Comments

As we can see, in recent years, the decline in oil production at a giant field could be offset by rising extraction at another large field. Currently, the number of large discoveries is decreasing, and production volumes at mid-sized and small fields are insufficient to replace dwindling extraction at aging giant fields. We believe that OPEC countries have not yet achieved peak production, but some alarming trends are visible at present. In particular, at least three OPEC members (Nigeria, Venezuela along with the world oil production leader, Saudi Arabia) experienced declines in 2007, according to BP Statistical Review. Incremental oil production in Russia in 2007 helped to prop up falling world oil output because other industry leaders, such as Angola and Azerbaijan, do not contribute much to global production.