PEMEX Crude Production Drops 13% in April Due to Cantarell Decline
26 May 2008
PEMEX, Mexico’s state-owned oil company, reported that crude oil production in April 2008 dropped 13% to 2.767 million barrels per day from April 2007 as output from the Cantarell field declined faster than expected.
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| PEMEX crude production is showing accelerating declines. Click to enlarge. |
Crude oil production for the first four months of 2008 was down 9% compared to the first four months of 2007, from an average 3.164 million barrels per day to an average 2.875 million barrels per day.
PEMEX attributed the accelerated drop mainly to the decline in the giant Cantarell field, where production dropped 416,000 barrels per day compared to 2007. That decline was partially offset by an increase in the production of active Ku-Maloob Zaap field, which rose from 476,000 barrels per day at the close of the previous year to 670,000 in April.
The Cantarell oil field, located in the Gulf of Campeche, is one of the largest oil fields in the world. In 2006, Cantarell produced 1.8 million bbl/d of crude oil, or 55% of the national total. Crude oil production at the field peaked in 2004 at 2.14 million bbl/d, and production will likely continue to decline despite any incremental gains by incorporating additional satellite fields, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
looks like Hubbert was right.
Posted by: eric | 26 May 2008 at 04:27 AM
The chart shows a long trend towards declining production, not just a small blip in production.
Anyone relying on OIL for their future energy needs is well warned to look elsewhere. Ancient Oil is a limited resource, and we are seeing the end of the easiest available supplies.
Many want to use this as an excuse to drill in ecologically sensitive areas hoping for a little more oil to sell when there is a severe shortage of energy. Others want to develop wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal so there is no shortage of energy.
Posted by: | 26 May 2008 at 05:12 AM
At the present usage rate, it is almost a given certainity that the world will consume the remaining fossil fuels (coal, oil, NG) during the current century.
Countries like USA, relying very heavily on fossil fuels for cheap energy will have to look somewhere else.
Grain ethanol may look good as a fuel replacement but it is not a sustainable long term solution because it uses fertile land required to feed us. Recycling wastes (all types) to produce gas and liquid fuels may meet part of the (Gas and Fuels) required.
Sooner or latter, we will have to electrify most or all transportation modes using cleaner electricity form the sun, wind, waves, geothermal and certainly a much higher percentage form Nuclear for base load. More coal, NG or oil fired plants are not acceptable.
Anti nuclear groups may not like it but at least 1000 new large nuclear plants (worldwide) will be required by 2050.
Posted by: | 26 May 2008 at 07:56 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantarell
"Luis Ramírez Corzo, head of PEMEX's exploration and production division, announced on August 12, 2004 that the actual oil output from Cantarell is forecast to decline steeply from 2006 onwards, at a rate of 14% per year."
Nothing like four year old news to scare the crap out of the oil speculators...
Posted by: | 26 May 2008 at 08:23 AM
"looks like Hubbert was right" back in 1956 !
Posted by: DS | 26 May 2008 at 08:24 AM
Eric: Hubert may have been right about the concept of a peak but his details were a little off. i.e. lower 48 peaked in the very high end of his prediction range at levels far about his predicted rate of production.
Posted by: Neil | 26 May 2008 at 08:27 AM
DS
Watch the bold
Posted by: | 26 May 2008 at 09:35 AM
We've known about peak oil for decades and done nothing. Democrat? Republican? Doesn't matter. This is the end. The oil famine has started and will only accelerate.
Posted by: Cervus | 26 May 2008 at 10:08 AM
"Hubert may have been right about the concept of a peak but his details were a little off."
The lower 48 peaked in 1971. Hubert had predicted 1970. Where he was wrong was underestimating the technology advances used to get the oil out quicker.
World peak oil estimates have been made using methods similar to those of Hubert, and give a very strong reason to believe we are now at or very near "world peak oil" production capacity.
What becomes most obvious is that world demand will continue to rise, and world oil production will begin to fall, resulting in the end of "oil glut" and the beginning of a very serious energy shortage.
Finding a few barrels of additional oil or opening wildlife reserves to oil production only delays the inevitable for a few months, at extreme environmental risk.
