This is part 2 of the previous post of 4 Mar 2025
In this post we focus on the period 2016 – Oct 2024
This is a graph showing the changes in crude oil production:
Fig 1: World incremental crude production Jan 2016 – Oct 2024
We can see that there was a spike in crude production in November 2016 and then a peak in November 2018. The production outside the US (rest of world ROW) has not recovered since then. Let’s have a look at how this peak shaped up.
Fig 2: incremental production Apr 2018 – Apr 2019 (LHS) and World production (RHS)
There are 3 peak shaping processes:
1. one or more countries increasing and then reducing production in the given period (Libya, Saudi Arabia)
2. countries with increasing production (Russia, Kazakhstan, UEA. Iraq, US, Kanada)
3. countries with decreasing production (Iran, Venezuela, Mexico)
These countries explain about 92% of the 2018 peak.
Let’s have a look at what happened with crude production after Covid hit in early 2020
Fig 3: Incremental crude production after Covid compared to Nov 2018 peak
As we can see from the panel on the right, the previous peak production level in November 2018 has not been reached. Even the lower 83 mb/d of the last quarter of 2019 – before Covid – have not been achieved on a sustainable level, only shortly in December 2023 and March 2024. The price spike in 2022 was caused by the Russian invasion in Ukraine.
Brazil has been highlighted as many hope new pre-salt projects will lift production. Guyana is also growing. Russia’s war economy and to some extent, sanctions have already resulted in reduced production. It will be interesting to watch how that continues. Other wild cards are Iran and Libya. Saudi Arabia is playing a waiting game.
Incremental crude production by Continent
There are 2 types of graphs for each Continent:
a) incremental production for each country in a separate panel. This allows us to quickly identify spikes and peaks in each country
b) stacked incremental production for the continent
The graphs have been generated using VBA code (Excel).
Fig 4: Incremental production for each of 3 North American countries, type (a)
Fig 5: Growing incremental US crude production came from the Permian
Fig 6: Incremental production North American countries, stacked, type (b)
Fig 7: Incremental production for each of the major suppliers in the Middle East, type (a)
The drop in Iranian production was caused by Trump 1 imposing sanctions in August 2018:
Timeline of U.S. Sanctions
“Executive Order 13846 was issued on August 6, 2018. It reimposed sanctions lifted as part of the 2015 nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).”
https://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/timeline-us-sanctions
Fig 8: Incremental production of major Middle East countries, stacked, type (b)
Production in 2024 was 2.5 mb/d less than at the December 2016 peak and 1.7 mb/d less than during the whole year of 2106, 1.4 mb/d from Saudi Arabia.
It is doubtful whether the Saudi spike in Apr 2020 was actually production. In all likelihood this supply came from inventories. Amazing nevertheless, just 1 ½ years after:
1/10/2019 The Attacks on Abqaiq and Peak Oil in Ghawar
http://crudeoilpeak.info/the-attacks-on-abqaiq-and-peak-oil-in-ghawar
Fig 9: Incremental production for each of the minor suppliers in the Middle East, type (a)
Fig 10: Incremental production of minor Middle East countries, stacked, type (b)
Fig 11: Incremental production for each of the Former Soviet Union countries, type (a)
Fig 12: Incremental production of Former Soviet Union (CIS) countries, stacked, type (b)
Russian oil production in the last 6 months was 1.2 mb/d lower than during the maximum in 2018/19
Fig 13: Incremental production for each of the Asian countries, type (a)
China was able to increase its production by around 500 mb/d after it had peaked in 2015 at 4.4 mb/d. All other countries in Asia/South East Asia are in decline except for Brunei which is on a bumpy plateau. This is especially important to note as this region has a population of 3.6 bn.
Fig 14: Incremental production of Asian countries, stacked, type (b)
Fig 15: Incremental production for each of the South American countries, type (a)
Fig 16: Incremental production of South American countries, stacked, type (b)
Decline in Venezuela has been compensated by growth in Brazil (pre-salt oil ultra deep), Guyana and Argentina (shale oil)
Readers who are interested in more details on Brazil can have a look at this article (June 2021)
https://peakoilbarrel.com/brazil-summary/
Fig 17: Incremental production for each of the African countries, type (a)
Fig 16: Incremental production of South American countries, stacked, type (b)
See also: https://crudeoilpeak.info/angola-peak-oil
Fig 19: Incremental production for each of the European countries, type (a)
Fig 18: Incremental production of European countries, stacked, type (b)
Summary: The graphs allow the reader to make his or her own judgement about the growth or decline in each of the countries and how that impacts on the world’s production
Update with December 2024 data
Comparing 2024/2025 crude production with previous year and 2018 peak
