Latest Global Oil Production Statistics

This month, the IEA didn't include their overall number in the free summary they make available on their website, so we'll have to wait a couple of weeks for that.  However, OPEC has a number for April, and the EIA is now up to February.  There's slight signs of a flattening of production growth in the spring, but it's too soon to say that it's more than noise:

The rate of recovery I currently estimate at 2.9 mbd/year, with a 90% confidence interval of [2.2, 3.6] mbd/yr (using the same approach as in previous months).  It still appears to me that the most likely outcome is that this recovery will continue and exceed the 2008 peak of liquid fuel production.  That's assuming that the European Union has successfully kicked the can down the road a ways on the debt situation - a major flare-up in the financial crisis could obviously kick demand down again.  I don't expect the spill in the Gulf of Mexico to have very much near-term impact on global oil supplies one way or the other.  In the longer term, it may have a slight negative effect by retarding US offshore production, but that's a pretty small piece of the overall pie (which is why it's not getting much coverage on this blog).