Cantarell Oil Output Declines 18% YOY In 2007; Total Mexican Crude Output Down 5.3% For Same Period

[hatrack]

Oil production from Mexico’s giant Cantarell offshore complex continued its steep decline in 2007, dropping to a combined average 1.458 million barrels per day (mbpd) of production from all the fields, down 18% from an average 1,776.2 mbpd in 2006, according to statistics from the Energy Ministry available on the Sistema de Información Energética (SIE).

Cantarell accounted for 47.3% of all of PEMEX’s crude oil output in 2007, down from 54.6% in 2006. Mexico’s total crude output dropped 5.3% in 2007 compared to the year before, down to 3.082 million barrels per day from 3.256 mpbd in 2006 according to the SIE statistics.

Production from the Akal-Nohoch field in Cantarell, which accounted for 98% of the output from Cantarell in 2007 and for 46% of Mexico’s total crude oil output in the year, dropped to an average 1.261 mbpd in December 2007, down 16% from December 2006.

The rate of decline remans more rapid than PEMEX had anticipated. In testimony before the Energy Committee of the Mexican Senate in November 2006, PEMEX CEO Luis Ramirez Corzo said that production at Cantarell would decline by an average of 14% per year between 2007 and 2015. (Earlier post.) Cantarell’s production peaked in 2004 at 2.113 million barrels per day, according to SEI data. In 1997, PEMEX began nitrogen injection to maintain reservoir pressure. The injection regimen supported increasing crude oil production from 1.083 million barrels per day in 1996 to the peak in 2004.

EDIT

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/01/mexicos-cantare.html#more

[Extend a Hand]

1. Mexico is USA's third largest supplier of oil imports

Here's a kick and a rec but I doubt it will get any much needed attention during primary season.

No matter which Dem is elected declining imports are going to be an intractable, economic nightmare kind of problem.

[gasperc]

2. ooops

good thing peak oil is just a myth...or maybe not?

[Arger68]

3. So Cantarell will be down to

500-600 thousand bpd in 7 years. Looks to me like Mexico will go from exporter to importer in less than a decade.

[GliderGuider]

4. Get a load of this graph

The slope is steepening as time goes by, just like Bakhtiari's Transition Phase model predicted for the world. This is utterly classic. Peak to no production in 8 years? They'll be teaching this one in schools.

[cutlassmama]

5. Is this why the government wants to send the illegal immigrants back

to Mexico?...we no longer have to be nice to Mexico.

[GliderGuider]

6. No, I think that's just practice for what's about to happen

Here's a story I wrote last year about the crash of Cantarell and what it means for US-Mexican relations:

Mexico: Peak Oil in Action

The Scenario

* Mexico's biggest oil field is Cantarell. Its 2 million barrel per day output was responsible for 60% of Mexico's production, and all its oil exports to the United States.
* Those oil exports account for 40% of Mexico's public funding.
* Cantarell's output is known to be crashing (see graphic above). Production has declined by 25% in the last year and is predicted to be down about 60% from its peak by the end of 2007. The field will probably lose over 75% of its production capacity by the end of 2008.
* When this happens Mexico's economy will probably implode.
* The United States currently exports about 20% of its corn crop.
* Next year, 20% of the United States' corn crop is going to be used for ethanol.
* Mexico imports a substantial amount of corn from the United States.
* As Cantarell's output declines, oil exports to the US will drop in lockstep.
* As oil imports drop in the US, the pressure will mount to produce more ethanol as a substitute.
* As more corn is bought by the American ethanol industry, US corn exports, especially to Mexico, will slide.
* At the same time the probability is high that Global Warming will result in higher temperatures in Mexico, a country already at temperature risk.
* Rising temperatures will bring more drought conditions and a drop in Mexico's own corn production.
* Now you have a country with a decimated economy and declining food. This is a recipe for massive migration.
* The migration moves North as it has in the past, but this time in enormous numbers.
* As the economic refugees cross the border what do they find?
* In January, 2006, KBR (a subsidiary of Halliburton) was given a $385M contract to build a string of very large detention camps in the United States...

Peak oil, global warming, food, biofuels and authoritarianism — all rolled up into one neat but ugly little package. Coming to a border near you within 3 years.

I think my little scenario is still on schedule.

[4dsc]

7. I second that emotion

Boy do we live in interesting times.. Thanks for all your information!!

[GliderGuider]

8. According to SIE figures

(available here)

Cantarell production was about 1.26 mbpd in December 2007. Peak production in 2004 was 2.1 mbpd.

That's a decline of 40% from the peak. It's not the 60% I forecast in my article, but it's still pretty severe. At the current 20% rate of decline it will probably be down to just over 1 mbpd by the end of 2008 - a 50% decline from peak in 4 years. If this says anything about the potential for decline at Ghawar, the world is in for hard times over the next 5 years.

[freedomnorth]

9. Thank God Canadians still has that tar sand and everything!

:sarcasm: