Just the facts, ma'am, or checking oil production numbers
Posted by Heading Out on May 20, 2005 - 6:08am
The world seems awash in promises and worries about oil supplies and when we will arrive at Peak Oil. Many of these statements are based on political positions, rather than a level of reality. One of the things we hope to do with this site is to put up the occasional number that allows you to understand what a particular claim or worry might mean in actual numbers. As a result it might be possible to get some sense as to the credibility of the worry or promise.
To give an example of how this might be possible, on January 9th 2002 Matt Simmons presented a report on Giant Oil Fields. In that report (p 19) he gave a table for the average amount of oil produced per well per day for some of the top oil-producing countries. The data was obtained from the International Petroleum Encyclopedia of 2000, and is for 1998. (As far as I can tell it is not in the 2004 version and the 2005 version doesn't come out until next month). The data is as follows listing most the productive country first.
Let us say, for example, that Iran wanted to increase production by 1 mbd. Based on the above table then one could get a very rough estimate of how many wells they would have to drill. By dividing the amount desired (1,000,000) by the average production (3,221) you would get the number of new wells required (310). And if Iran has 31 onshore and 9 offshore rigs working, for a total of 40 rigs, then each rig would have to drill between 7 and 8 wells a year to make this production. But if, for the sake of example, we know that those rigs take an average of 2 months to drill a well, then somehow the numbers won't seem to agree with the promise.
Now to make this form of calculation further, we need to have some sense of how many drilling rigs that there are in each country. Fortunately that is published very regularly by the drilling industry, though different sources give you slightly different numbers.
Using, for now, the Baker Hughes Rig Count web site , it gives a list of how many rigs are working in each of country. As and of the end of last month the numbers are:
(The first number is the number of onshore rigs, the second is the offshore, the third is total)
Trying to upgrade these tables takes a bit of digging, and there are pages of likely reasons why these are all only rough guides. But it does allow one more step in the process. And, it will help you understand why I will on occasion, post numbers, for the initial production from a well.
These numbers also allow us to work the problem a slightly different way. If, for example, Saudi Arabia is now bringing in wells which will average a production of 3.300 bd each, and it has 31 rigs working, then it will bring in 31 (no of rigs) x 6 (number of wells each drills a year) x 3,300 (barrels produced per well). This works out to 613,800 bd of new production this year. Note that this increased supply has also to replace any existing wells that are declining in production (and that number may well be on the order of 400,000 bd or more).
Now there are a lot of very simplifying assumptions in all of the above, but perhaps from this framework you might get a sense of where people come from when they question claimed future increases in production. But also remember that the top table is seven years old and that one of the things we will be working on is to change those numbers to more realistic current ones.
And you thought, with the end of the school year, that homework was over.
Technorati Tags: peak oil, oil
To give an example of how this might be possible, on January 9th 2002 Matt Simmons presented a report on Giant Oil Fields. In that report (p 19) he gave a table for the average amount of oil produced per well per day for some of the top oil-producing countries. The data was obtained from the International Petroleum Encyclopedia of 2000, and is for 1998. (As far as I can tell it is not in the 2004 version and the 2005 version doesn't come out until next month). The data is as follows listing most the productive country first.
Bear in mind that this is an average production, and wells in any given country will be at all sorts of levels from freshly started to almost done. And oil wells drop in production over the course of their life (an overall assumption in the past has been by around 7%). But by using these numbers we can get some sense of what is involved in a promise, say to increase production.
Norway...........................5,623 barrels of oil a day per well
Saudi Arabia..................5,140
Iran................................3,221
Kuwait...........................2,278
U.K.................................1,728
Abu Dhabi.....................1,595
Indonesia......................1,592
Dubai............................1,578
Iraq.............................1,252
Libya..............................947
Nigeria............................940
Mexico.............................875
Algeria............................642
Venezuela........................200
China...............................44
U.S.A...............................11
Let us say, for example, that Iran wanted to increase production by 1 mbd. Based on the above table then one could get a very rough estimate of how many wells they would have to drill. By dividing the amount desired (1,000,000) by the average production (3,221) you would get the number of new wells required (310). And if Iran has 31 onshore and 9 offshore rigs working, for a total of 40 rigs, then each rig would have to drill between 7 and 8 wells a year to make this production. But if, for the sake of example, we know that those rigs take an average of 2 months to drill a well, then somehow the numbers won't seem to agree with the promise.
Now to make this form of calculation further, we need to have some sense of how many drilling rigs that there are in each country. Fortunately that is published very regularly by the drilling industry, though different sources give you slightly different numbers.
Using, for now, the Baker Hughes Rig Count web site , it gives a list of how many rigs are working in each of country. As and of the end of last month the numbers are:
(The first number is the number of onshore rigs, the second is the offshore, the third is total)
Norway.............0.....19..........19Now these numbers are not fixed, Saudi Arabia for example are getting another 36 odd rigs this year, and there are some that were not working at the time of the survey. But you should be able to get the general idea of what is where, from the table.
