World Oil Outlook - Opec

The long-term Reference Case projections for non-OPEC crude oil plus
NGLs supply up to 2035 are shown in Table 3.5. Output from all OECD regions
continues to fall. By 2035, the decline in OECD supply from these sources is more
than 3 mb/d compared to 2010. The fall, however, is considerably less than in the
previous outlook, due to the reassessment of the importance of shale oil and the new,
more optimistic USGS assessment of the resource base.
Overall non-OPEC supply of crude plus NGLs rises over this decade, before
entering a phase of decline post-2020. Even in North America, where shale oil is
Box 3.1
Shale: on the rise, but challenges remain
Given recent significant increases in North American shale oil and shale gas production,
it is now clear that these resources might play an increasingly important role in
non-OPEC medium- and long-term supply prospects.
It begs the questions: what is the potential contribution of shale oil and shale gas
resources to the future global energy supply? Will the high development costs, and
environmental impacts and challenges, affect this potential? And will it be possible
to replicate the US success story globally?
Currently, shale production is primarily coming from North America (mainly
the US), with production and market data mainly available from the following
shale plays: Bakken, Barnett, Cardium, Eagle Ford, Fayetteville, Granite Wash,
Haynesville-Bossier, Horn River, Marcellus, Montney, Niobrara, Permian, Utica
and Woodford. Globally, shale oil and gas development is in its infancy, and there
are thus considerable uncertainties about the size of the resources, the economics
of development and the potential contribution to future supply. In regard to the
overall shale oil resource base, although no serious attempts have been made yet to
analyze its size, it seems that even if the in-place volumes are large, reserves will not
be as high, due to very low recovery factors, presently in the range of 1% to 10%,
with few exceptions.
According to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) 2012 Energy Outlook,
the unproved technically recoverable tight oil resources in the US as of
1 January 2010 were estimated to be 33 billion barrels, with the recoverable shale
gas resources about 480 trillion cubic feet (tcf). For the latter, it is worth mentioning
that this level is almost half that reported (827 tcf) the previous year. It is a
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