OPEC Update, November 2024

D Coyne OPEC, Uncategorized

The OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR) for November 2024 was published recently. The last month reported in most of the OPEC charts that follow is October 2024 and output reported for OPEC nations is crude oil output in thousands of barrels per day (kb/d). In the OPEC charts below the blue line with markers is monthly output and the thin red line is the centered twelve month average (CTMA) output.

Output for August 2024 was revised higher by 4 kb/d and September 2024 output was revised higher by 25 kb/d compared to last month’s report. OPEC 12 output increased by 466 kb/d with most of the increase from Libya as the political situation improved(556 kb/d.) Iraq decreased by 66 kb/d, Iran by 68 kb/d, and Nigeria had a small 35 kb/d increase. Other OPEC members had small increases or decreases of 14 kb/d or less.

The chart above shows output from the Big 4 OPEC producers that are subject to output quotas (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq, and Kuwait.) After the pandemic, Big 4 average output peaked in 2022 at a centered 12 month average (CTMA) of 20849 kb/d, crude output has been cut by 2441 kb/d relative to the 2022 CTMA peak to 18408 kb/d. The Big 4 may have roughly 2440 kb/d of spare capacity when World demand calls for an increase in output.

Most of the increase in the Other 8 OPEC nations (those not part of the Big 4) came from Iran and Venezuela, with the remaining 6 nations that were subject to quotas having relatively flat output over the 37 month period covered in the chart above.

OPEC continues to expect strong demand for World liquids output in 2024 and 2025 and I continue to believe this is a wishcast of what they would prefer World demand to be. EIA and IEA forecasts are more realistic at about 1 to 1.2 Mb/d for 2024 to 2025 average.

OPEC expects moderate growth in US tight oil output of about 300 kb/d in 2024 and 2025 with most of the increase from the Permian basin.

My guess for US tight oil output in 2024 us a bit higher than the OPEC estimate and in 2025 it is lower.

55 thoughts to “OPEC Update, November 2024”

  1. Thank you Dennis. Word from the Trump camp is that Trump will re-impose sanctions on Iran. Thoughts on how that might affect OPEC supply?

    1. Paoil

      This is one time that I hope T is successful. If he can curb Iranian exports that will allow the other OPEC countries to start to increase their production.

    3. PAOil,

      I expect it would decrease OPEC Supply unless other OPEC members increase output to make up the difference, they have about 2400 kb/d of output they are holding back, Iran is producing about 3400 kb/d so as long as Iran’s output doesn’t fall below 1000 Kb/d (Trunp got Iran’s output down to about 2000 kb/d before the pandemic so that might be a lower limit). In short, there will probably be little affect on overall OPEC supply from Trump imposing sanctions on Iran. It will have about as much affect as the drill baby drill policy, that is very little.

  2. The last pictorial is somewhere close to what will happen over the next decade.
    What will you do when there is less oil production, say starting in 2030 ?
    Stay home, or something else?

    1. Probably try and hunker down to avoid climate collapse rather than worry about my fuel costs for a vehicle.

    2. The wheels will fall off before we even reach the decline. Banks just aren’t going to be making loans.

      It’s a two sided coin. Consumers won’t be looking to borrow money because they’ll lack the income to take on additional debt.

    3. Hickory,

      The last chart is US tight oil, World oil output will be enough to meet demand which will fall as EVs become dominant for land transport.

      1. The dominant for of land transport for people anyway is probably public transportation. Take China for example. There are about 330 m cars and trucks but the population is more like 1.4 bn. So more than a billion people definitely aren’t driving.

        There is a tendency for Americans, who make up about 4% of the world population, to project their experiences on the rest of the world. It doesn’t always paint an accurate picture.

        And a lot of people seem to think that the sky will fall if they can’t drive their SUV 10 miles to the shopping mall to buy a pack of gum. It probably won’t.

