最新BP能源年鑒解讀：這是一個油氣富足的時代

“This is truly an age of plenty,” BP Chief Economist Spencer Dale said Wednesday during the presentation of BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy. In a nutshell, that was the story of supply in 2015. In this post, we will cover 3 major takeaways of the report. You can access the complete report via the hyperlink at the end of this post.

Investment Declines, Reserves Remain

Investment fell last year by $160 billion (~25%) from a year earlier, and could fall a further $50 billion in 2016, Dale said. This sharp decline was last seen in the late-1970s.

But despite this lower spending, a decline in non-OPEC production, and low oil prices, global oil reserves were unchanged in 2015. This is notable, as proven O&G reserves ordinarily roughly correspond to oil prices based on the economic viability of production.

Reserves declined by only 0.1% last year to 1,698 billion barrels, while Brent dropped by almost 50% to $52/bbl during the same period.

Oil production in 2015 increased by 3.2% to 91.67 M/bpd on an increase in U.S. tight oil production (which only began declining in 2H) and key OPEC countries boosting production to near record levels- Saudi Arabia and Iraq in particular.

In 2015, “OPEC increased supply substantially by 1.6 million barrels to a new record high. Rather than a general increase in OPEC supply it’s perhaps more accurate to describe this as an increase in production of two OPEC members Iraq and Saudi Arabia which together accounted to the majority of this increase,” Dale said.

BP estimated that U.S. oil reserves were unchanged in 2015 at 55 billion barrels but were almost double 2005 levels.

Demand Side: Gradual Deceleration In Global Consumption

BP CEO Bob Dudley said Wednesday, “On the energy demand side what we are seeing is a gradual deceleration in the growth of global energy consumption. Just to be clear consumption is still going up year-on-year and we expect that to continue for some decades.

“But growth is not going to be at the same extra ordinary pace generated by globalization over the past few decades and by industrialization in China in particular,” he added. Overall in 2015, energy consumption rose by 1.1%, a similar rate to 2014, though much slower than the 1.9% 10-year average, BP said.

The slight growth was mainly attributable to China’s slowing demand growth, which was 1.5% versus to an average of 5% over the past decade. Dale observed that this shift was the consequence of the first decline in decades in production from energy-intensive industries such as steel, iran and cement.

“On the demand side, it seems clear that the strong growth in energy consumption associated with the rapid industrialization of China and its integration into the global economy is veining,” Dale said.

China remains the world’s top energy consumer, but “The days of double-digit Chinese growth, led by energy-hungry industrial production, are behind us,” he added. India surpassed Russia as the world’s third largest energy market, and Japan as the third largest oil consumer, as oil demand there increased by 8.1%, according to the report.

U.S. Shale Revolution

Dale described the U.S. shale revolution as the “poster child” of the rapid technological and productivity gains in the oil and gas sector in recent years. BP estimates that the shale revolution has increased technically-recoverable oil and gas resources by upwards of 15%. 2015 data indicate that productivity gains in the U.S. Lower 48 “continued apace.” The U.S. oil production decline began in 2015, after reaching a peak in April 2015.