Monday 18 April 2022

Oily affairs

I get emails from the International Energy Agency from time to time, the latest one advertising their flagship report for April. I seem to be able to get an extract from this report, but have yet to get hold of the report proper. Maybe one has to pay for that, but see references 1 and 2.

The table at the end of the extract appears to be all about OPEC producers and their friends. No notes explaining what all the columns were, but the story seemed to be that of the total of around 45mbd (million barrels per day), Saudi Arabia accounted for around a quarter, Russia for around a quarter and various other states in and around the Gulf for rather more than a quarter.

USA nowhere to be seen, but Bing turns up the snap above, which tells me that while the USA might be the biggest producer in the world at 15mbd, they actually consume 20mbd. So a big importer, and for some reason actually appearing to import a lot more than they need. And their proven reserves are only a modest five times their annual consumption. Not a great place to be.

Bing also turns up this table of reserves, in descending order of size. With the Venezuelans taking the top spot and the Canadians the third. Point one, only the Saudi's seem to make it to the top of all the league tables. Point two, the link between production and reserves looks weak. Or at the very least, complicated.

It all looks a bit unhealthy to me. Coal might be dirty, but at least it was spread around the world a bit more evenly. We in the UK might have got off to an early start, but there were plenty of others who could follow on. 

Bring on the windmills! Bring on the fusion!

References

Reference 1: https://www.iea.org/. The full members look to be all the countries of the west and their friends. Associate membership not quite so exclusive, but does include China.

Reference 2: https://www.iea.org/reports/oil-market-report-april-2022.

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