All That Talk About Replacement -- Peak Oil -- February 8, 2018

Many years ago when I was a bit more interested in this, I would read the annual reports to see how oil companies were doing in replacing production with new reserves. I've long lost the bubble on that so I have no idea whether this is "good, bad, or mediocre." That's fine.

From Oil & Gas Journal:

ExxonMobil Corp. has added 2.7 billion boe of proved oil and gas reserves in 2017, replacing 183% of production. ExxonMobil’s proved reserves totaled 21.2 billion boe at yearend 2017. Liquids represented 57% of the reserves, up from 53% in 2016. ExxonMobil’s reserves life at current production rates is 14 years.

Let's see what Google will find us, googling XOM historical annual reserves replacing production, just reading the short Google note at the top of each hit:

• 2017: 183%; 2.7 billion boe; 14 years
• 2016:  65%; 2.5 billion boe; 13 years -- a 19.3% reduction in its proved reserves in 2016, its steepest reduction ever, erasing almost 3.3 billion boe to end 2016 at under 20 billion boe. The supermajor only replaced 65% of its production in 2016;
• 2015: 67%; 1.0 billion boe;16 years; link here -- it was 1.9 billion boe, but NG was reduced by 834 million due to depressed prices; failed to replace production for first time in 22 years
• 2014: 104%; 1.5 billion boe; 16.9 years (historical high)
• 2013: 103%; 1.6 billion boe;
• 2012: 115%: 1.8 billion boe;
• 2011: 107%; 1.8 billion boe;
• 2010: 209%; 3.5 boe; -- 
• 2009: 133%; 2.0 billion boe;  

Based on that quick look, replacing production at a rate of 183% is very, very good.

By the way, the industry uses two different metrics:

• replacing production
• replacement ratio

But I'm not going to get into that now, except to say that "laymen" like me seem to prefer "production replacement" whereas the industry suggests that the "replacement ratio" is a better indicator of a company's reserve health. 

Note: here's another report from Quartz:

In an announcement today, Exxon said it had written down its proven oil reserves by a massive 19.3% (2016), a stinging reduction to what is a primary measure of any oil company’s value. As of the end of 2016, Exxon had 20 billion barrels in proven reserves, compared with 24.8 billion a year earlier. This includes the erasure of all 3.5 billion barrels of Exxon’s proven oil sands reserves at Canada’s Kearl field. Last year’s low oil prices made it uneconomical to drill at Kearl, which had been at the core of Exxon’s growth strategy.

In addition, for the second straight year, Exxon failed to replace all the reserves it pumped—in 2016, it replaced just 65% of its produced reserves. In 2015, it replaced just 67%. Prior to these years, Exxon had replaced at least 100% of its production every year since 1993.

Of course, the "peak oil" folks had some fun with XOM's 2016 report. I wonder what they had to say about XOM's most recent report -- a whopping 183% replacement.