OPEC daily output rises to 30.61m

BEIJING (Xinhuanet) -- Crude oil production by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) rose for a sixth consecutive month in October as members tried to stem a rally that caused record prices, a Bloomberg survey showed.

Production by all 11 OPEC members rose 0.5 per cent from September to 30.61 million barrels a day, according to the survey of oil companies, producers and analysts. It was the most oil OPEC has pumped since November 1979, U.S. Energy Department figures show. Oil production by OPEC has been at or close to a 25-year high since June. "OPEC is producing a tremendous amount of oil," said Rick Mueller, an analyst with Energy Security Analysis Inc in Wakefield, Massachusetts. "I think they are close to their peak and won't be increasing production by much more in the months ahead."

Tehran Times

stuff that cannot be put through regular refineries if the refiner expects anything other than asphalt out the other end.

We have a few refineries that can use the stuff and the Chinese are building them, but I don't know who is going to buy it now.

I was surprised Iraq was getting as much out of the ground as it says.
But the picture is that they are straining to meet demand.

I have an acquaintance who has heard that the Iraqi numbers are high; i.e., Opec political numbers are honest in comparison. It'll be interesting to see if the Iraq numbers drift downward now that the election is over.

You've offered many excellent posts on oil and west Asian politics, bemildred, and I've enjoyed them. Perhaps you are up on Peak Oil theory. I'm not among the most pessimistic, but I think that they are on the right track and not the ridiculous U.S. Energy Department. I don't see oil going down much more unless there's a depression in the U.S. and in China--supplies are just too tight. So long as the majors are gearing investment return at $20-$25 a barrel things will continue to be tight. Of course, at some point it takes more energy to get the oil out and processes than the oil will give if burned or run through a fuel cell.

Ah, but it's late and I'm rambling.

But when you look at demand and supply and the cost of extraction
and so on, there is little question as to where things are going.
Picking specific dates is a mugs game, though. If I were to guess,
I agree with you, a bit later in this decade, and maybe starting
about now. I don't expect to see "cheap" oil again either. I don't
expect depressive economics in this decade, or at least not till
late in it. But time makes chumps of us all. I think we are going
to go revisit the 70s again right now, on steroids, and that will
take a few years, and we have a political crisis coming.

The rest of the World will make their own arrangements without us,
at least until we get our shit together politically. We are an
unreliable partner right now.

Very hard to tell with Venezuela, peaking I mean, they are investing
a lot, and clearly pushing existing capacity as hard as they can,
but it will take a while to see how the investment pays off.

Breaking the back of OPEC and putting control of oil effectively back in the hands of the Big 3.

China now imports this too, they compete for it to light up Walmart factories that were once farms.

And everything I've read shows that they're really straining for even that much of an increase.

As mentioned elsewhere on the threat, the Saudis are pumping more high-sulfur, and much of Venezuela's reserves consist of heavy oil.

Should be an interesting 3-5 years.