Almost ten.
That's the estimate of total US liquids production by 2016 that the International Energy Agency foresees, in millions of b/d, out of the US by 2016. The IEA, in its latest monthly report, was downright ebullient in its forecast of what the US, and to a lesser degree, other non-OPEC countries were going to be producing over the next few years.
First, a primer for those trying to figure out how US crude production is going to get from current levels near 5.6 million b/d to almost 10 million b/d in just a few years. The figure cited by the IEA is total liquids, not just crude, so it includes the growing supply of NGLs and condensates coming from the shale plays. That total number, according to the IEA, is 8.06 million b/d for 2011. For 2012, it's 8.21 million b/d.
When the IEA reports world supply and demand as being near the 89 million b/d level, it is talking about the entire supply of petroleum liquids, including non-petroleum biofuels. So the total US supply of those products is as relevant as the crude number alone.
"US liquids production is expected to increase by 20% to reach 9.6 million b/d in 2016, on average 0.7 million higher than our June estimate," the IEA wrote in its report. (The June estimate was from IEA's medium-term outlook.)
"We now expect gas production and thus NGPLs, to increase in part as oil/gas price ratios continue to encourage producers to target liquids-rich prospects, increasing the liquids content of natural gas," the report added.
(One statistical quirk: the IEA throws all biofuels into a category called, appropriately enough, Global Biofuels. So US ethanol output, and the smaller biodiesel supply, is not in the total US forecast; it's in the Global Biofuels grouping. Current US production of ethanol, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, is between 930,000 and 950,000 b/d.)
But it isn't just NGLs leading to that growth. In a chart, the IEA projects enormous increases for tight oil production in various shale basins. For example, in the Williston Basin, including the Bakken, tight oil production is projected to have this growth curve, in thousands of b/d, between 2010 and 2016: 270, 400, 580, 730, 800, 840, 880. The growth curve for the Eagle Ford? -- 30,000 b/d in 2010, rising to 390,000 b/d by 2016.
The breakdown by 2016 for the US, according to the IEA, is total "light tight oil" output of 1.7 million b/d, combining with other crude and condensate of 4.92 million b/d to create total US crude and condensate output of 6.62 million b/d. Throw in NGL growth, and you get the 9.6 million b/d. So we've taken some liberties and described that number in the beginning of this blog piece as "almost ten."
The other interesting observation by the IEA regarding US output is its projection for the Gulf of Mexico. "Our projections have evolved as more information has become available since the drilling moratorium that followed the Macondo disaster," the report said.
It puts 2011 output at 1.4 million b/d, which it says is 100,000 b/d less than last year's estimate. "However, with drilling activity now increasing, and incorporate what now looks like stronger growth from new projects, 2016 production reaches 1.8 million b/d, around 70k b/d higher than our expectation a year ago."
The monthly IEA report can be found here, but the most recent edition is on a two-week delay after its release to subscribers. So the report with the numbers cited here isn't available yet.
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