Saudi Arabia’s crude oil production will not increase beyond an average level of 8.7 mb/d (average last 20 years: 8.3 mb/d) until 2015. This is what OPEC Governor Majed al Moneef said when releasing a new research paper published on the web site of the Arab Energy Club and quoted by Platts. As Saudi’s domestic petroleum consumption (2010: 2.7 mb/d) is expected to grow by 5% each year this implies that Saudi oil exports will shrink by around 10% in the next 4-5 years. There is little consolation that Moneef promised that production would increase after 2015 to 10.8 mb/d in far away 2030, by 1.5% pa. A claimed capacity of 12.5 mb/d seems elusive, whether now or in 2 decades.
This is the 3rd major warning of Saudi officials on the limits to Saudi oil production. In 2006, Platts quoted a Saudi spokesman explaining that Saudi oil fields have a composite decline rate of 2% pa. In 2007, ex-Saudi Aramco chief Sadad-al-Husseini presented production profiles to an Oil&Money conference in London implying a production of 11 mb/d in the 2nd half of the current decade.