Oil, Gas and Gas condensate are among the most important energy sources in the world. One thing everyone should know is that there is a need of around 90 million barrels of crude oil a day. The importance of Crude oil to the way we live means its trade and ownership repeatedly become matters of universal politics, and few cents of escalation on the barrel can have impacts around the world, but however none is aware of the history of this industry.
An interactive guide that reveals which countries control the world’s most influential resource was created by GSM London, a Higher Education institution with campuses in Greenford and Greenwich. Shattered down by the year, the tool has used UN data to depict the top importers and exporters of crude oil and comments on the changing scenery in oil trade.
Comments of James Milne, Module Leader (Energy and Procurement Department) at GSM London, on the key developments of the oil industry in 2016:
Looking to new sources for oil production: Exceptional (at least in recent years) lesser prices of crude oil have caused the oil industry to review its study and manufacturing activities. Consequent of the dominance of National Oil Companies in the traditional producing regions of Middle East, Venezuela and the Far East, the industry was required to discover fossil fuels in increasingly tough geographical and climatic regions, and are probing for oil availability in the Arctic, and in deep-water locations. These unusual source requires front-line technology, and that will be costing money – much more expensive than lifting oil from Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.
The decline of the crude oil powerhouses: The low price of crude oil is aching the oil producing nations. When crude oil was merchandised in the $80 to $100 range, many countries in the Middle East instigated huge infrastructure and social welfare expenditure packages. But when crude slashed bottomed-out earlier this year at $30-ish per barrel levels, these spending levels of commitments intended such countries were rapidly eating into, and corroding, their reserves of foreign currency or sovereign wealth funds.
Saudi Arabia to cover its record budget deficit is believed to be burning through its exchange reserves at a rate of $10 billion a month. In the long-run, the abnormality between low oil price incomes and high domestic spending is basically not maintainable.
The impact of overproduction: In a universe already overflowing with oil, mainly due to feebler demand from China and India, there are apprehensions over and how far this scenario will be of help for global oil prices. Owing to the important and sustained overproduction of oil in contradiction of consumption levels, the time is not far off, when the universe will face the scarcity of storage of crude locations for all the unsold crude.
Import vs export: It could be inferred from the oil map, the USA is the single biggest importer of oil for 20 years successively. Over the two eras, USA has disbursed nearly twice on oil on average occupying as 2nd place in the World. Its expenditure has fallen sharply ever since 2011. Even though India was not occupying the top ten until 1999, it has risen rapidly up to become the third biggest importer in the world. India, roughly has one-sixth of the world’s population, and the oil needs of India keep rising as the country endures to progress.
Diversification in the oil industry: It is certain that oil industry will continue to adapt and change. The companies may change; the evolutionary path of our industry is plagued with oil companies that no longer exist, or who have been acquired by, merged or folded into other conglomerations to gain critical mass, through an elimination of costs, as the industry has overcome previous and severe economic challenges. BP will, one day, truly stand for “Beyond Petroleum”, and as ExxonMobil already brands its UK service stations with “Esso Fuel System Energy”, the prospect of seeing ExxonMobil Hydrogen as a retail brand is intriguing.
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Source: GSM London
