Posted on 02/15/2014 7:08:12 PM PST by ckilmer
February 14, 2014 - Richard Swann in London
* Top seven western majors all seeing liquids output fall
* Supermajors' share of global market dropping every year
* BP reports fastest decline of 30% from 2009-13
* Production becoming more evenly split between oil and gas
The biggest western oil companies are continuing to see their oil output decline, despite record investment in recent years spurred by sustained crude prices in excess of $100/barrel, according to data released by the companies.
Furthermore, with total world oil output continuing to rise every year, the western majors are seeing their share of the global market fall even faster, with new volumes coming largely from their rivals in places like Russia and a host of smaller companies at the heart of the shale oil boom in the US.
Combined output of crude and other liquids by the seven biggest western majors -- ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, Total, ConocoPhillips and Eni -- amounted to 9.517 million b/d last year, down 2.2% from 2012 and marking the fourth consecutive year of decline.
Liquids output from the same group has been falling every year of late, having been as high as 10.865 million b/d in 2009.
As a group, the seven have seen their combined liquids output fall by 1.348 million b/d, or 12.4% over the period from 2009 to 2013.
The most notable contribution to the overall decline comes from BP, whose production of oil and other liquids has fallen by more than 30% from 1.695 million b/d in 2009 to 1.176 million b/d in 2013.
These figures do not include production associated with BP's current 19.75% stake in Russia's Rosneft or its previous 50% stake in Russian oil producer TNK-BP.
This is a much sharper fall than other majors have experienced, and is evidence of the scale of the asset divestment program the company has been going through to cover its actual and potential liabilities in the wake of the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010.
While its peers have not seen production fall by the same degree, they have nonetheless all experienced declining oil production since 2009.
Even ExxonMobil, the biggest of the group in terms of production and profitability, saw its oil output fall by 4.5% in 2011 and 5.5% in 2012, the two years with the highest average international oil prices of all time.
In 2013 ExxonMobil's oil output rose by 0.8% to 2.202 million b/d, but it still remained more than 200,000 b/d below where it was in 2010.
Shell, Chevron, Total, ConocoPhillips and Eni also all saw their liquids production fall in 2013.
Total's output declined by 15.5% between 2009-13, Eni's by 17.3% and ConocoPhillips' by 12.4%. Shell has seen the smallest fall of 2.5% over thesame period.
Dwindling share of global output
According to the International Energy Agency, total world oil supply has risen in recent years from 85.66 million b/d in 2009 to an average of 91.53 million b/d in 2013.
As a result, the seven leading western majors have seen their share of this total supply fall from 12.7% to 10.4% over the same period.
While this group is seeing its production fall, others have clearly been heading in the opposite direction.
The most obvious is Russia's Rosneft, which has grown at breakneck pace in recent years on the back of a debt-funded acquisition spree, including the purchase of former rival TNK-BP.
Rosneft is now the world's biggest publicly listed oil producer with total crude and liquids output of close to 4.2 million b/d.
In other words, Rosneft alone now produces almost as much oil as ExxonMobil, BP and ConocoPhillips combined.
The western majors are not short of either the expertise to produce more oil or the money to fund developments after 2013 marked the third consecutive year of Dated Brent prices above $108/barrel.
The recurring challenge for the western companies in recent years has been to find attractive investment opportunities, with several of the world's leading oil reserves holders offering limited, or even no access to international operators.
"It's an access question," said an official from one of the western majors, who asked not be identified. "Who will let us in? They'll only let us into the difficult bits like the deepwater projects, or tight gas, that kind of thing," he said.
Gas growth
With their liquids output falling, the so-called "oil majors" are gradually becoming less oily and more reliant on gas production.
Oil accounted for more than 60% of ExxonMobil's total hydrocarbons output in 2009, but by last year this figure had fallen to less than 53%.
It is a similar story for Total, where oil's share of total production has fallen from 60.5% in 2009 to 50.8% in 2013.
Shell produced more gas than liquids last year, the third time in the last four years this has happened, and BP is not far away from a 50:50 split.
Of the seven majors who embody the image of "Big Oil" the only one bucking the trend towards greater gas exposure is Chevron, where oil continues to account for two thirds of all production -- a full 10 percentage points more than any of the rest of the peer group.
What is the problem? We are producing more oil and gas because of small independents that understood the shale oil play and how to produce it. This is good.
The major oil companies due to their vast resources will also purchase and exploit this resource, in the end they will be the major producers from this source, and this is good. There is not a problem. The market forces do work. When you fill up up your car, pay your electric bill, or heat your house, you the consumer are the beneficiary.
Yes they do and as such are an environmental menace. These "evil" carbohydrates will be utilized by microbes that will produce CO2, which is the evil of all evils.
However, if we capture all the carbohydrate waste it could be converted by other "good microbes" such as yeast into good organic molecules such as ethyl alcohol, also known as whiskey. Although the whisky when consumed will also convert to CO2 a considerable fraction of the carbon will be excreted as human waste and if buried in an anaerobic environment will be forever excluded from the environment and never converted into the evil CO2.
In short the fate of the world depends on converting donkey sh-t into drinkable alcohol.
LOL
fyi
Tingalayo !
Interesting factoid there for the Peak Oil crowd.
We have 72 wells on the big ranch, 7 on the smaller ranch and 3 on an area we leased down by Garden City. Our total oil production runs around 15000 barrels a month.
Our gas averages about 38 MCF per day per well. The gas brings us about as much money as the oil with far less overhead. Oil is nice but gas is where the real money is especially good wet gas like ours.
Exactly. $KOG
Interesting factoid there for the Peak Oil crowd.
..............
There was a peak in oil. It was a peak in easy oil, relatively inexpensive to get at and accessible to technology of 15 years ago.
I wish I could live out in the country like you and not be in this turdworld crap hole east coast liberal hell hole city.
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