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EIA figures oil in 2025 will bring $52
Allen Baker Petroleum News Contributing Writer
A barrel of oil will cost $52 in 2025, according to federal economists. But in 2002 dollars, that will be the inflation-adjusted equivalent of just $27, less than the spot price today.
“Growth in oil production in both OPEC and non-OPEC nations leads to relatively slow growth in prices through 2025,” says the report from the federal Energy Information Administration.
For natural gas, the story is about the same: $8.50 per thousand cubic feet in 2025, but only $4.40 in current dollars.
Those are some of the numbers in the Annual Energy Outlook 2004, issued by the EIA Dec. 16.
Tweaking their estimates from last year’s report, government economists trimmed 5 million barrels a day from the expected world oil demand in 2025. That drops their estimate to 118 million barrels consumed each day, a rise of about 50 percent from the current figure.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will account for 46 percent of that 2025 total flow, up from 38 percent currently, the EIA estimates. OPEC production will hit 54 million barrels daily, up 80 percent from the 30 million daily barrels the cartel members shipped in 2002.
On the non-OPEC side, production will rise to 63.9 million barrels daily from 44.7 million in 2002, though the major industrial nations will remain roughly even with about 24 million barrels of that in 2025.
Russian oil production is expected to grow 43 percent to 10.9 million barrels each day by 2025, while the Caspian basin will kick in 6 million barrels, up from 1.7 million. Central and South America will provide 7.8 million barrels, a rise of 81 percent. U.S. production slips But U.S. production is expected to decline by a million barrels a day to 4.6 million barrels daily by 2025, with nearly 20 million barrels imported by then.
On the natural gas side, EIA analysts think the growth in U.S. demand will slow in coming years as coal becomes more price-competitive for new power plants. They’re even forecasting a price dip around 2010, when LNG imports and increased drilling add to supply. They expect another dip just before 2020, when they estimate the pipeline from Alaska to the Lower 48 will be completed.
As for supply, the economists say U.S. production will increase 26 percent over the period to around 24 trillion cubic feet by 2025, up from around 19 tcf in 2002. Imports will essentially double to around 7.2 tcf.
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