The answer is to turn to totally non-oil, non-fossil-fuel energy. Obviously, non-polluting renewable energy should be a top choice.
One idea is to build huge wind farms. To balance the peak loads we can convert excess power into hydrogen, then burn the hydrogen in power stations that were previously oil fired.
Posted by: | 26 May 2008 at 10:17 AM
1000 new nuclear power plants by 2050? Fortunately there isn't the engineering capacity to do it. If we do that, we may as well just kill everybody and everything now and have done with it. 60 years of the most vile toxic substances ever known, poisonous and radiocative for 10 times 4.5 billion years to come, still sitting there because in reality there is no conventional technology that can possibly even start to clean it up. So they spray it over Iraq in DU bombs instead. God help us. The entire biosphere is already irrevocably contaminated with radioactive poisons, every power station continues to throw radioactive Krypton and Xenon into the atmosphere, the financial cost of nuclear is astronomical and you want more of it?
Pathological insanity and ignorance. Pathological.
God rest you merry innocents
While innocence endures.
Posted by: Emphyrio | 26 May 2008 at 01:02 PM
emphyrio:
The world may not have too many other alternatives. There are not enough land to produce all the energy required 40 - 50 years from now. Sun and wind are ideal but intermittant sources. We don't have the very large energy storage facilities required for windless rainy cold days/nights.
USA get 78+% of its electrical energy from carbon based non-replaceable high pollution fuels and that will have to change. France gets 80%+ of its electrical energy form nuclear for the last few decades without major accidents. So could many other countries, including USA, China, India, EU, Canada, Australia, SA etc.
Building 20 new up to date nuclear power plants (worldwide) a year is not an impossibility but a neccessity if we (and the world) want to switch from ICE to Electified vehicles. One to two billion PHEVs and BEVs will require new power sources. The world will not stop using energy. Nine billion people will certainly use more than 6.5 billion.
Posted by: HarveyD | 26 May 2008 at 02:14 PM
"If we do that, we may as well just kill everybody and everything now and have done with it."
Actually, Emphyrio, I have a better idea: why don't you take your pointless doomer philosophy and general outlook and put it where your mouth is and commit suicide? After all, who is forcing you to endure your so-called "innocence"? Or is it really guilt?
Whatever you decide, let's be entirely clear:
If 1000 nuclear power plants need to be built, they _WILL_ be built.
If 100,000 wind turbines need to be built, they _WILL_ be built.
If 1,000,000 million square kilometers of solar cells need to be deployed, then the job _WILL_ be done.
And you know something? During any or all of this activity, mistakes will be made, accidents will happen, people will die. Perhaps even large numbers of people. This is the nature of engineering, the nature of being simply alive. Come join the party and have fun with the rest of us ... or simply ask and the shovel, a Glock and a single round are yours for the taking.
Posted by: mdf | 26 May 2008 at 04:20 PM
1000 new reactors in 40 years is quite feasible and would go a long way to reducing global CO2 emissions. There are approximately 450 power reactors in the world today. Approximately 50 additional reactors are currently under construction or contracted for construction.
The US built over 100 reactors in 20 years. France built more than 50 in 20 years.
There currently are some production bottlenecks if a build rate to support 1000 reactors in 40 years is to be achieved. Worldwide there is insufficient large forging capacity. Domestically, there are insufficient tradespersons (nuclear grade qualified pipefitters, welders, and other construction personnel).
Bill
Posted by: Bill Young | 26 May 2008 at 06:09 PM
Bill
There is only 250 nuclear reactors across the world now, and I don't think 1000 reactors are feasible in the next 30 years simply because the uranium production will not keep pace, and also america doesn't have the financial power to start such a program (debt wak dollars, sluggish econmy). Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that nuclear won't be part of the solution, it definitively will, but it will be ONLY part of the solution, the rest will have to come from declining fossil resources, wind, solar, biofuel, energy conservation, etc...that being said, all this put together won't replace fossil energy in providing the cheap energy as our growth addicted economy ask for. On the long term, population has to decrease, like it or not, renewable energy can do great things but can not power Wal-Mart Disneyland, Las Vegs and give the european life style to 7 billions peoples.
