Just Some Idle Rambling Connecting The Saudi Refining Dots And CO2 EOR

Updates

Later, 2:11 pm: Platts is reporting --

Russia is the world’s biggest oil producer and has been for quite a while — that’s a fact. Its output has consistently ranked above that of Saudi Arabia in the past few years and in May, Russian average daily output hit a new 2013 high of almost 10.5 million b/d.

Saudi output, meanwhile, has mostly stayed below 10 million b/d in the past few years given OPEC production limitations.

So it is still surprising to read reports about how the American shale boom is set to push the US ahead of Saudi Arabia as the top producer globally by 2017.

It is indisuptable that at the moment Russia’s oil production is significantly higher than even the most extravagant of estimates of Saudi output.

In 2012, Russian oil production averaged 10.4 million b/d. Saudi Aramco, in its annual report published last week, said it pumped 9.5 million b/d last year. Russia’s place at the top of the oil producing league, then, seems assured, at least for now.

Russia, though, is clearly pumping at capacity to make the most of high oil prices.

Comment: folks really believe that Saudi is holding back production to comply with OPEC limits when "everyone else" in OPEC is cheating?

Later, 1:19 pm: within an hour of posting the note below, another story appeared which helped explain the Red Sea story and Saudi Arabia. 

Original Post

The link is here.

For round numbers, I think one could say the US imported, on a monthly basis, about 45,000,000 bbls of oil from Saudi Arabia from 1993 (yes, the previous millenium, the previous century) until December, 2008.

Then, between December, 2008, and March, 2009, there was a precipitous drop in Saudi imports, and a re-setting, as it were, of the baseline, to about 35,000,000 bbls.

The trend increased between July, 2010, and April, 2012, when it took another precipitous drop. However, since then, the trend has been increasing.

The number of bbls/month, in thousands, imported to the USA from Saudi for the most recent months data is avaiable:

January, 2013: 30,347
February, 2013: 38,887
March, 2013: 39,796

When you look at those numbers, remember this story. And the CO2 connection.

The CO2 connection is just one story line. There are many, many other story lines. Total crude oil imports into the US are falling; monthly imports from OPEC fluctuate significantly, but the Saudi data for 1Q13 is very interesting.