Energy data isn’t telling the truth
January 14th, 2011Nate Hagen at The Oil Drum notes that 2010 appears to be the fifth year in a row the peak production year of 2005 – in which the world produced oil at an average, annual rate of 73.718 mbpd – will once again not be exceeded.
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The faltering in global oil production has occurred despite the new pricing era for oil, which began in 2004 as oil first rose above 40.00 dollars a barrel. OPEC output – which currently accounts for about 42% of global supply– has been roughly steady at 30-32 mbpd each year during this period, while non-OPEC output has struggled with decline.
Hagen points out that the world is not producing the 84, or 85, or 86 million barrels of oil per day reported by national and international energy agencies (i.e., EIA Washington and IEA Paris). The world is instead producing ~73 -74 million barrels of crude oil per day, and has been for half a decade now. The higher “all liquids” number includes stuff that isn’t oil. It doesn’t tell us about the actual energy available to society and disguises the fact that our economies have lost access to the cheap BTU in oil that our societies have come to depend on.