Huge oil reserve found in US gulf

[3p141592654]

This is science Nick, there is always uncertainty, but it can be managed.

Peak year for oil discoveries was 1966 (~57b barrels). Discoveries after 1980 have been <30b barrels/year and have been decreasing on average about 1b barrels / year.

The Chevron find is expected to produce 800k barrels/day in 2012, or about
4% of US (2006) daily consumption. (For Nick's benefit this is at the upper end of the capacity estimate)

Discoveries in 2004 was ~8b barrels, versus a world consumption of ~30b barrels, a net reduction in reserves of 24b barrels/year. We have been comsuming more oil than we discover since 1981.

We are currently running about 5% capacity erosion per year on existing operational fields (and this number appears to be growing about 10%/year based on Petroleum Review's database). Planned capacity additions are about 20% per year for the next 5 years, although historically these projections are about 50% optimistic. Most of these additions are from two sources, OPEC and Canada (Tar sands). Given that data, the short term outlook to 2010 should keep pace with growing worldwide demand. The big danger is that capacity erosion is growing, and at some (very disputed time) will erode overall net world production (the so called oil peak from the Hubbel production curve).

No need to call me a lefty Nick, and I won't call you a neo-con! :biglaugh:

 

[Nick M]

I wonder how it is then that the proven reserves in 1950 were 100 billion barrels, but by 1980 it was 648 billion barrels, and now it is over 1000 billion barrels if there was no discoveries since 66?

So much for science.

 

[Nick M]

Back to the hypothesis of that the earth makes oil, not dead animals.

The burden falls upon the engine. It must adapt itself to less volatile fuel, and it must be made to burn the fuel with less waste.... Automotive engineers must turn their thoughts away from questions of speed and weight... and comfort and endurance, to avert what ... will turn out to be a calamity, seriously disorganizing an indispensable system of transportation

As there was only 20 years of oil left at the current consumption rate.

 

[3p141592654]

Nice try, but please try to read what I write.

Did I say there were no discoveries since 1966? No I did not. I said that was the peak year for discoveries.

There has been about ~900b barrels discovered since 1966. The rate of these discoveries has been dropping about 1b barrels / year. Proven reserves have been dropping since 1980 (ie. consumption > discovery). This data is widely available and accurate.

So someone made a bad prediction in 1919. So what? Predictions are always subject to being wrong, hence the name. I am providing accurate historical data here.

The only prediction I am giving is an estmate of the size of the recent discovery (as provided by Chevron).

 

[Nick M]

We have been comsuming more oil than we discover since 1981.

If that was true the proven reserves would be shrinking not growing don't you think? I didn't misstate anything you said.

But your statement of discoveries is dropping is spin. You are implying that the supply has shrunk. When it clearly has not. Consumption has gone way up, that is obvious.

Discoveries after 1980 have been <30b barrels/year and have been decreasing on average about 1b barrels / year

Yet the proven reserves has increased drastically. Explain this phenomena.

 

[3p141592654]

As you probably know, there was a great discovery made in the mid 80's when OPEC revised their "proven" reserves resulting in a large increase in reserves with no new discoveries at all. OPEC quotas are based on proven reserves, and Kuwait and the others revised those numbers in 1985 to allow them to pump more oil.

Another example of this is the Candian tar sands. This was discovered long ago, but was not considered a P90 proven reserve since it was impractical to extract. Since then, technology has advanced and allowed it to be classified as a P90 reserve, thus increasing Canada's proven reserves from 5 Gb to 279Gb (second largest after Saudi), again without any new discoveries.

My data is solid and historical. The reserve number of 648bb you quote in 1980 was wrong, plain and simple as it didn't includ ehte revised OPEC and Canadian reserves. We have been consuming more than we discover since 1980, and proven reserves have been declining.

 

[Nick M]

One other thing, the middle east proven reserves are questionable. Saudi Arabia claims 250 billion barrels. But it is not known wether or not they can get all of it out. That is where Halliburton and companies like them come in.

The find in the Gulf of Mexico is substantial and was needed.

 

[3p141592654]

You are correct. The OPEC P90 reserves of about ~700bb have about ~300bb of suspicious entries that magically appeared in the 80's without new field discoveries being announced.

The recent discovery of 3-15bb is important, but sadly represents only about at most a 3 month supply at the current world oil consumption rates.

 

[Adjuster]

3p, your assuming that 3 month supply is just a pocket of "fossil fuels" and not just a point where oil from deep in the earth happens to be close to the surface.

When oil was first discovered off shore in the gulf of mexico, the data said there was 30 years of oil and xx amount being taken out every year.

20 years into the use of that field, and at ever increasing rates of product removal, they did another study to see how much was there, clearly the oil had to be very close to being all gone since we had removed just about everything the first study said was there..

