Do it yourself. This takes 2 minutes. Australian government web site.
CLICK 1
Type in google the search word “Geoscience Australia”
CLICK 2
Click on http://www.ga.gov.au/
CLICK 3
Click on “Publications”
CLICK 4
Click in the line “Energy” on the link “Oil and Gas Resources of Australia”
CLICK 5
Click on the 2010 report
CLICK 6
Click on “Reserves”
CLICK 7
Click on “Table 1”
CLICK 8
http://www.ga.gov.au/products-services/publications/oil-gas-resources-australia/2010/reserves/table-1.html
scroll down to get the crude oil reserves Cat 1+2 = 200.98 GL (Giga Litre)
Go back to the page “Oil and Gas Resources of Australia 2010”
CLICK 9
and click on “Production and Development”
CLICK 10
click on table 2
In table 2.1, in the total column and in the row “total by year” you get 985.298 GL as cumulative production over all years since oil production started
Calculate end 2010 depletion level
cumulative production / (cumulative production + reserves) =
985 / (985 + 201) = 83%
DONE
Bonus:
CLICK 11
Go back to the Reserve page (click 7) and select table 3 which allows us to have a look at the reserve history of crude oil.
The trend since 1994 is well established: a jagged downward slope. For every barrel produced only 0.6 barrels were replaced either by new discoveries (green fields) or by upward revisions of past discoveries (brown fields). If both reserve development and production continue as in the last 15 years the red line shows where we are going – barring of course some miracle discoveries. And any additional oil would not come cheap.
We can see that in the last 7 years investment costs per production capacity increased substantially. Data are from here:
www.ga.gov.au/servlet/BigObjFileManager?bigobjid=GA16759
A document on the tax reform website also found a tripling of exploration costs over 4 years after 2005.
ABS 8412.0 even shows that offshore exploration expenditure has peaked in 2009, possibly as a result of the financial crisis
Conclusion:
Crude oil reserves are dwindling and the remaining oil will be more expensive to produce. Exploration and production will also depend on how the financial crisis evolves.