        1. Alimbiquated,

          There are also a fair number of 2 and 3 wheel motorized and or electrified vehicles in both China and India. These nations were expected to drive future oil demand, not so much if most of the new vehicle (2, 3, and 4 or more wheel) demand is electric.

      2. Dennis, yes. My answer to the scenario is the realistic and proactive rapid move to electric transport,
        just as China understands better than just about anyone else.

        However I also think that living with much less miles traveled is a critical adaptation.

    4. Hickory,

      Chart below has my current guess for World C plus C output in Millions of barrels per day (vertical axis-left scale). The last “EIA data” point is based on the EIA STEO for 2024 (82 Mb/d).

      1. Thanks for the update. I hold your projections in very high regard after watching how well you have digested all of the data over time, and looking beyond the noise.
        By 2040 a majority of the worlds light transport kilometers traveled will be electric.

        1. Hickory,

          Thank you for the kind words.

          If you are correct and lets say 90% of land transport has been electrified by 2040 and as a rough guess maybe 10% of land transport today is electrified. In 2023 World diesel and gasoline demand was 55.8 Mb/d (OPEC Annual Statistical Bulletin data) and we assume for simplicity all of this was for land transport, lets assume this is reduced by 2040 by 8/9 or 89% which would be 49.7 Mb/d and again for simplicity we assume all other oil demand remains at 2023 levels (it will probably increase by some amount maybe 1% per year.)

          That would mean demand for oil falls from 82 Mb/d to 32 Mb/d by 2040, if we add a 10% increase to other crude oil demand that adds another 2.6 Mb/d for 35 Mb/d of crude oil demand in 2040 (for the assumptions I have made here and rounding to nearest integer.)

          That is about half of the model output in my 2950 Gb scenario above. I hope your estimate is the more accurate one, I am a bit less optimistic that the EVS transition will happen so quickly, I will adjust my scenarios when the data shows I am incorrect.

          1. We have no way to know how much of land transport will be electrified by 2040. I say a majority, which falls somewhere between 50 and 100%.
            Even if it is just 50%, that means that there would roughly still be enough fuel on a global basis if your projection is in the ballpark.
            I doubt the distribution of fuel will be appropriate to the various needs however. Anybody relying on imported liquid fuels would be wise to assume the need to be on electric transport mode, just as China is working toward.

            1. Hickory,

              I agree, we have no idea how much land transport will be electrified by 2040, we could assume 50%, which would be conservative in my view, which would be about a 27 Mbpd decrease, maybe a 5 Mbpd increase in other demand for a net decrease of 22 Mbpd so about 60 Mbpd of demand for that scenario. My scenario has about 70 Mbpd of supply in 2040 so probably too high by at least 10 Mbpd.

        1. Tom,

          Here is what mine looks like. The decline rate is the linear regression of the growth rate extrapolated into time.

          1. Thanks IRON MIKE,

            I found a graph of DENNIS, more realistic than what he is producing at the moment.

          2. Iron Mike,

            Interesting symmetry in that chart,
            Why is the linear section for the 2025 to 2048 period, about 23 years, so much shorter than the linear rise from 1982 to 2018, about 36 years? Was that simply to keep URR under 2500Gb?

            1. Hi Dennis,

              No, that’s not the reason. The program i wrote contains a function used to generate multivariate normal random numbers that follow a normal distribution. The mu or mean of the normal distribution is based on linear regression function of the oil growth rate extrapolated into the given forecast year i believe i put from 2023-2112. The sigma of the normal distribution is also based on the linear regression model of the oil growth rate (root-mean square error).

              So essentially everytime i run the program it gives a different curve and subsequently URR. But it runs to 2112, whatever the curve is it has to end and calculate URR based on oil production coming to an end that year.

              So the given parameters usually yield a result of 2450 plus minus 80Gb or so for URR.

