Through April of 2009, currently available oil production data indicates that total North American supply of crude oil rose 200 kb/day on average, over the 2008 average, to 10.557 Mb/day. However, using the latest cobbled together data from news reports, IEA Paris, EIA Washington weekly reports, and JODI database resources, I have currently estimated that total North American Oil production has now turned down into June. Pulling together this latest data on Canadian, US, and Mexican production, I find that total North America is now slipping below 10.200 Mb/day. Based on my work, I believe we will indeed go below 10 Mb/day sometime in the second half of 2009.
Canada, United States and Mexico: A Decade of Oil Production in Mb/day.
1999 Average 10.694
2000 Average 10.811
2001 Average 10.957
2002 Average 11.034
2003 Average 11.358
2004 Average 11.200
2005 Average 10.881
2006 Average 10.883
2007 Average 10.756
2008 Average 10.338
2009 Average 10.557 (through April)
The year 2009 opened with optimism that US crude oil production would “rise for the first time in several years.” Coming out of a deep trough in Q4 2008, such a rise certainly seemed achievable but the forecast that the US would maintain an average of 5.5 Mb/day compared to 2008′s 4.950 Mb/day did not seem realistic. While the average through April stands at 5.25 Mb/day for US production, the weeklies of late have been tracking closer to 5.1 Mb/day. Combined with the steep falls in Mexico, and now faltering Canadian crude oil production, the trajectory should now take total North America below 10 Mb/day easily by the end of the year, and the data may eventually show we were already slipping below that mark, just about now.
Why does this matter? My provisional model for annual decline of North American crude oil production uses a rate of 3.83%. That’s probably conservative. Nevertheless, this would entail a final average for 2009 of just below 10 Mb/day at 9.94 Mb/day. By the time of the Presidential election cycle of Q4 2011 to through Q3 2012, North American production would be slipping below 9 Mb/day. To make matters worse, exports from Mexico by that time will be near zero.
North American oil production more broadly, however, is a lovely example of how higher prices do not result in higher supply. Production was highest this decade in 2003, when oil averaged 31.00 per barrel. And, lowest this decade in 2008, when oil averaged 99.00 per barrel. Were extensive offshore drilling to be undertaken in places like California, as I have advocated, that would create capital for California but would not make much difference to aggregate supply. The reason is primarily the rest of the United States, which continues on its downward path, and then of course the lurching, volatile declines in Mexico.
-Gregor
Photo: Lights of North America in 2003, the highest year of total N.A. oil production this decade.