Total petroleum generation measures the amount of all petroleum products that Saudi Arabia generates and consists of liquid fuels, including crude oil and lease condensate, tight oil, extra-heavy oil, and bitumen. Total petroleum generation is measured by barrels per day and is provided on a monthly basis. It is a direct indicator of if Saudi Arabia is indeed moving away from fossil fuels and reducing CO2 emissions or if it’s going in the wrong direction.
Petroleum and other liquid (mostly crude oil) production are presented by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), on a monthly basis from June 2017 to June 2022 in Megabarrels/ day (Mb/d) (see below). EIA obtains and keeps extensive track of energy-related data from most countries, including energy production and consumption, categorized by fuel type. From 2017 to 2020, a slight downtrend can be observed in daily petroleum production, from a value of approximately 12,000 Mb/d, all the way down to a minimum close to 9,500 Mb/d. For the period between 2020 and 2022 however, that amount of petroleum production rises again to a value of approximately 12,000 Mb/d. For annual carbon emissions data presented from the Global Carbon Project (see below), a downtrend in emissions is also observed between 2017 and 2020, from a value of 639.4 million tons to a value of 625.5 million tons. A strong correlation exists between Saudi Arabia’s petroleum production and carbon emissions, indicating that the country’s emissions are closely tied to its fossil fuel activity.
Source: EIA
This Post was submitted by Climate Scorecard Saudi Arabia Country Managers Abeer Abdulkareem and Amgad Ellaboudy