            2. Iron Mike,

              I guess it is not surprising that the result would be symmetric. Note that I take my Shock Model out to 2300 with about 100 Gb produced from 2100 to 2300 for a 2600 Gb scenario, so if I arbitrarily cut off production in 2100, URR for my low scenarios would be about 2500 Gb.

            3. Dennis,

              I am obviously making assumptions that oil production is going to be negligible to nil after 2100. Sounds to me to be a reasonable assumption, but who knows.

              I think 2500Gb URR is quite reasonable. I think there is a lot more oil to be produced. Chances are we will come up with better and more efficient ways to reach and produce resources which may currently be TRR but not ERR. Obviously it depends on demand and how electrification goes. Such a scenario assumes BAU for at least up to the medium term.

              The headwinds of such a scenario would be deglobalisation and possibly climate change really wreaking havoc on a global scale. Also geopolitical instability in oil producing nations which is entirely possible, which I assume is what Kengeo’s base case scenario is.

            4. Iron Mike,

              Yes 2500 Gb may be reasonable, I certainly can come up with scenarios where cumulative output is about 2600 Gb up to 2100, if I make the same assumption that there is zero oil output after 2100 we are only 100 Gb apart, I just don’t make the same assumption which adds at least 100 Gb to any of my scenarios (which continue to 2300).

              Also I notice your scenario starts in 1935, there was about 23 Gb of crude plus condensate produced between 1870 and 2034. It would be interesting to see what your program would give without forcing output to zero around 2100. I expect demand for oil to fall, but also expect there may be some demand for oil at low levels, perhaps as an input for petrochemicals and such even if its use as an energy source is eliminated by 2100 (which is far from certain, but a reasonable assumption in my view).

        2. Tom.

          I don’t think this is very realistic, but here is a scenario with conventional less than 2500 Gb and about 180 Gb of unconventional output (71 Gb from tight oil and the rest from extra heavy oil).

          1. Thank you DENNIS,

            This is to satisfy the most pessimistic, of which I am one.

            Thank you.

            1. 2500 Gb is an overly optimistic scenario, here’s why:
              We can of course start with cumulative production to date of ~1500 Gb. This is a base as it’s already produced. From there, we can imagine Putin hits the button tomorrow and the URR ends up at 1500 Gb, the end. That scenario is fatalistic and not very likely (hopefully). If we add remaining 1P reserves of ~400 Gb, we likely reach a pessimistic estimate, but very much within a probabilistic range (albeit lower end). We can also look at 2P reserves, in 2022 for example Rystad report 548 Gb reserves which focus on quantities that are both discovered and have a reasonable certainty of being commercially producible. A year later (2023) Rystad reported a drop of 43 Gb for 2P, suggesting URR of only ~1.9 Tb. The latest Rystad reported 2P suggests a significant upward revision of 2P from 505 Gb to 738 Gb. An increase of nearly 50%!!!!!
              With such an increase, this suggests that the currently accepted best guess for URR is indeed 2.2 Tb 5%. I would place this in the Realistic position of URR, where there is an equal chance to be higher or lower. For extreme optimists like Dennis, they might consider the 1.2 Tb of 2PC to land on a truly overly optimistic URR of 2.7 Tb. So in summary:
              Fatalist URR: 1.5 Tb
              Pessimistic URR: 1.9 Tb
              Realistic URR: 2.2 Tb
              Optimistic URR: 2.5 Tb
              Overly optimistic URR 2.7 Tb

              Values of 1.8 to 2.2 TB are in line with my previous estimates using a wide range of different methods to estimate URR. Roughly 90% of URR is conventional oil and 10% is unconventional. The amount of unconventional is primarily what is in question.

              See October Rystad report and their confirmation of peak: https://sf-asset-manager.s3.amazonaws.com/97637/888/6125.pdf

              The excerpt reads:

              “The current pathway points toward a 40% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050, with global emissions peaking in 2026. This peak is expected to mark the beginning of a structural decline in fossil fuel consumption.”

      3. 50 mb/d by 2050
        George K had a similar one.
        Perhaps someone else did too.

