 82.88 Duncan & Youngquist 1999 83.93 83.55 82.90 81.65 73.47 0.11 2007-01 83.95 Population based 2004 79.73 81.58 82.50 83.42 88.01 0.33 2050 110.64 GBM 2003 76.27 76.20 75.87 75.30 67.79 0.17 2007-05 76.34 Bakhtiari 2003 80.89 80.24 78.94 77.64 69.51 0.17 2006 80.89 ASPO-46 2004 80.95 80.59 80.31 80.00 73.77 0.12 2005 81.00 ASPO-58 2005 82.03 84.05 84.74 85.00 79.18 0.53 2010 85.00 Staniford (High) 2005 77.92 78.63 78.86 79.01 78.51 0.18 2011-10 79.08 Staniford (Med) 2005 75.94 75.91 75.76 75.52 73.00 0.30 2007-05 75.98 Staniford (Low) 2005 70.13 69.20 68.60 67.92 63.40 0.64 2002-07 70.88 IEA (WEO) 2006 81.38 83.96 85.24 86.50 92.50 0.72 2030 104.90 Koppelaar 2006 82.31 85.60 88.03 91.00 NA 1.20 2010 91.00 Skrebowski 2006 81.97 85.14 86.76 87.95 NA 1.01 2010 87.95 Smith 2006 82.81 88.27 90.58 91.95 88.60 0.34 2011-02 92.31 Loglets 2006 82.14 83.74 84.29 84.65 83.26 0.14 2012-01 84.80 ASPO-76 2006 79.00 85.06 88.49 90.00 85.00 1.11 2010 90.00 Robelius Low 2006 82.19 82.35 81.92 81.84 72.26 0.39 2007 82.50 Robelius High 2006 84.19 89.27 91.65 93.40 92.40 2.11 2012 94.54 Shock Model 2006 80.43 79.51 78.93 78.27 73.74 0.37 2003 81.17 EWG 2007 81.00 79.79 79.00 78.06 69.21 0.41 2005 81.39 IEA (WEO) 2008 79.80 81.59 82.49 83.40 87.40 0.71 2030 95.00 Crude Oil + Lease Condensate Observed (EIA) 73.46 73.80 71.93 NA NA 2008-07 74.80 ASPO-46 2004 72.56 71.89 71.47 71.00 63.55 0.20 2005 72.80 Deffeyes 2004 69.92 69.64 69.37 69.01 65.98 0.17 2005-12 69.94 ASPO-58 2005 73.80 75.39 75.89 76.00 69.50 0.44 2010 76.00 IEA (WEO) 2006 71.78 73.76 74.74 75.70 80.30 0.38 2030 89.10 CERA1 2006 76.89 80.35 81.58 82.29 83.83 2.00 2038 97.58 ASPO-76 2006 72.10 75.74 77.47 78.00 72.00 0.75 2010 78.00 HSM 2007 73.56 73.40 73.16 72.82 69.53 0.28 2006 73.56 Ace 2007 73.48 72.18 69.77 66.96 58.47 0.12 2006-01 73.55 IEA (WEO) 2008 69.73 70.64 71.06 71.46 73.00 1.07 2030 75.20 Table II. Summary of all the forecasts (figures are in mbpd) as well as the last EIA estimates.1Productive capacities. 2MASE value for March 2009, the value in bold indicates the best forecast (i.e. the oldest with the lowest error).

Are We There Yet?

M0 : The oil production will continue to grow with the world population at a constant rate of 4.3 barrels per capita. M1 : The production will fall according to the average peak oil forecast.



Fig. 8 - Likelihood ratio (M1/M0) at the left and Statistical significance of observed production levels according to M0 (the red circle is March 2009).

The following results are based on a linear or non-linear fit of a parametric curve (most often a Logistic curve) directly on the observed production profile:It is difficult to compare forecasts because they deal with different liquid category and have different baseline. The forecasts were evaluated using the Mean Asolute Scaled Error (MASE) proposed by Hyndman and Koehler [1]. A good forecast will have a MASE value less than 1 (i.e. better performance than a simple naive forecast). We can notice than some MASE curves are decreasing with time indicating that their predicted values are getting more accurate further in time.We can consider two competitive models for the crude oil + NGL production:These two models are represented as a magenta and a yellow area on the top figure of this post. According to the M0 model, the current fall in production levels for March 2009 is 0.004 significant. However lower deviations were observed in the late 90s and in 2001 (there were previously 16 months with larger deviations since 1990). The likelihood ratio between the two models has significantly increased above 3 indicating than the M1 model is more stronly supported by the recent production levels than the M0 model which was not the case before 2009.

Previous Update:





[1] Rob J. Hyndman, Anne B. Koehler, Another look at measures of forecast accuracy, International Journal of Forecasting, Volume 22, Issue 4, October-December 2006, Pages 679-688. pdf available here

Khebab@theoildrum.com