Quick question: Is anyone still studying current global oil decline rate? I was a little shocked when the CEO of Saudi Aramco, Amin H. Nasser talked about their old super-giant fields (all of them) declining at a 5.5% rate. Some of the greatest minds in oil used to be obsessed with determining what this number was, but seems shale has killed any endeavor for ongoing research. Also a lot of these great minds have hung up their cleats or died. Thank you for any help on finding current research on this very important topic.
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Hi Mike, I only know Jean Laherrere, on the Aspo France website there are all these works, including one on the Middle East in 2024
Great input guys. Thank you!
Don, I do not. I am not sure how to trust any data that comes forth from the ME and what, if anything, is true when it is reported. There is no way to really know what actual production is. Spare capacity? Who knows?
5.5% is alarming, if that is true, particularly since, for instance, the KSA has been on a mission to arrest those decline rates the best they can. Ultimately you can only drill so many infill wells to exponentially increase production rates.
I tend to agree with Conway, when U.S. shale oil begins to wane the focus will shift more to what the rest of the world is producing. At the moment all anybody has on the brain is U.S. shale.
I think OPEC is pretty smart and they know what they are doing with regard to managing the worldwide price of oil and bidding their time while the U.S. drains itself. We then might be surprised about spare capacity and fields that we did not even know existed....all of which will then be for sale for $100 a barrel, not discounted when sold to the U.S., by the way.
Just look at global oil stocks including sea borne. You can get good idea of world production from that. Hint, it's dropping like a rock and still dropping. If USA shale hadn't started, you would know all about it. Now that shale is rolling over, I expect you will hear more on next couple years. It's being tracked very closely by large orgs and governments. Why did you think basf is moving lock stock and barrel to Louisiana? Cheers