No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Non-OPEC Conventional Oil: Production Decline, Supply Outlook and Key Implications
In this study, we investigate the connection between climate change and the volatility of fossil fuel prices using the GARCH-MIDAS framework which accommodates mixed data frequencies and by extension circumvents information loss due to splicing or aggregation of one variable for the other. We conduct a battery of robustness tests that allow for nominal and real prices of fossil fuels as well as global financial crises (GFC). We show a strong connection between climate change and the volatility of fossil fuel prices albeit with stronger evidence in the post-GFC period. The outcome is positive in the recent period and therefore climate change seems to have heightened the volatility in the fossil fuel market. Even when the real prices are considered, results remain consistent, indicating that inflationary pressures do not diminish the effect of climate change on fossil fuel price volatility. We also show that own market risk positively impacts the volatility of fossil fuel prices and the volatility tends to persist when there is a shock to the fossil fuel market. More conscious efforts are needed to effectively discourage increased
investments in environmentally-degrading assets.
The most important contributors to the world's total oil production are the giant oil fields. Using a comprehensive database of giant oil field production, the average decline rates of the world's giant oil fields are estimated. Separating subclasses was necessary, since there are large differences between land and offshore fields, as well as between non-OPEC and OPEC fields. The evolution of decline rates over past decades includes the impact of new technologies and production techniques and clearly shows that the average decline rate for individual giant fields is increasing with time. These factors have significant implications for the future, since the most important world oil production base - giant fields - will decline more rapidly in the future, according to our findings. Our conclusion is that the world faces an increasing oil supply challenge, as the decline in existing production is not only high now but will be increasing in the future.
Since production curtailment for other than engineering reasons is graduallydisappearing, and more and more wells are now producing at capacity and showingdeclining production rates, it was considered timely to present a brief reviewof the development of decline-curve analysis during the past three or fourdecades.
Several of the commoner types of decline curves were discussed in detail andthe mathematical relationships between production rate, time, cumulativeproduction and decline percentage for each case were studied.
The well-known loss-ratio method was found to be an extremely valuable toolfor statistical analysis and extrapolation of various types of curves. Atentative classification of decline curves, based on their loss ratios, wassuggested. Some new graphical methods were introduced to facilitate estimationof the future life and the future production of producing properties wherecurves are plotted on semilogarithmic paper.
To facilitate graphical extrapolation of hyperbolic-type decline curves, aseries of decline charts was proposed, which will make straight-lineextrapolation of both rate-time and rate-cumulative curves possible.
Introduction
During the period of severe production curtailment, which is now behind us,production-decline curves lost most of their usefulness and popularity inprorated areas because the production rates of all wells, except those in thestripper class, were constant or almost constant.
While production-decline curves were thus losing in importance forestimating reserves, an increasing reservoir consciousness and a betterunderstanding of reservoir performance developed among petroleum engineers.This fact, together with intelligent interpretation and use of electric logs,core-analysis data, bottom-hole pressure behavior and physical characteristicsof reservoir fluids, eliminated a considerable part of the guesswork inprevious volumetric methods and put reserve estimates, based on this method, ona sound scientific basis. At the same time, a number of ingenious substituteswere developed for the regular production-decline curve, which made it possibleto obtain an independent check on volumetric estimates in appraisal work, eventhough the production rates were constant.
With the now steadily increasing demand for oil to supply the hugerequirements of this global war, proration for reasons other than prevention ofunderground waste is gradually disappearing. More and more wells are, or willbe, producing at capacity or at their optimum rates, as determined by soundengineering practice.
T.P. 1758
The International Energy Agency’s annual energy projections. Based on scenarios, these projections compare what will happen if policies remain the same and what might happen if policies were improved. Each edition tends to have a particular geographical or policy focus.
Non-OPEC Decline Rates: Lower for Longer
- Wood Mackenzie