Posted by: treehugger | 26 May 2008 at 07:28 PM
The real reason why oil majors support carbon sequestration efforts:
http://www.fe.doe.gov/news/techlines/20 ... eased.html
“Washington, DC – State-of-the-art enhanced oil recovery with carbon dioxide, now recognized as a potential way of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions, could add 89 billion barrels to the recoverable oil resources of the United States, the Department of Energy has determined. Current U.S. proved reserves are 21.9 billion barrels.
The 89-billion-barrel jump in resources was one of a number of possible increases identified in a series of assessments done for the Department which also found that, in the longer term, multiple advances in technology and widespread sequestration of industrial carbon dioxide could eventually add as much as 430 billion new barrels to the technically recoverable resource.
Beginning efforts to develop the 89-billion-barrel addition to resources would depend on the availability of commercial CO2 in large volumes.”
“In Canada, a CO2-EOR project has been established by EnCana at the Weyburn Oil Field in southern Saskatchewan. The project is expected to inject a net 18 million ton CO2 and recover an additional 130 million barrels (21,000,000 m³) of oil, extending the life of the oil field by 25 years [1]. When combusted, this extra volume of oil will produce nearly 60 million ton CO2, so in this case carbon capture and storage in combination with EOR leads to more CO2 emissions than without injection of CO2. Since CO2 injection began in late 2000, the EOR project has performed largely as predicted. Currently, some 1600 m3 (10,063 barrels) per day of incremental oil is being produced from the field.”
Such technology, along with horizontal drilling, in-situ coal and tar sand gasification and extraction, plus deep water drilling, and yes – exploring oil in Arctic, will buy enough time to move to nuclear electricity (at least for economy majors) and electrify ground transport and home heating.
Posted by: Andrey Levin | 27 May 2008 at 12:04 AM
Andrey, Thanks for the update. Maybe the sky won't fall after all. While I applaud those who tout wind and solar, that alone will not solve the energy crisis. In fact, those meager efforts wouldn't make a dent in the energy demands of the US, not to mention the world. We, as a society, owe it to ourselves to reduce our energy usage by at least 20/25%. I know I have.
Posted by: shigley | 27 May 2008 at 07:43 AM
Andrey:
Tks for the update.
CO2 injection could be a very efficient CO2 multiplication system, i.e. 18 million tons in and 60 million tons out. Multiply this small project by 12 and we could double Canada's yearly indirect CO2 production. Not bad at all, we could go from 25 tons/year/per capita to 50.
The world will certainly find better ways to extract oil and gaz for another 100 years and coal for another 200 years. Wouldn't it be wiser to slow down on fossil fuel usage and make it last a bit longer, for special hard to replace uses, and reduce GHG while it is still time.
There is nothing wrong with accellerated electrification of our transportation vehicles (all sizes), our homes, appliances and HVAC, factories, commercial & public facilities etc etc.
Electricity does not have to be generated (at 78%+) from fossil fuels as it is done in USA. The electrical power generation mix will be changed with more wind and sun power. However, to replace fossil fuels, for base load, many more nuclear plants will be required in many countries. China is planning on 120 new nuclear plants. USA, India, South America, Rest of Asia and EU etc will need many more. Up to 1000 (1000-1500 mega-watt) new nuclear plants will be required over the next 40-60 years to support 2+ billion PHEVs and BEVs and increased usage to cope with development while phasing out most, if not, all existing coal fired power generating plants.
By that time, CO2 to increase oil extraction may no longer be required because most oil wells will be bone dry.
Posted by: HarveyD | 27 May 2008 at 01:16 PM
treehugger,
Whether the world can build 1000 reactors in 30 years is conjecture. Surely the US will not play a leading role in the construction effort if there is a big push. The active western reactor designs now are French, Japanese and Canadian. GE, a US company, is partnered on a couple of the Japanese designs.
The number of reactors in the world is not conjecture. It is 439. http://www.uic.com.au/reactors.htm
Bill
Posted by: Bill Young | 27 May 2008 at 04:36 PM