Wait, when the data came back, not only was the field still FULL OF OIL, it was actually larger than they first thought, and appeared to have grown.

The only theory that makes sense is that the fields are filling up from the bottem. Especially in geologic areas where oil and gas can "flow" through the rock easy, like there in the Gulf. (And Saudi and other Middle east areas, and some other places on this planet.)

Here's another one. Back in the 80's, I worked in Thousand Oaks, selling "stripper" oil wells in Ohio. These were wells that had over time played out, and were barely producing enough oil to pay for themselves, let alone make money for the owners. The idea was these wells were great tax writeoff's, and if the price of oil went up, would become money makers.

Guess what? Many of those wells were capped off, and closed down. Now they are going back and finding that not only have the oil fields in Ohio filled back up, but they appear to be flowing at rates not seen in 50 years! (Only option here is that they filled up from below.)

I'm standing by this theory of deep hot earth being the source of oil. You can continue to think that what you find is all there is, but the rest of the world is moving on without you. (Like the production oil wells in Viet Nam where NO oil should be found, yet they are doing it right now.)

The whole side of this industry that says the curve has been reached, and we have peaked our oil production, and now it's going to really get scarce and prices will go up, up and up some more... I think they are full of BULL SHIT! Oil wells that have been closed for years should all be looked at now. Have the fields filled back up? Are there ways to remove that oil again, and do it so the production matches the amount filling them back up. (So you never actually run out, you just keep production steady for that field.)

They were wrong in the past when oil was given a 30 year life. This prediction that we were going to run out of oil has been made, and then revised for many decades. Every one of the predictions was based the idea that all the oil you have is from dead life, compressed in rock, and made into oil/gas/coal. (Clearly that theory was wrong.)

I think your wrong today if you think oil is going to run out based on "proven" reserves being a fixed amount of oil. (Those proven reserves are filling up from the underside, and we have barely started to tap the potential oil and gas on this planet.)

 

[3p141592654]

Well, that certainly explains why the supergiant Cantarell Field, which is the second-biggest field in the world by production, has recently peaked and started a terminal production decline.

The earth's core is now made of oil I guess, and we can hollow it out and hope it all doesn't cave in.

 

[Adjuster]

No silly, it's not made of oil.

But, I don't think oil is a fossil fuel either.

I think the theory that oil is found deep in the earth, below fossil reccord, and that it's either one of two things, or a combination of some of these things.
1) Live exists at very great depths.
2) Oil and gas exist as very great depths.
3) I think there is a connection between the two. I think the life feeds on methane, and a byproduct just might be crude oil.

What does this mean?

Well, if there is a deep dwelling biomass producing oil, we will eventually run out of production. I agree with you there. But the amounts of oil being produced is so much more than what we have estimated, it's not even going to become a problem for hundreds, thousands or possibly even millions of years.

You point out a field that has been tapped out to overproduction. Just like the ones in Ohio that I mentioned, they have refilled back up. Want to bet your "supergiant" field has produced more than they estimated it had, and will continue to produce more oil than they thought was there for longer than they thought possible. (My point is, you don't have for example, a pool of oil with 5 billion barrels of oil in it, and that is ALL there is. I think what we have is a pool of 5 bb sitting on top of a place where that oil has made it's way to the surface, and was easy to find. We drilled into it, and took off 2.5bb, so in your theory, we have peaked, and now are taking out oil untill it's empty... The reality is, the pool is filling up from below, and yes, you can remove the oil faster than the earth can fill it back up, but it will fill back up again. The same "pool" of oil will be there again, and likely in a time frame shorter than you estimated.)

Just look at the Gulf Of Mexico.

We were supposed to run out in 30 years. There are estimates, and oil company scientists saying this all over the place.

10 years ago, we should have been past the "peak" point of production, but if anything, more oil and gas was being taken out of the gulf than ever before.... Did not make sense, and there was concern we were going to suddenly suck the field dry, and have none...
So they checked it again, and found it was not only FULL, but the field had grown in size.

So much for the peak theory.
So much for fossil fuels theory.
(I say the next "big" thing to fall will be MMGW, but that's another topic.)

 

[figgie]

They were buried in the flood of Noah 5000 years ago IJ.

nononono

when moses parted the sea.. where did you think all that water went!!!

 

[figgie]

<-- looks a HYDROCarbon

hmmm

two of the MOST abundant resourse in this universe and on planet earth.

 

[Big Wang Bandit]

Stupidity annnnnnd?

 

[cadman]

Stupidity annnnnnd?

Smokin the reefer?

 

[Nick M]

<-- looks a HYDROCarbon

hmmm

two of the MOST abundant resourse in this universe and on planet earth.

The old adage about using hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe has one problem. On Earth, it is in compound form in water, and hydrocarbons. When we figure out how to make water go boom like gas, let me know. Cheaply.

