Saturday, August 4, 2012

China Oil Imports

China has now broken the "6 handle" on Oil imports - over 6 million barrels per day in a single month (April, 2012) - for the first time.

Here is a graph of Chinese Oil import data for 1990 to 2010 (can't find 2011 year end data):


As of 2010 China had not cleared 5 million barrels per day, and in mid 2012 China's imports had risen over 20% to clear 6 million per day.

Keep in mind that gross world oil exports have declined by over 2 million barrels per day since 2005.

Since then China has increased imports by 3.4 million barrels per day, and India by an estimated 1 million. The picture for Europe, Japan, and the U.S. comes into focus - that is Europe, Japan, and the U.S. are competing with China and India for the world's oil exports - and they are losing ground in stunning relief.

Those nations that are efficiently using Oil for productive trade goods are apparently doing the beat down on the consumer nations (Japan is a sort of hybrid).

Back to China... even if world net exports have peaked I doubt China's imports have. That means more for them and less for everybody else to split up until some inflection point in the future. Not sure what that point is.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. What a paradigm shift that is.

Stephen B.

Anonymous said...

Greg, it appears that Europe will feel the REAL pain of peak oil first. I wonder if we (USA, Canada, etc) comes to the rescue by diverting some of our (USA)usage to them. At some point the world will see the pain in Europe. Do we help or not? If so that may put us in a real pickle jar as well. If not we get to watch true carnage. Do we have the stomach for it?

Robert

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

I don't think the U.S. will go from Oil Importer to Oil exporter to Europe any time soon, though I am sure we will be happy to export some very expensive food stuffs to Europe.

I am busy reading all I can on Tight Oil, the Bakkan formation, etc... there are a lot of claims about how promising it is, especially from Raymond James' research analyst Pavel Molchnaov (I don't know him, but back in my day Ray Jay's research was second to none, then they lost their way in the tech blow up).

Today tight oil is yielding 500k+ bpd. The EIA says 1.25mm peak in 2035 or so, but some other reputable research analysts peg it much higher - 2 to 2.5mm bpd.

While that will not replace the loss of most U.S. imports, the fact that the U.S. will might be able to produce 6 to 7.5 million bpd of REAL crude and condensate (not ethane) is a HUGE advantage. HUGE - Even if shale gas peters out in 5 or 10 years (something I do not have enough data on to have an informed opinion).

Europe has some shale gas opportunities but not so much for tight oil - and even with that Nat Gas, they are in just such an awful position.

westexas said...

The IUKE + VAM Case History
The following graph shows the ECI (ratio of total petroleum liquids production to liquids consumption, generally BP data) for the IUKE + VAM countries (Indonesia, UK, Egypt, Vietnam, Argentina, Malaysia).

Also shown are the remaining post-1995 CNE (Cumulative Net Exports) by year. The six countries' combined production virtually stopped growing in 1995, with production ranging between 6.9 and 7.0 mbpd for 1995 to 1999 inclusive (BP, total petroleum liquids). Note that production was 6.9 mbpd in 1995 and 7.0 mbpd in 1999, but by the end of 1999, 54% of post-1995 CNE had already been shipped. Note that the decline in the ECI ratio gave some indication of problems ahead. When the ECI ratio hits 1.0, a country is no longer a net oil exporter.

Incidentally, an extrapolation of the six year 1995 to 2001 decline in the ECI ratio suggested post-1995 CNE of about 9.2 Gb. Actual post-1995 CNE were 7.3 Gb, so an extrapolation of the initial six year rate of decline in the ECI ratio produced a more optimistic estimate than what the actual data subsequently showed.

http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i475/westexas/IUKEVAMCNE.jpg

Available Net Exports (ANE)
(ANE = GNE less Chindia's Net Imports)

The following graph shows the GNE/CNI ratio (ratio of Global Net Exports* to Chindia's Net Imports**) versus Estimated post-2005 Available CNE*** (Cumulative Net Exports). The GNE/CNI ratio is very much analogous to the ECI ratio.

An extrapolation of the six year 2005 to 2011 decline in the GNE/CNI ratio suggests post-2005 Available CNE of about 168 Gb. Note that the extrapolation of the initial six year rate of decline in the ECI ratio for the IUKE + VAM countries produced a more optimistic estimate than what the actual data subsequently showed.

There are about 157 net oil importing countries in the world. An extrapolation of the 2005 to 2011 data suggests that the total post-2005 supply of Cumulative Net Exports that will be available to importers other than China & India is about 49% depleted as of the end of 2011.

http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i475/westexas/AvailableCNE.jpg

*GNE = Net exports from top 33 net exporters in 2005, total petroleum liquids production less liquids consumption, BP + Minor EIA data

**Chindia's Net Imports = Total petroleum liquids production less liquids consumption, BP

***I projected the 2005 to 2011 rate of decline in the GNE/CNI ratio to estimate when the GNE/CNI ratio would theoretically equal 1.0, and I then estimated the area under the triangle, to get estimated post-2005 Available CNE of about 168 Gb.

westexas said...

The EIA puts current US (four week running average) net crude oil imports at 8.9 mbpd and net total liquids imports at 8.1 mbpd, versus combined net exports (total petroleum liquids, BP) from the major net oil exporters in the Americas of 5.1 mbpd.


Note that the combined net oil exports from the 2004 seven major net exporters in the Americas, inclusive of rising net exports from Canada, fell from 6.1 mbpd in 2004 to 5.1 mbpd in 2011 (BP, total petroleum liquids).

In round numbers, the US would need close to two North & South Americas just to meet our current reduced level of net oil imports.

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

Jeff:

If you have 10 year data on the net exports from the Americas I would like to chart and post it.

westexas said...

I sent you the data file, to the Libertarian Animal address.

Note that one of the major net exporters in the Americas in 2004, Argentina, became a net importer in 2011.

Brazil is not on the list because they are a net importer of petroleum liquids.

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

Brazil is a net importer?!

Wow. Didn't know that.

And thanks for the data. Back soon.

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

On a 4 week rolling average, the peak month was November of 2005 - 13,591,000 bpd of imports.

6 years later in November of 2011, we broke a 7 handle - 7,872,000 bpd of imports.

Of course, these are the outliers... but the decline in imports has been breathtaking mathematically. We must be using Oil much more efficiently that we had been in addition to our new found ethanol and tight oil.

A Quaker in a Strange Land said...

Here is the link for that data:

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WTTNTUS2&f=4

Anonymous said...

Thank God for China's one child per couple policy. Think how bad things would be right now with 2 billion Chinese people in the world

Lucas said...

Nice post! Very interesting!

Could you tell me the source of the datas please?