Peak Oil? What Peak Oil? US Proved Reserves Of Crude Oil Increased Another 12 Percent -- February 2, 2020

Updates

Later, 6:27 p.m. CT: in the comments I mention that the price of oil is an existential issue for Saudi Arabia. A reader responded:

Just as Saudi, Kuwait, Russia and several other regimes rely upon oil revenue for political/social ends, other countries are in the same boat with natgas. The countries include Russia, Qatar, Algeria, Malaysia.

All these countries tie their pricing to various oil indexes (say, 12% of Brent, for illustrative purposes).

The completely disconnected  - from global markets - pricing at Henry Hub gives US producers a HUGE economic edge when competing now in global markets. 

Regional hub pricing has just emerged with JKM, TTF, and NBP to provide free market parameters vis a vis supply/demand in Asia, Europe, indeed, everywhere.

Independent (read, non-government-owned) companies are upending these long established paradigms at blinding speed.

Original Post

It's not so much that proved reserves increased so much, it's the degree to which proved reserves increased, a stunning twelve percent, coming on top of record growth in progression many years since 2005. I think a lot of folks thought that growth would have slowed by now.

Link here.

According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), U.S. proved reserves of crude oil and lease condensate increased to 47.1 billion barrels in 2018—a 12 percent increase compared with the previous record set at year-end 2017 of 42 billion barrels. U.S. proved reserves of natural gas increased to 504.5 trillion cubic feet—a 9 percent increase compared with the record level set in 2017 of 464.4 trillion cubic feet. 

When I first started blogging, I never understood why "proved reserves" would b contingent upon price.

Proved reserves are oil and natural gas quantities that geological and engineering data find with reasonable certainty to be recoverable from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions. Reserves estimates change from year to year as new discoveries are made, existing fields are appraised, reserves are produced, prices and costs change, and technologies develop.

Memo to self: note to Art Berman.

And more:

U.S. proved reserves of oil and natural gas have increased despite record production of these fuels in 2018. U.S. crude oil and lease condensate production increased 17 percent in 2018 to an average of 10.96 million barrels per day—1.6 million barrels per day more than in 2017.

U.S. natural gas production increased 12 percent in 2018 to 89.9 billion cubic feet per day—10 billion cubic feet per day more than in 2017.

The largest net increase in oil and natural gas proved reserves in 2018 was in Texas, totaling 2.3 billion barrels of crude oil and lease condensate proved reserves and 22.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas proved reserves. The major share of that increase was located in the Wolfcamp and Bone Spring shale plays in the Permian Basin.

The next largest net gains in crude oil and lease condensate proved reserves in 2018 were in New Mexico and North Dakota. New Mexico’s crude oil and lease condensate proved reserves increased by 750 million barrels and North Dakota’s increased by 422 million barrels in 2018.

It's my understanding that Saudi Arabia's proved reserves has/have not changed in decades.