  3. I see September was below August in the US and August was revised down a little in the EIA monthly.

    It appears that was hurricane related.

    Will be interesting to see if October – December comes in higher or about the same.

  4. Shallow,
    I’m usually wrong, but my guess is that we have two or three more quarters before lower 48 onshore peaks.
    I think there are a number of til’s still waiting on gas price improvement. The Materhorn pipeline added over 2 BCF of capacity out of the Permian basin, and two delayed Gulf Coast LNG plants seem near their production starts.
    There have been several Canadian producers who have curtailed mostly dry gas production. The LNG Canada facility is also in startup.
    Of course, if Trump actually implements the import duties, all guesses are off.

    1. Quark,

      I don’t find your argument convincing (I am depending on Google translate as my Spanish is not very good). Note that 2PC resources remain relatively stable, my guess is the Rystad analysis may be pretty close, remember that contingent resources are already discovered oil resources and the 2C contingent resource estimate is the engineering best guess for contingent resources. Each year the resource is revevaluated and some of the 2C resource may move to the 2P reserve category and other resources may be added to the 2C category due to discoveries and reserve growth.

      One question would be, why do we assume the 2023 report by Rystad is the correct report, I simply assume the most recent report has the best information.

      What is your estimate for World URR for Crude plus Condensate?

      1. Hello Dennis.

        I am not going to discuss the figures 1p and 2p, but rather I am saying that the “explanation” of the increase is inadmissible. They could have said that part of the 2PC reserves were being transferred to 2P reserves, but all they are saying is that due to infill drilling in Arabia, the 2P reserves are increasing tremendously. In the rest of the report, I believe that Saudi has been carrying out infill drilling for more than twenty years and therefore its explanation is implausible.

        They have probably reviewed their figures from previous years and decided they were incorrect, which leaves serious doubts about their future reports.

        World URR between 2,200 and 2,500 Gb.

        1. Quark,

          Actually when I read the article in full (I was mostly focused on the charts and did not read the text), Rystad is predicting that of the 3000 Gb (cumulative output and 2PCX resource) about 500 Gb is likely to be stranded so they expect a URR of around 2500 Gb, similar to your high end estimate. It is not clear to me the transition away from oil will occur as fast as Rystad predicts. I hope they are correct.

          I think you may have misunderstood what they said see quote below:

          The largest downward revisions are seen in Saudi Arabia, where development priorities have shifted from offshore capacity expansions to onshore infill drilling. The only country with any significant increase in 2024 is Argentina, with a gain of 4 billion barrels thanks to the derisking of shale projects in the Vaca Muerta formation.

          Saudi 2PCX resources were reduced in this year’s report by 24 Gb from 271 Gb to 247 Gb and OPEC 2PCX resources were reduced from 696 Gb to 657 Gb, a reduction of 39 Gb. Total World 2PCX resources decreased by about 88 Gb, with about 30 Gb of this decrease from crude oil production in 2023, so an overall decrease in the estimate for 2PCX resources of 58 Gb from the 2023 estimate. They do not specifically mention Saudi 2P resources in the text, that is an assumption made by you.

          Unlike you I am encouraged when a new report corrects past errors. No estimate is ever exactly right, we use the best information we can find and report accordingly.

          For me the following is about as low a URR as seems reasonable, about 2750 Gb, with about 2650 Gb produced from 1870 to 2100 and another 100 Gb produced from 2100 to 2300.

          1. Dennis, no express mention is necessary. In the 2P reservation table, it goes from 62 Gb to 177 Gb, for Saudi Arabia (look at the tables I provide in my article). And I insist, Rystad mentions a strong increase in 1P reserves, giving as the only explanation the increase in infill drilling in Arabia. It appears in the text of Rystad’s article.

            https://www.rystadenergy.com/news/global-recoverable-oil-barrels-demand-electrification

            “Rystad Energy also reports proven oil reserves at 449 billion barrels, according to recognized standards. This provides a lower limit for remaining oil reserves if no new development projects were to be approved and all exploration activities were stopped. This is a significant upward revision since 2023 driven by increased onshore infill drilling in Saudi Arabia.”

