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Paris: The International Energy Agency, the energy adviser to 27 nations, is studying 400 of the world's largest oilfields to understand at what rate their output is naturally depleting.
"We are trying to get a better understanding of depletion rates and expectations of productivity," Bill Ramsey, the agency's deputy executive director, said yesterday. "There is growing awareness that raising world output is a problem," and it is "too early" to give any estimates, he said.
The study is part of the Paris-based agency's annual World Energy Outlook, to be published on November 12, in which it has said it will look closely at the prospects of oil and gas supply. The report could come against a backdrop of record crude prices caused in part by concern that future supply can't meet demand.
"We hope to arrive at an indication of depleting rates," Ramsey said. "We hope to force the hand on some of this data."
Trends
The IEA report will give "detailed field-by-field analysis of historical production trends and pros-pects of hundreds of the world's largest fields," according to its website.
The IEA, founded in 1974, said in its previous World Energy Outlook, on November 7, that Chinese and Indian crude imports would almost quadruple by 2030 to 19.1 million barrels a day, helping to create a supply "crunch" as soon as 2015.
The organisation estimated then that global consumption would rise to 98.5 million barrels a day by 2015, from 84.6 million a day in 2006. By 2030, worldwide crude demand would be 116.3 million barrels a day, according to the November report.
Ramsey declined to comment on whether these demands can be met. ""The exercise is to explore the basis for assumptions'' on oil prices and supply, he said. The forthcoming report may include new estimates for long-term demand to 2030 though it won't say whether "reaching the level of demand is feasible," Ramsey said.
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