14 million barrels per day crude
+2.9 million barrels per day natural gas liquids
+1.0 million barrels per day ethanol
+1.1 million barrels per day refinery gain
=19 million barrels per day
and we wouldn’t have to import anything from Canada and Mexico.
...............
Sheffield doesn’t say when the USA will reach 14 million barrels a day. Only that the only thing that will derail those production numbers is lower oil prices..
The Saudis as swing producers won’t allow prices to fall much below 90@ barrel because their government requires 90@ barrel to pay their bills. The Russians and many other players need even higher prices. The most expensive frackers frack for about $92 @ barrel. But I think those are initial costs. So costs quickly fall. And the best frackers are doing the job in the 60-70 dollar range.
The upshot is that likely nothing in the next five years is going to drive prices down much below $90@ barrel—not even rising US production.
But how fast will production rise? The USA EIA already predicts oil will rise by 1 million barrels@ day in 2014-2015 to about 9.4 million barrels@ day. and then flatten out. However, you can read articles on individual production increase projections for the eagle ford, bakken, permian, the gulf of Mexico and all the rest of American oil formation taken together. Each one of them them are currently projected to be producing another 100,000 barrels@ day from 2016-2019. That would put US oil production at 11.4 million Barrels @ day by the end of 2019.
Here’s the wild card that Sheffield is alluding to. Its the Permian basin. There’s a lot of oil there. Much more than eagle ford and bakken combined. Production volumes there have only begun to accelerate. When they accelerate at the
speed of bakken and eagle ford—volumes in the permian basin will easily go up by 500,000 barrels @ day annually.
If the Permian basin averages 500k increases from 2016-2019 then the USA will be roughly oil independent by the end 2019
Graphs that show Production increases in the permian basin are starting to show a steepening curve this year.
That will be the big story in the coming 12 months.
How fast will Permian production increase.
Stay tuned.
You can bet I will stay tuned.