January 2008: new record for crude + condensate production
April 11th, 2008 by Jim JustThe EIA’s newest International Petroleum Monthly shows World C+C production for January was 74,466,000 barrels per day, eclipsing the heretofore peak of May 2005 by 168,000 barrels per day.
The Oil Drum has posted a graph showing production:
Only time will tell the significance of the new high – whether it can be sustained, or whether it’s just noise, another bump on a bumpy plateau.
Meanwhile, consumption continues to rise. China’s oil imports surged to a record 17.3 million tons in March. China may soon unseat Japan as the world’s second-largest buyer of foreign crude oil. China, which imports about half of the oil it uses, imported an average of just over 4 million barrels a day in March; Japan imported about 4.4 million barrels of oil a day in February.
The United States, which imports about 10 million barrels of oil a day, remains by far the biggest consumer. An unexpected decline in U.S. crude and gasoline inventories drove oil prices to a trading record of $112.21 a barrel Wednesday.
Despite the new record in crude production, it’s clear that the era of cheap oil – and cheap transport – is over. Transport is fueled 95 per cent by oil.
The end of cheap oil is confronting society just as it’s grappling with climate change. If climate change weren’t a problem, we could turn to coal. But if we’re to avoid a climate apocalypse, that’s simply not an option.
Barbara Yaffe in the Vancouver Sun observes that the end of cheap oil means drastic changes are ahead. Canada, like the U.S., “took all its postwar wealth and invested in a living arrangement that has no future.” Per capita, we consume energy at more than twice the European rate, with no payoff in a better lifestyle.