Saudi Arabia...28......3..........31
Iran.................32......9..........41
Kuwait...........14......0..........14
UK....................1.....18..........19
Abu Dhabi.......8......3..........11
Indonesia......37.....15..........52
Dubai..............1......1...........2
Iraq................0......0...........0
Libya..............9......1..........10
Nigeria...........0......8...........8
Mexico.........78.....32.........110
Algeria.........19......0..........19
Venezuela....41......9..........50
China........ n/a.....n/a
U.S.A.......1,645.....92.......1,737
Trying to upgrade these tables takes a bit of digging, and there are pages of likely reasons why these are all only rough guides. But it does allow one more step in the process. And, it will help you understand why I will on occasion, post numbers, for the initial production from a well.
These numbers also allow us to work the problem a slightly different way. If, for example, Saudi Arabia is now bringing in wells which will average a production of 3.300 bd each, and it has 31 rigs working, then it will bring in 31 (no of rigs) x 6 (number of wells each drills a year) x 3,300 (barrels produced per well). This works out to 613,800 bd of new production this year. Note that this increased supply has also to replace any existing wells that are declining in production (and that number may well be on the order of 400,000 bd or more).
Now there are a lot of very simplifying assumptions in all of the above, but perhaps from this framework you might get a sense of where people come from when they question claimed future increases in production. But also remember that the top table is seven years old and that one of the things we will be working on is to change those numbers to more realistic current ones.
And you thought, with the end of the school year, that homework was over.
Technorati Tags: peak oil, oil
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where's Canada in all this?
I've seen results coming from different sources on when global oil production will peak. Basically there are three camps: early (2005-2010), middle (2010 - 2030) or late (after 2030). What I haven't seen is a critical discussion or review paper that compares the methods used to get at these dates. Is there an up to date article that does this?
Jean Laherrerre is giving a talk at the ASPO Conference in Lisbon this weekend where he reviews forecasts for different countries. But he uses just his own methods. There is some consistent criticism of the further out predictions that has been made by Campbell, Deffeyes and Simmons (see for eg the recent Peak Oil Scotland presentations) but in terms of a reputable criticism there is just not a lot of critical review that has been made of their work - in part because there are still a lot of unknowns that people have to make assumptions to get around.
What I think you are seeing is still a relatively partisan discussion without what might, in some other instances, be considered a neutral evaluation.
Part of the reason for that (he says in self-justification) is that when you start looking into this, you find, as ProfG and I both did, that the data tends to lean very much one way - the early option.
Oh, and Canada has 159 rigs operating but I need to check to find the average well production.
The question I have is whether the 1645 rigs currently in operation in the US be better working in Saudi or elsewhere?
Different situations, different conditions, different workforce etc. Aramco are now doing extensive laterals out from the vertical and this takes specialized equipment and personnel. I am also not sure if they are valving all the laterals yet, although these appear on Matt Simmons slides, they did not talk about doing it earlier until 2006. But this type of activity requires a trained crew and special rig.
In response to Mark's question, I would say that Campbell, or ASPO in general, have done a very good review of the reasoning for the 2030 or later Peak since to reach this date the USGS study is the one cited, where it's quite convincingly shown that the USGS's great fault is in its methodology. The closest thing to an academic peer review I've seen are the debates that occur between ASPO and government agency reps (EIA, IEA, etc) at variuos conferences, where quite frankly the agency reps fall on their faces. Look at last year's Berlin procedings or wait for the results from Lisbon to be made available. At present, EnergyBulletin has posted the data Laherrerre is going to use in his presentation, www.oilcrisis.com/laherrere/lisbon.pdf
Since the conference ends today, I hope we'll see some reporting and publication of the presentations, which I'm sure we'll discuss.
Is the market sending us signals that peak oil is here?
Here's a little tid bit for your home work assignment: prices of poly-silicon are skyrocketing due to demand for photovoltaic applications:
http://www.eet.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=FFMAVIY4EK1E...
Oil drum, who's database are you talking about? Analysts seem to use different data sources and methods and talks I've heard have peaks in the categories I've mentioned.
Mark:
I am not really consistent in using a single data base. Rather by looking at several models, such as those of Deffeyes and Laherrerre and then comparing these with actual data, as reported, one can get a feeling as to their likely validity. I do try, however, when citing specific numbers or predictions, to also give the source I use for them as do most of the folk who comment here. In trying to build up an accurate picture of what it going on it helps to have that information.
I can make models that fit data as well but if the data is unreliable then associated models and predictions are probably unreliable as well!
Sounds to me like we need a critical review of all these peak oil model makers methods, data and predictions.
This whole thing reminds me of fishing out a pond. We dont catch enough fish so we increase the number of fishing poles to increase the catch of the day. The same could be applied to the Oceans and sooner or later you can only put so many lines in the water and bait ( $$$$ ) so many hooks and still the production of fish starts to dwindle. So you need to find something else to eat.
My question is when is it time to move to a new food(energy)source??