Strictly speaking according to EIA data product supplied for the US peaked in Aug 2005. This coincides with a coincident peak in imports:

Operative refinery capacity continues to expand, however, one factor in why refineries are in such dire straits at the moment:

The decline seen in the 12 month MA shows up in this graph of gasoline supplied:

Does the JODI data account for biofuels? The US has compensated for decreasing imports with ethanol, both produced and imported; exactly how this is accounted for in the overall product supplied figures I'm not certain about. Part of the EIA definition of Finished Motor Gasoline is:

Note: Volumetric data on blending components, such as oxygenates, are not counted in data on finished motor gasoline until the blending components are blended into the gasoline.

Doubt that would leave volume out of the figures provided, but thought I'd bring it up.

Comparisons between these graphs will be skewed without numeric analysis - just eyeballing can lead one astray as each is scaled differently. As I mentioned above, increased production of ethanol has allowed the US to reduce the need to import and refine crude oil. Ethanol cushioning the impact of the price spike is something I'd like to see analyzed further - including how much of a factor it is in various other nations' fuel supply.

Could the early falls in consumption have been triggered by something other than a latent recession or high prices? Like mandatory efficiency standards, carbon trading or green consumption trends? The reason I ask is that consumption seems to have been declining as early as 2004 in France, Germany, Italy and Japan. But others like the UK and Spain show a later decline beginning around 2006 which is more easily attributable to price rises.

Rembrandt,

Thanks for an exceptionally informative group of graphs. I encourage everyone to look at the other graphs in the Oilwatch Monthly PDF. There are some very nice graphs there as well.

Ditto - random typo in the PDF version:
Page 9 - above graph of US Oil consumption:
'Oil consumption in the US decreased by 214,000 b/d from April to'

-- should be 21,400,right?

edit: Belay that - I'm such a dolt (I was looking at the decline from about 2005, which was about 21.4 MILLION b/d, rather than reading what was actually written. [ sigh] Sorry.)

Other than being necessary, which I agree with, pure unadorned data does not give you much by the way of fundamental understanding. It also comes late in the cycle. So we still need first principles models to allow us to plan ahead for the data that might be forthcoming.

Definitive declarations in the context of a model that you believe in are OK, but w/o that backing it becomes sketchy speculation. For example, all the AGW climate data that has been collected is indecipherable w/o a model.

IMO you misunderstood Yergin's predictions. Re business as usual, there hasn't been too many undulating plateaus of any length since black gold was first discovered-Yergin has predicted this plateau will last almost forever (and he had it starting at a far higher level in the future).

In the not-too-distant future, a five year rolling average of the crude oil graph will show a graph that looks like a classic Hubbert's curve with the peak at mid 2006. That is unless things really fall off a cliff or mega-projects kick in big time.

@Bill.Harbert August 17, 3:04 PM

Glad that the new format is working out for you.

The US EIA has specific data integrity requirements:

"The Administrator shall not be required to obtain the approval of any other officer or employee of the Department in connection with the collection or analysis of any information; nor shall the Administrator be required, prior to publication, to obtain the approval of any other officer or employee of the United States with respect to the substance of any statistical or forecasting technical reports which he has prepared in accordance with law."

Source: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/abouteia/eia_independence.cfm

The above is legalese and doesn't appear to preclude the EIA from changing the data to suit its view, so long as the EIA changes the data independently without influence from other parts of the government.

I don't know what the penalties (if any) would be for the EIA to independently and intentionally misrepresent data.

I would agree--Figure 7 looks much like what we would expect if OECD imports have peaked and are now in decline.

Easy - they've brought on 2.075 mb/d of new production for '08/'09 - at least on paper. Rest is shut in capacity.

I agree with you in suspecting OPEC spare capacity is significantly overestimated by both the EIA and IEA. We will not know the real amount until supply and demand collide again making the price rise while production stagnates or declines.

I have now looked at 21 current and former net oil exporters (I added a few more countries after looking at Matt's export chart). In any case, some total liquids production & net export rates of change over the referenced time frames follow (EIA). The recurring pattern is pretty obvious.

The numbers for "Export Land," which would be classified as a Former Net Oil Exporter, would be -5%/year (production decline rate) & -27%/year (net export decline rate), over an 8 year period.

