The US saw its biggest ever yearly rise in oil production last year as its booming shale oil industry continues to transform the global oil market, BP said Wednesday.
At the same time, global proven oil reserves continue to grow and are set to benefit from the surge of investment on light, tight oil developments in the coming years, BP said in its annual statistical review published Wednesday.
US oil production, which includes crude, shale oil, oil sands and natural gas liquids, rose by more than 1 million b/d, the fastest pace since BP started keeping records in 1965.
As a result, US net imports dropped further, by some 930,000 b/d and stand 36% below their 2005 peak.
US oil output rose by 13.9% to 8.905 million b/d in 2012 from 7.868 million b/d in 2011. This represented 9.6% of the world's total. The growth of both oil and gas output in the US also was the fastest in the world last year, BP said.
"The biggest phenomenon last year, by far, was the impact of the growing shale revolution in the US," BP's CEO Dudley said."The data shows there is ample energy available. Our challenge as an industry is to make the best choices about where to invest."
US oil production has now seen growth of over 2 million b/d in the last five years, BP said.
Dudley said the soaring US output was also a key factor in keeping oil prices from rising sharply last year, despite a second consecutive year of oil supply disruptions.
OIL RESERVES
BP's widely respected review shows that global oil reserves grew by 1.2% in 2012 to end the year at 1.67 trillion barrels, sufficient to support current global production levels for another 53 years.
Most of the shale oil revolution has yet to feed through to BP's proven reserves figures, however, as they need to progress from being classified as being technically recoverable to economical recoverable, BP chief economist Christof Ruhl said.
"It takes some time for resources to be accessed, evaluated and then booked as proven reserves, and this is why we don't see much of the shale gas and tight oil resources showing up in proven reserves numbers," Ruhl said.
The US' proven reserves oil reserves rose to 35 billion barrels from 31 billion barrels published in last year's report, BP said.
Last year, BP included commercially recoverable oil sands in Canada and heavy bitumen deposits in Venezuela in its estimates for the first time, a move which saw Venezuela overtake Saudi Arabia as the holder of the world's biggest share of proven oil reserves.
Venezuela still holds 296.5 billion barrels of reserves, or 18% of the world's total proven reserves, compared with Saudi Arabia, which saw its reserves rise marginally to 265.9 billion barrels, about 16% of the world remaining oil, according to the report.
BP's figures also show the largest increase in proven reserves during 2012 came from Iran and Iraq, where reserves rose by 2.4 billion barrels to 157 billion barrels and by 6.9 billion barrels to 150 billion barrels, respectively.
GAS REVISION
BP revised also revised down its estimates for proved reserves of natural gas in the former Soviet Union to bring its estimates in line with Western reporting standards, Ruhl said.
BP estimated that total global gas reserves stood at 187.3 trillion cubic meters at the end of 2012, compared with a figure of 208.4 Tcm for the end of 2011, as given last year.
But Russia's proven gas reserves were revised down to 32.9 Tcm at the end of 2012, compared with a 44.6 Tcm figure for the end of 2011 given by BP in last year's report.
Turkmenistan was revised down to 17.5 Tcm from 24.3 Tcm, and Kazakhstan was revised to 1.3 Tcm from 1.9 Tcm.
"What we did all across the region is to apply an adjustment," Ruhl said, explaining the changes. "The traditional reporting for countries that used to be members of the Soviet Union had very different criteria from the proven reserves that we use elsewhere."
Even with the revisions to its historical gas reserves data, BP's latest report estimates shows global gas reserves slipping from 187.8 Tcm last year.
BP's annual review has seen proven oil reserves grow every year bar one since the publication began tracking reserves in 1980, while gas reserves had been growing every year.
OUTPUT GROWTH
Despite the US shale oil success and growing reserves, BP said oil had the weakest global growth rate among fossil fuels for the third consecutive year, with OECD consumption falling by 1.3% or 530,000 b/d, the sixth decrease in the past seven years.
Global oil production increased by 1.9 million b/d, or 2.2%, to 86.15 million b/d, BP said, outpacing world oil consumption which grew by 890,000 b/d, or 0.9%.
"2012 was yet another year of adaptation to a changing energy landscape," Ruhl said. "As the non-OECD economies industrialize, they unlock ever more resources. The data tell us that the industrializing part of the world not only outpaces the OECD in terms of proved reserves growth, it also contributes its fair share to energy production," he said.
BP said OPEC accounted for about three-quarters of the global increase despite a decline in Iranian output of an estimated 680,000 b/d due to international sanctions.
BP also said that for a second consecutive year, output reached record levels in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. Iraq and Kuwait also registered significant increases, it said.
Non-OPEC output grew by 490,000 b/d, with increases in the US, Canada, Russia and China offsetting unexpected outages in Sudan/South Sudan and Syria, as well as declines in mature provinces such as the UK and Norway.
BP said oil had the weakest global growth rate among fossil fuels for the third consecutive year, with OECD consumption falling by 1.3% or 530,000 b/d, the sixth decrease in the past seven years.
"The OECD now accounts for just 50.2% of global consumption, the smallest share on record," BP said.
Outside the OECD, consumption grew by 1.4 million b/d, or 3.3%.
China again recorded the largest increment to global consumption growth -- at 470,000 b/d or 5% -- although the growth rate was below the 10-year average.
Japanese consumption grew by 250,000 b/d or 6.3%, the strongest growth increment since 1994.
