Russia will eclipse American oil production by 2050 – US energy agency

Russia is projected to overtake the US and other non-OPEC exporters in crude production in around three decades, according to US Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysis.

Non-OPEC crude oil and lease-condensate production is set to increase by 23 percent between 2018 and 2050, reaching 59 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2050, the agency said in a report released earlier this week. The rapid growth will be driven by Russia, the US, Canada and Brazil.

© EIA

While Ottawa is projected to enjoy the most significant growth of 126 percent thanks to oil sands development, the country will still be far behind Russia and the US, which will be fighting for the leadership beyond the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Washington can boost crude oil and lease-condensate production from 11 million bpd in 2018 to around 14 million bpd from 2025 to 2040 due to the growth of hydraulic fracturing in the US southwest. However, the output will cool in less than a decade, falling to the 12.2 million bpd by 2050 (the levels of 2019-2020), as development moves into less productive areas and well productivity declines, according to the EIA report.

Meanwhile, crude output in Russia is set to surge by 2.3 million bpd by 2050. The production will come mainly from non-tight resources, but the country is also projected to accelerate oil production after 2030. The EIA calculations show that the output will steadily grow, reaching 12.5 million bpd in 2040 and adding another 500,000 bpd to reach 13 million bpd in the next decade.

OPEC countries will account for over 40 percent of global oil supplies through the projection period. Overall production in the 14 member states is set to grow by 37 percent between 2018 and 2050 to reach 48 million bpd in 2050, with most of the growth coming from the Middle East.

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