            1. Even more important.

              Horizontal and vertical infill drilling has been used for more than 30 years to reduce the decline of fields, at the cost of depleting reserves more quickly.

              Notice the paragraph with Matt Simmons’ comment.

              “Yibal’s life cycle is important because many of the same EOR techniques used on the field have also been employed on the world’s largest oil field, Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar. In a February 2004 symposium at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, energy investment banker Matt Simmons confronted two Saudi Aramco officials with the suggestion that the advanced recovery techniques used at Ghawar, which produces approximately 4.5 million bbl/d, have created an illusionary “fountain of youth” for the field. Simmons’ theory, which is based on the review of over 200 technical papers, suggests that the combination of horizontal drilling and water flooding has allowed Aramco to keep Ghawar production flat at the expense of future production. More importantly, Simmons believes that Ghawar’s rising water cuts indicate that the field is about to head into terminal and irreversible decline.”

              This secondary recovery procedure has changed the right-hand side of the future oil production graph, effectively turning it into a Seneca cliff, when depletion of the old supergiant fields cannot be avoided. And none of this appears in their graphs based on a speculative URR, since no one knows the definitive URR.

            2. Quark,

              For the World the steep decline in some fields is matched by increasing or flat production in other fields, the assumption of steep decline might be matched if oil prices are low due to a lack of demand, but if oil prices remain at $75/bo or higher, I doubt we see the Seneca cliff that many peak oil analysts have envisioned. Proven reserves will increase as more new wells are drilled so that statement that Saudi proved reserves had increased due to more new wells being drilled seems quite logical. Ghawar has already seen output fall from 5 Mb/d to roughly 3 Mb/d, eventually output in Saudi Arabia will start to fall (there are other large fields though none as large as Ghawar). I agree we do not know the URR, it may be higher or lower than the Rystad resource estimate, much depends on future oil prices which are also unknown.

              Note your assumptions about future output are also speculative, all discussions of the future involve speculation.

            4. Quark

              Great analysis, you may note that this also agrees with Laherrere’s latest work, where he believes remaining reserves to be ~80 Gb (not 106 as Rystad reports). But it wasn’t just Saudi Arabia that had reserves adjusted upward by 70 Gb, other OPEC had a similar increase of ~60 Gb. Russia also had an increase from 43 to 58 Gb.
              This looks like some sketchy accounting from the OPEC+ cartel…
              Dennis will happily take data that supports his narrative while at the same time rejecting recent work by Laherrere which does not support it…

              Dennis, it would be great if you could include a scenario that represents a low URR, I think it would only add credibility to your work. Anything between 1.8 and 2.2 Tb would likely do the trick.

            5. Kengeo,

              For KSA Laherrere has 91 Gb of remaining resources not 80 Gb, but his 2018 estimate with about 180 Gb of remaining resources for Saudi Arabia is more realistic.

              I could do a 1500 Gb scenario, but that would be a waste of time, feel free to produce whatever scenario you wish. Laherrere’s most recent work is not very good, his 2022 paper was far better imo and his work in 2018 was also pretty good.

              Scenarios under 2.2 Gb URR for C plus C are just not realistic.

              2P reserves are likely at least 700 Gb and 2PC at least 1100 Gb, so anything under 2600 Gb is just unrealistic. I am not that optimistic.

              Also note that the most recent work by Laherrere (which looks way off to me) has adjusted middle east remaining resources by about 180 Gb from about 820 to 640 Gb compared to his 2018 study. That study had World URR at about 2850 Gb, so if we take the most recent work as valid (I do not) then World URR would be reduced to 2670 Gb. Any estimate even lower than this is just not plausible and 2 Tb is absurd. I will leave it to others to produce such unbelievably low URR estimates.

