World oil production was 81.820 million barrels per day in 2008, a increase of +0.4% from the previous year. Total world oil output in this note is summed from four major producing zones chosen because of the markedly different circumstances pertaining to each. An area plot shows production from the OPEC group of nations, the U.S.A., Eastern Europe/CIS (but not including new members of the expanded European Union), and the remainder termed Rest-of-World. After a long period of steady increases before 2004, R-O-W production fell 602,000 barrels per day in 2008 from the previous year. The share of the R-O-W group in world production also fell regularly to 30.78% in 2008 from the high of 35.86% reached in 2003. R-O- W production is also plotted separately versus OPEC production in a second graph for additional clarity.

The per capita consumption of oil and total primary energy were calculated for the world from 1965-2008 using data derived from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy and the World Factbook of the Central Intelligence Agency of the U.S.A. Per capita world oil consumption had remained remarkably constant at an average 4.53 barrels per capita (Standard Deviation = 0.094) for the 26 years inclusive from 1983-2008. For the last four years, however, world per capita consumption has approached 4.7 barrels per capita indicating that a change may be occurring in this empirical value after a quarter-century of constancy. The per capita oil consumption of Canada was also compared with that of India: the value of the ratio of Canada to India of 27.5 may be decreasing again after stabilizing following a period of steep decline which lasted until 2000.