Four Former Net Oil Exporters
Production & Net Export Increases/Declines Per Year, Over the Referenced Time Frame, Are Respectively Shown (EIA, Total Liquids)

China (1985-1992)
+1.8%/year (Prod.) & -16.9%/year (Net Oil Exports)

Indonesia (1996-2003)
-3.9%/year & -28.9%/year

UK (1999-2005)
-7.8%/year & -55.7%/year

Egypt (1999-2006)
-3.8%/year & -37.1%/year

17 Net Oil Exporters Showing Production Declines
Production & Net Export Declines Per Year, Over the Referenced Time Frame, Are Respectively Shown (EIA, Total Liquids)

Saudi Arabia (2005-2008)
-1.0%/year (Prod.) & -2.7%/year (Net Oil Exports)

Russia (2007-2008)
-0.9%year & -2.4%/year

Norway (2001-2008)
-4.7%/year & -5.1%/year

Iran (2005-2008)
-0.5%/year & -3.4%/year

Nigeria (2005-2008)
-6.4%/year & -6.9%/year

Venezuela (1997-2008)
-2.6%/year & -4.5%/year

Mexico (2004-2008)
-4.7%/year & -13.5%/year

Colombia (1999-2008)
-3.6%/year & -8.3%/year

Oman (2000-2008)
-3.1%/year & -4.4%/year

Malaysia (2004-2008)
-4.2%/year & -16.8%/year

Syria (1996-2008)
-2.4%/year & -5.5%/year

Vietnam (2004-2008)
-3.5%/year & -46.0%/year

Denmark (2004-2008)
-7.6%/year & -16.4%/year

Yemen (2001-2008)
-5.4%/year & -11.5%/year

Ecuador (2005-2008)
-1.7%/year & -4.4%/year

Gabon (1997-2008)
-3.7%/year & -3.8%/year

Equatorial Guinea (2005-2008)*
-1.45%/year & -1.46%/year

*Equatorial Guinea, which has almost no domestic consumption, comes closest to having the production decline rate = the net export decline rate.

@Polytropos 17 Aug, 6:57pm

I think the important factor here is whether OPEC economies can continue to grow (and so their oil consumption) if the economic situation continues to deteriorate due to a much more severe oil shock (or financial system shock). It could be that the feedback effect on their economies because of the worsening climate in OECD economies (or BRIC countries maybe also) leads to lower oil consumption there as well, much like a couple of months ago. If that is the case the ELM becomes too pessimistic because it does not take into account feedback loops through the economic system. I do not have the answer at the moment although I do expect to investigate this in the near to mid term future.

The ELM is just a simple model. I proposed it to help me understand Net Export Math. My assumptions were: (1) Consumption = 50% of production at final peak; (2) Production decline rate of -5%/year and (3) Consumption rate of increase of +2.5%/year. Of these three factors, consumption as a percentage of production at final peak has the biggest impact on how fast the net exporter approaches zero net oil exports, assuming a production decline. Of course, you have to use exponential/natural log functions. BTW, you can use the Rule of 72 to do some easy, quick What If's, e.g., at a -5%/year production decline rate, with no increase in consumption, production in Export Land would equal consumption in 14 years (72 divided by 5). At a +6%/year rate of increase in consumption, Saudi consumption would double every 12 years, hitting about 9 mbpd around 2030.

Three observations, based on the model: (1) The net export decline rate tends to exceed the production decline rate (see 21 examples above); (2) The net export decline rate tends to accelerate with time (see four former net oil exporters, all four showed an accelerating net export decline rate) and (3) The bulk of post peak cumulative net oil exports (CNOE) are shipped early in the decline phase, e.g., Indonesia shipped 44% of post-peak CNOE only two years after their final production peak in 1996.

What are the reason/s that could make hard the use of this spare capacity?

It is hard to use spare capacity that does not exist. Between 2005 and the middle of 2008, OPEC appeared to have little if any effective spare capacity. OPEC had "stated" (based on their statements) spare capacity, which was shown not to be true as they were unable to increase production in the face of rocketing prices.

To be fair, Saudi oil Minister Al-Naimi repeatedly said that he did not understand the run-up in prices, because the Saudis did not have refiners knocking on the door begging for more oil - quite the contrary.

So the Minister did not see any reason to use the Saudi "spare capacity," assuming that it does exist.

It could be that the Saudi production is related to "wet barrel" demand, and the price is related to "paper barrel" demand. There have been several articles in the mainstream media detailing the huge growth in oil futures trading over the 1999-2008 period.

Other possible explanations of why OPEC's listed spare capacity was not utilized:

1. It could have been heavy crude while there were insufficient refineries to handle it, or the seller put too high of a price on it.

2. It could have been sour crude which no one wanted or had the ability to refine.

3. I have read somewhere here on TOD that Saudi Arabia manages their oilfields by periodically shutting down (resting) some of their oil wells which increase the total amount of oil that can be extracted. The potential flow rates from the resting wells may be included in the spare capacity.

Here's a list of video's to get you started.

If you are looking for lots of detailed graphs & discussion:

Gail's Peak Oil Overview and Sam's Peak Oil Update [both found in the clickable section of the top banner of TOD]:

http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/overview
http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/update

For a total 'newbie', IMO, Matt Savinar's LATOC front page is pretty good, too:

http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Index.html
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