 

[Aaron J Williams]

Well, that certainly explains why the supergiant Cantarell Field, which is the second-biggest field in the world by production, has recently peaked and started a terminal production decline.

One possible explanation is that over time sediments plug the pores in the rock surrounding the oil deposit thus slowing down the oil moving upwards through the pores in the underlying rock.

The earth's core is now made of oil I guess, and we can hollow it out and hope it all doesn't cave in.

I realize this is sarcasm but the truth is that you don't know what the core is made of. Nobody knows what the core is made of.

If oil is actually the remains of dinosaurs magically transformed by heat and pressure then where is the oil coming from at Russia's Kola SG-3 well which is at 40,230 feet deep? How about the other 310 super deep Russian wells in production today?

I don't pretend to have the answers but i'm willing to listen to the "deep hot biosphere" theory.

 

[Adjuster]

Yes, it sure is interesting that all the deep oil wells around the planet are down into rock OLDER than life as we know it on the planet. (Long before our friends the dinosaurs roamed the earth, or massive amounts of plants were around even.)

Here's one, if there are microbes living at great depth and pressure on this planet, what's to say they are not living on most of the others too? (They don't need sunlight to live, they "eat" common stuff like methane, and if Gold and others are right, they out number us by TRILLIONS to one.)

LOL, and we might just be out here on the crusty surface of this planet fighting over who get's to suck up their poop and refine it into fuel, plastic and so many other things we use hydrocarbons for... LOL

Now that's funny.

Hey, it's a "renewable" resource then if it's poop?

 

[3p141592654]

Oil can be found deep because gravity pulls it down. Its a liquid after all and the earth's crust is not some monolithic impervious structure, its full of cracks, faults and so on.

The reason a well revives is simply due to the movement of oil in the surrounding rock. Its no different than digging a hole at the beach, the surrounding water in the sand flows slowly and fills up the whole until equilibrium is reached.

When a well is pumped dry that does not mean every last drop has been sucked up, rather it means the cost and flow rate have decreased to the point where it is no longer economically sensible to continue production. If you wait a while surrounding oil will sometimes tend to migrate back to the well for two reasons, it is a local collection point (which is why it was chosen in the first place), and equilibrium has been disturbed by the pumping.

How much oil remains to move toward the well is highly dependent on the geography. If the local soil is porous you may see significant recollection. If the soil is impervious like the shale beds in the US (that contain a lot of oil, but are impractical to extract) then very little regeneration take place.

There are many previously productive oil fields that are now dry. Your theory simply doesn't hold up. Look at Texas, there was a time when Texas used to throttle production just like OPEC to maintain price. In 1971 that excess capacity was over, Texas pumped at 100% capacity and production has declined monotonically since. There is no evidence that Texas production will ever be what it was in the 50's, there simple is no rebirth of those once might fields.

Attached is a plot is US onshore production. There is no evidence that production is increasing, or even staying level.

The only truly unexplored areas for oil are the deep oceans. Technical challenges may never allow deep ocean drilling, but it is possible (definitely not a P90 reserve that;s for sure).

 

[Adjuster]

So your going to stick to "fossil fuels" then?

In light of so much that is wrong with the theory?

Just the simple amount of bio mass on this planet, that could be trapped under mud, rock or other strata, and then compressed into oil would be minimal at best, and laughable in my opinion.

What happens when 99.9% of life on this planet dies?

It decomposes, is eaten by other animals, or is otherwise consumed. Very little waste is left over, and it takes an event to cover up dead life to trap fossil's in the earth. (Something like a land slide, or flood where they are trapped in the mud, then covered with more mud and so on.)

That does not happen all that much. I think that's why the original estimates of how much oil we have, based on the idea that oil was mashed up dead dinosaurs and plants from the same era is wrong.

There is way more oil than there was life in the past to create the oil.

Clearly the oil is coming from somewhere else, and the theory that life living on methane at deep depths in the earth makes more sense to me than any fossil fuels theory I've seen.

I don't know about Texas. Have they gone back to fields that were productive 50 years ago, and seen if the oil deposits have filled back up? Is there a feature in Texas that's limiting the fill time?

I know there are huge salt deposits/mines down in that area, and that oil does not flow through the salt very well. (IIRC, the USA oil reserve is mostly housed in salt mines that were hollowed out by pumping water into them, then when the chambers were large enough, they filled them up with oil to be used in emergency conditons.) I belive I was told they are as tall as the empire state building, and many, many miles in length in some cases.

Nobody expected the Ohio wells to fill back up. If I was a in this industry, I'd check on Texas to see if lower production over the past few decades has caused some wells to show signs of highe flow rates.. I'm sure it will take a few years to fill them back up again, but they will fill back up if the theory is correct.