"Accelerate the use of oil"--The Current Trend of the future development of Global Energy(Prat3)
- KEPLER TEAM
- Jul 26, 2021
- 3 min read
Accelerate the use of oil
Turn to the non-combustion field
The current round of low oil prices directly caused a sharp drop in upstream investment, triggering concerns about future oil supply shortages. Fatih Birol, Director of the International Energy Agency, said that between 2014 and 2016, global energy investment continued to decline, with an annual decline rate of approximately 25%. Although investment has rebounded since 2016, it has not yet reached the level of the era of high oil prices. OPEC Secretary-General Barkindo believes that the current investment situation in the upstream sector is still not optimistic, and the global energy industry should be vigilant against this yet-to-be-emerged risk. The decline in investment in some land and sea projects with long return periods has been particularly pronounced, which is contrary to the global economic development goals.
However, the prospects of various companies indicate that to ensure global oil supply, investment follow-up has no time to delay. ETRI believes that in the next 35 years, global oil production will face more severe challenges. The current global oil production will drop from 3.6 billion tons to less than 1.2 billion tons in 2050, an average annual decline of 3.2%, which is equivalent to a global decrease of two per year. Daqing Oilfield. It is emphasized that to maintain the balance of supply and demand, it is necessary to continue to invest in the discovery of new oil fields.
BP also believes that the future global oil growth will mainly rely on low-cost OPEC countries, the United States and Russia, and most non-OPEC countries will decline. But even so, oil production still requires a very substantial investment. If new investment stagnates now, existing production will fall by 3% per year, and by 2040 the supply will only be 45 million barrels per day, which is less than half of the current oil demand. BP predicts that by 2050, the world will need to consume 250 million barrels of oil equivalent of oil and gas, and technically recoverable has reached 480 million barrels of oil equivalent, but most of them are enhanced oil recovery, offshore floating platform development, high-precision imaging and other technologies. , Need investment to follow up in time.
In terms of oil demand, when forecasting the total world oil demand in 2030, with the exception of BP, the forecasts of OPEC, the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the International Energy Agency have shown an overall downward trend over time. ETRI also believes that world oil demand will basically stagnate after 2035, and the growth will basically come from non-OECD countries.
In this process, the non-combustion use of petroleum has become the main source of demand growth, including as a raw material for chemical products, making lubricants, asphalt, etc. The IEA predicts that the petrochemical industry will account for more than one-third of new oil demand by 2030, and this figure will reach nearly 50% by 2050, surpassing trucks, aviation and shipping. At the same time, under the combined effects of improved fuel economy, popularization of public transportation, alternative fuels and electrification, the current main source of oil demand, especially passenger cars, will become less important.
In its outlook, Det Norske Veritas is optimistic about the new crude oil direct chemical production process, and pointed out that this process will replace traditional refining technology. Recently, Saudi Aramco announced a large-scale crude oil-to-chemicals project, which is expected to process 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day, which is five times the scale of the world’s only Singapore ExxonMobil crude-to-chemicals project. This new process has the advantages of reducing raw material costs, energy consumption and carbon emissions. After the two projects are put into production, the cost of making ethylene will be US$160 and US$200 per ton lower than similar products in Asia. This will greatly promote the transfer of crude oil utilization to the chemical industry.
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