The above graph show Brazilian oil production since 1991 through Jan 2011, according to the Oil and Gas Journal. You can see that Brazil is a story of steady growth. Tropical rivers have dumped a lot of organic matter off the coast of Brazil for a very long time, and the result is quite a lot of oil. Reserves have been increasing by leaps and bounds too:
That doesn't include things like the Libra find last year, which might contain 8gb of oil, or even 15gb (but the totals aren't proven yet). So it seems unlikely that Brazil is about to slow down in production growth, and the eventual production total is hard to estimate with such large discoveries still being made.
Over the last 15 years, the pace of production increases has been a pretty steady 1mbd/decade. We can perhaps expect that to continue (or even increase) for quite some time to come. It's not going to revolutionize the world situation, but it certainly does help to offset those regions that have stagnated or are in outright decline.
Stuart,
ReplyDeleteFor as long as the energy export databrowser goes back, Brazil has been a net importer of oil. From what i make of that, Brazil is drilling up more and more for its own use, tough luck for the region.
;-)) Stuart, nice try,
ReplyDeleteplease wake me up when they are net exporters by a nice margin...
Yes, but it's importing less than in the past, freeing up that oil for other places. They may well start exporting in a few years - their extraction is increasing faster than their consumption so far.
ReplyDelete150 gb - that seems to be 5 year's supply at current global consumption rates. Doesn't really get us out of the woods!
ReplyDeleteWow, that didn't take long!
ReplyDeletehttp://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/08/24/uk-brazil-fuel-idUKLNE77N00720110824?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=stocksNews&rpc=401
Brazil net imports increasing drastically.