Help Using the Energy Export Databrowser

This page gives advice on using the databrowser and interpreting results.

The British Petroleum 2008 Statistical Review breaks out consumption and production data by country, continent and a few groupings like 'Former Soviet Union' and 'OPEC'. In the case of countries of the Fomer Soviet Union, all data prior to 1985 is lumped together as 'Former Soviet Union'. This means that individual countries like 'Ukraine' or 'Russian Federation' have no production/consumption data prior to 1985.

The code behind the Energy Export Databrowser makes it possible to calculate consumption/production statistics for any combination of countries. An initial application of this capability is found in the 'Interesting Groups' section of the 'Country / Group' selector. Choosing one of these mult-country groups will show the following:

• Countries in the map are colored by whether they imported or exported in 2007.
• The production/consumption graph represents the sum of all countries in the group.

The 'Interesting Groups' section includes the following abbreviations:

FSU

Former Soviet Union

OPEC

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

OECD

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

G7

US, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada

O5

Brazil, China, Indonesia, India, South Africa

Various interesting patterns appear in the data graphics. A few interpretations are provided here.

Uninterrupted by war or political upheaval and developed with the latest technology, the North Sea provides a very good example of a 'normal' (almost gaussian) production curve that is now past 'peak' production. It is anticipated that annual production volumes will continue to decline barring a dramatic new discovery.

The 'Export Land Model' proposed by Jeffrey Brown and Samuel Foucher describes how developing nations, enriched by oil profits, will grow economically and increase their own consumption of energy resources. Declining production and increasing consumption can rapidly turn an exporting nation into one that requires imports as exemplified by Indonesia.

One of the reasons nations go to war is to gain access to resources. However, in the case of energy resources, the damage to infrastructure inflicted by modern warfare can reduce rather than increase access to those resources. Nowhere is this more true than in Iraq.

• Iran-Iraq War (1981-1988)
• First Gulf War (1990-1991)
• Sanctions (1991-2003)
• Iraq War (2003-????)

In some countries in some years, production and consumption match. In these cases, the country will be colored grey in the map. This is often seen when looking at Natural Gas which is largely dependent upon pipelines for export. Until recently, Colombia had no means for exporting its Natural Gas and all production was consumed domestically.