The Oil Drum on Oil Production and Consumption

Reader Debbie points to this post (and the comments that accompany it) at The Oil Drum:

Each day approximately 84 million barrels of oil are extracted from the earth, and approximately the same amount is consumed. It can be no other way: inventory space is limited, and could not be extended significantly by “excess production” or indeed drawn down for long by “excess demand”.

This comes in response to a quote from the Economist which states that…

The world is consuming more oil than it is producing

.

Sometimes a bit of reframing makes a difference.