According to the original quantifications

The parapétroliers as Technip rub hands, but not their clients, the tankers. Because, if the barrel has singed in recent years, exploration and production also costs. The oil industry has spent the last year 225 billion in exploration-production, is twice the amount of this position in 2000, and the figure should reach $ 265 billion this year. But, "Although the nominal investments have doubled between 2000 and 2005, the bulk of this increase is due to cost inflation, said the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its annual report on the prospects for the sector, published last week." "Retired this inflation, investment increased by about 20 over the period.

Inflation is the result of the increase of raw materials such as steel and cement, but strong demand in men and equipment, all groups to increase their production in response to the increase in the barrel. Result: a bottleneck formed the concession level and should not be narrowed before 2010. This is especially true for the drilling, the most important oil upstream expenditure item. Its cost has been increasing since 2002: up to 100 increase for the daily cost of drilling in the North Sea, and more than 400 in the Gulf of the Mexico, according to the scores of the International Energy Agency.

More expensive techniques

Another factor of inflation of costs, more structural, is the increase in the number of mature fields, where expensive techniques to support the production and the increasing complexity of large fields (offshore Ultra-Deepwater, North Siberian, Canadian extra heavy oil...). For oil production to start between 2006 and 2010, all geographical areas combined, it must average investments 31,000 dollars per barrel of daily production capacity, says the IEA. Either a capital intensity of $ 4 per barrel produced to a field of a lifespan of twenty years.

The figure may seem reasonable in view of the current oil price, but is that an average which is located below the capital needed for new more complex projects, so they often see their costs and their date of start skid. Thus, the capital necessary for a project in the Canadian non-conventional oil is about 45,000 dollars a daily production capacity of a barrel... According to the original quantifications.

In reality, the skid of Canadian projects in extra heavy oil highlights today a final capital cost estimated by the Agency to 60,000 dollars per barrel of capacity. And to achieve $ 5 of net profit per barrel produced, a tanker developing a new project to the Canada now needs an oil price at $ 40 instead of 22 dollars in 2002, according to estimates of NCB Stockbrokers and CM - CIC Securities.

But the Palm rests with the projects of "gas to liquids" transforming gas in oil product (particularly in the Qatar) and the Russian oil fields of the island of Sakhalin and the Arctic. These two types of projects had an average cost of capital initially estimated at $ 50,000 per barrel daily. In fact, they should return to more than 80,000 dollars, according to the Agency. It is a minimum. Already, Shell announced a doubling of Sakhalin 2 costs more than 20 billion dollars.

Other costs more downstream, such as taxation, also climb and total oil tankers have various fortunes. If the Total costs increased by 20 from 2001 to 2005, those of Shell jumped 170, believes the CM - CIC Securities. Replace a barrel of reserves has cost the Anglo-Dutch group $ 14 on average over the period from 2003 to 2005, instead of 4.50 $ between 1999 and 2001...