              Also note that Laherrere was also probably too low in 2018 and the Rystad estimates for the Middle East Producers for 1P reserves is in line with Laherrere’s estimate for the Big 5 OPEC Middle East producers, this suggests the recent Middle East estimate by Laherrere is far from the mark.

            6. Dennis, you don’t consider that it’s possible for URR to fall greatly because of complexity unwinding, making plenty of what’s now considered economically viable, totally unviable.

              Any fall in in our population size or energy usage will guarantee an unwinding of complexity, meaning the tools we use, like horizontal rigs with tens of thousands of specialist parts becoming statues fairly quickly without long supply chains of all these parts.
              If we continue to grow our system of civilization, we destroy the remaining environment from just the extraction and use of energy and materials, but without doing so means our civilization collapses from the unwinding of complexity as we need growing energy use to stand still, because of lower grades of everything we mine, of which 97-99% goes to just maintaining and operating the existing system..

              A URR of 2 – 2.2 Gb is a very realistic scenario, or perhaps even less for reasons you can’t contemplate and it means the shape of your curves in the future are much sharper to the downside than ever drawn..

  7. OPEC Other 6 which deducts Big4, Iran, and Venezuela from OPEC 12 output. Most of the Other 8 annual increase (448 kb/d) over the past 37 months has been from Iran and Venezuela. It is doubtful the increases at this rate (about 400 kb/d per year) for Iran and Venezuela will continue in the future.

    1. According to my calculations (which could very well be wrong) It takes ~ 16.7 billion barrels of oil to add 1 ppm to atmospheric CO2.

      If we conservatively assume another 2200Gb URR left to burn. We can easily add ~ 130ppm just from the oil resource alone. If we add coal, natgas and volcanism to the mix, we would easily be over 1000ppm.

      Obviously this is too simplistic. The real situation is much more complex. With sink and positive feedback etc.

      1. Coal has 2:1 impacts vs oil, likely 24 Gb of oil to increase 1 ppm…

        Getting much hotter nonetheless:

        “Australia prepares for sweltering summer after hottest spring on record

        It was the hottest spring on record for the entire nation, which recorded oppressive heatwaves and bouts of flash floods – a sign of what’s to come.
        Alexandra Feiam
        2 min read
        December 3, 2024 – 10:07AM
        NewsWire
        26 Comments
        |

        02:24
        Analysis: Australia’s upcoming weather forecast
        Sky News Weather Meteorologist Rob Sharpe has examined the upcoming forecast across Australia.
        View more related videos
        Australians are in for a hot and humid summer, as ongoing thunderstorms and wet weather are tipped to bring muggy conditions after the country recorded its hottest spring on record.

        On Monday, temperatures exceed 30C across most of Australia, with severe thunderstorms and wet conditions passing through the southern areas of the Northern Territory and northern South Australia.”

      2. I. Mike, I don’t know the numbers but it sure looks like there is enough combustibles left to burn to make the world far too hot. Enough to break things really bad. We have chosen this highway and there is no off ramp.
        Homo pyromancer in action.

    2. Hickory

      Just wondering. If this is such a great play, why is XOM selling its assets there. Are they just fed up with the constant drilling or is there something in the geology.

      1. I have no idea. Maybe its as simple as “Exxon is exiting the Vaca Muerta to focus efforts elsewhere, including Guyana”
        “With Argentina accounting for only 2% of ExxonMobil’s global business the operator decided in 2023 to exit the country”

        Also, “ExxonMobil sold some of its Bakken oil leases in North Dakota as part of a strategy to focus on higher growth potential assets and streamline its portfolio”

      2. I did an analysis, and XOM’s assets being sold is not the best oil play blocks in VM.
        https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/low-gor-black-shale-oil-news-from-vaca-muerta-rio-negro-sheng-wu-5fhpc/
        see the 1st figure of the operators’ blocks.
        Majority operators started the blocks in the so-called mature belt, but these belt has GOR close to US marine, and has higher decline than the lower maturity belt further east.
        Now, the best oil blocks are all in the lower maturity/GOR, i.e.east of the previously predicted US Eagle Ford maturity/GOR belt.

