The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that the publicly traded oil and gas companies had on Monday recorded an increase in proved reserves for last year of an additional 2 billion barrels, despite rising costs of exploration and development in North and Latin America.
OilPrice reports EIA analysis as saying that there was a record increase of 1% in proved reserves for 175 publicly traded companies in 2023.
It further reported EIA as saying that its analysis was based on filings from the publicly traded companies in question, which it estimated to represent approximately 50% of all non-OPEC oil output last year. The data does not include privately held producers it said.
The boost in proved reserves according to the news agency resulted from advances in recovery, project expansions and new discoveries, along with some upward revisions of earlier production capacity data.
Adding it said that the EIA also noted that costs were rising for exploration and development, estimating that it was approximately 20% more expensive for U.S. companies to increase reserves, and 10% more expensive for Canadian companies.
OilPrice also reported the EIA as releasing its short-term energy outlook, with forecast of a 1.1-million bpd rise in global consumption of liquid fuels this year, and a 1.6-million bpd rise in 2025. In total, the EIA forecasts that consumption of petroleum and other liquid fuels will hit 102.94 million bpd this year, and 104.55 million bpd in 2025. This compares to 2023 total consumption of 101.80 million bpd. Of that forecasted 2024 total, the U.S. is set to account for 20.45 million bpd, followed by China, with 16.34 million bpd.
OPEC also released its revised global oil demand growth forecast for 2024, adjusting it to 1.78 million barrels per day, down from 1.85 million bpd projected previously. OPEC now expects global oil demand growth for this year to average 104.32 million bpd. For 2025, OPEC has also lowered its projections to 2.11 million bpd, down from 2.25 million bpd in its previous report