The average rate at which oil and gas fields’ output declines over time has significantly accelerated globally, with potential environmental and energy security implications.

The decline is largely due to higher reliance on shale and deep offshore resources, meaning that companies must work much harder than before just to maintain production at today’s levels.

The international conversation over the future of oil and gas often focuses on demand trends while the factors affecting supply receive considerably less attention. The new IEA report, The Implications of Oil and Gas Field Decline Rates, seeks to rebalance this debate.

“Decline rates are the elephant in the room for any discussion of investment needs in oil and gas, and our new analysis shows that they have accelerated in recent years. In the case of oil, an absence of upstream investment would remove the equivalent of Brazil and Norway’s combined production each year from the global market balance. The situation means that the industry has to run much faster just to stand still. And careful attention needs to be paid to the potential consequences for market balances, energy security and emissions,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.

Keeping global oil and gas production constant over time would require the development of new resources. Even with continued spending on existing fields, the IEA’s analysis shows that more than 45 mb/d of oil and nearly 2 000 bcm of gas from new conventional fields would be required by 2050 to maintain production at today’s levels. This would be the equivalent of adding the total oil and gas production from all of the top three producers combined. Although, the amounts could be reduced if oil and gas demand were to come down.

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