WorldOil

International: Worldwide drilling and oil production

Outside the US, we forecast a decrease of 5% in drilling this year, to just under 53,000 wells. The drop is entirely due to the continued fall in Canadian drilling. If the dramatic Canadian falloff is excluded, then drilling outside the US should go up 5.6%, led by Russia, the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions. World crude and condensate production will be off by at least a half percent, with the US holding flat. This situation could easily get worse; it will be a proverbial race between decline and new production, as always. Everyone has known for a few years that Mexico and the North Sea-both 3 million-bopd regions-would begin to decline. But now the optimism is waning that such decline will be gentle, with the data increasingly pointing to “steep” in both regions. Africa, offshore Brazil, Russia and the Middle East are the only places that have a chance of compensating for the deepening decline.