The IEA and OPEC have released their numbers for oil supply in August (well "total liquid fuels" anyway). The above shows all available data from the three main public agencies supplying estimates of this. Basically nothing exciting at all happened: oil supply continues to look completely flat throughout 2012. Prices rebounded a bit though.
In a (probably lame) effort to break the tedium I am bringing back this graph of total production versus price (in this case Brent spot prices):
And it is slightly interesting, no? We seem to get into these periods in which supply is somewhat constrained and we have a very flat response of production to price. A few years later the same thing happens again but in the mean time a little more liquid fuel capacity has been squeezed from the planet and now the curve has moved up a bit. In 2012 it's a little higher again than it was in 2010-2011 (around the time of the Arab Spring/Libya related price movements). Still, prices remain very high - no sign of going back to the pre 2004 prices any time soon (absent another major financial crisis, at any rate).
I have spent sometime looking a this issue...:-)
ReplyDeleteYes, nice graphs but you are graphing the mangled data sets TPTB suggest:
crude oil suitable for optimum refining HAS been declining since the the mid noughties...hence the rise of all liquids in TPTB reporting.
There are many other issues that need to be considered I will blog them later today, thax. for the inspiration.
Look at the graph that heads my last blog.
Of critical import is the DECLINING flow rates of the good stuff i.e. high EROEI ratio crude.
Desdemona picked up another astonishing image of supposedly extinquished wildfires by typhoon Bolaven in Siberia... for some reason I do not like the date 11th September...
ReplyDeleteAlex