Saw this on the Oil Drum this afternoon
The original article appeared in the LA Times today.
Production at Cantarell, the world’s second-largest oil complex, in the shallow gulf waters off the shore of Mexico’s southern Campeche state, averaged just over 1.8 million barrels a day in May, according to the most recent government figures. That’s a 7% drop from the first of the year and the lowest monthly output since July 2005, when Hurricane Emily forced the evacuation of thousands of oil workers from the region
As stated above, Cantarell is the 2nd largest oil “complex” in the world. (a “complex” simply being a large group of similar fields, bundled under one name).
Cantarell is 2nd only to the Ghawar oil field, in Saudi Arabia.
Here is a list of the worlds oil fields
The Mexican state oil company, Pemex, has predicted in the past that production from Cantarell would start to decline this year… but they indicated 6%, rather than 7%… a significant difference when we’re talking about the 2nd largest oil field in the world.
Remember… the amount of oil in the ground is not nearly as important, for us, as how fast we can pump it. So even though there are “trillions” of barrels of oil left in the tar sands in Canada or somewhere else… if we can’t pump it into the world oil “system” as fast as we are now (about 93 million barrels per day) then that leads to higher prices, less energy for the economy, recession… and on and on.
People want to drive on their vacations. They want to drive to work. They want to fly to Paris and Hawaii. They want to buy “stuff”, that is made from plastic or plastic products. They want to buy “stuff” that is shipped from China or Chile or Australia or Florida or California….
This all demands oil.
Our economic system is only “good” if it is “growing”…
This demands “more” oil.
If oil production cannot keep up with that demand…. then oil prices go up… and economys go “down”.
Why are we spending billions, trillions, on fighting wars, when we should be unhitching our economy from this oil machine?
If what our economies need to continue to grow is “energy”… and more and more of it… then clearly we need to find other sources than oil.