  9. OPEC+ May Be Facing Long-Term Production Cuts

    The idea of the production cuts was the same as the idea of all OPEC cuts before them: curb supply, let demand take care of any perceived or real surplus, watch prices go up, and then release the withheld supply.
    It has always worked before. It should have worked again. But it didn’t.

    It isn’t working this time because of two things: algorithmic trading and unrealistic expectations about Chinese demand growth. The latter factor determined an overwhelmingly bearish sentiment among oil traders, and the former amplified it out of any reasonable proportions. Some analysts are warning that oil is underpriced and the market is in for a correction, but they are lonely voices in a sea of demand pessimism.

    One of these factors is the fundamentals situation in oil. Demand for oil keeps surprising to the positive while non-OPEC supply growth—except in Guyana—is not really living up to the hype, with growth in the U.S. shale patch set to slow down, despite Trump’s presidency. Yet no one trading oil seems to care much about fundamentals because they are watching China and its oil demand fluctuations.

  10. OPEC Considering Three Month Delay

    (Bloomberg) — OPEC is making progress toward an agreement to delay its oil-production revival by another three months, delegates said.

    The group has been holding discussions for the past week on postponing a sequence of supply increases, which is due to commence with an initial hike of 180,000 barrels a day in January. An impending glut is weighing on crude prices.

    A delay of three months is the main proposal in these talks and it hasn’t drawn any opposition so far, said the delegates, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. The alliance is due to finalize its plans at an online meeting on Thursday.

    https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/investing/2024/12/03/opec-is-firming-up-deal-for-three-month-delay-to-output-hike/

    1. 1. I used to enjoy him a lot more, but I’ve had occasion to find him massively ignorant in an area I know something about (post-Hapsburg Mitteleuropa). So, now I look out for Gell-Mann amnesia when I hear him talk about anything I don’t know about. (Not oil and gas, we all have topical awareness of this area.)

      2. Most of what he is talking about is stuff that has been said many many times before. Maybe even by him. But certainly in popular articles and videos. So, why we need to hear this again and at a newbie level?

      3. Most of what he said was fine. But see point (2).

      4. I don’t know what the heck he is talking about wrt “often tens of thousands of barrels of oil per day, per well”. [A little after minute 10:00]. I mean do we know of a SINGLE shale well that had even 20,000 bopd as an IP? It sure as heck is not common. Now if he had said thousands instead of tens of thousands, then fine. Although that’s still for IPs, and probably still a large fraction, versus a majority. But OK. But “tens of thousands”!?

      5. Yes, the US has some great infrastructure. But I wouldn’t say this is a key issue, in Europe, especially when starting operations. There are a fair amount of pipes running around and pipes can be repurposed from products to crude, or the like. Certainly for his example in the Netherlands, there are extensive natural gas takeaway pipes, now with vacancy coming available. This is not like the Gobi Desert or Sudan or something like that.

      6. He also forgot to mention service industry and skilled trades. It’s not just small/medium producers. But the whole ecosystem of service providers. And again, there really is some of that. Just not as much as what you’d like. And you can use SLB and Haliburton.

      7. Also, many of the big national oil players have some experience playing with shale, through acquisitions. Statoil, Eni, etc. It’s not just about “being a technology leader” but experience with the business itself (supply chain aspects, project timelines, organization of management, etc.) that is different from offshore.

      8. It’s a more subtle point, but there’s also some advantage in being a follower. Sure, you don’t have all the knowledge that the US industry has. But you also don’t need to spend the 30 years from George Mitchell to now (40 if you define the start as the 80s Bakken horizontals). You can move up the learning curve faster, when you are a follower.

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