[Bas]

I haven't read anything on Antartica, but I believe drilling for oil is banned there. I don't think the region has been explored either but chances are there could be a gigafield out there. While in the current political climate, drilling on the continent is out of the question, this could change rapidly once we are in a big oilcrisis. Though still, environmental groups will heavily oppose drilling in the antartic, crisis or not. They will probably succeed in delaying any development for some time so I think we shouldn't expect antartic oil to hit the market before 2020.

Any thoughts, sources on this subject?

Bas

[Bas]

There's currently no mining whatsoever on Antartica and all mining is banned by the "Antartic treaty".

There has never been any commercial mining in Antarctica, there are no current plans to mine Antarctica and mining is currently completely banned by the Antarctic Treaty. There are no known future plans by any of the Antarctic Treaty nations to reverse this decision.

http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica-mining-treaty

[UncoveringTruths]

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic5240-0.html

[MD]

It's an unbelievably hostile environment. Any resource there will likely stay in place until there is an absolutely desperate need. Oil in 2050? ..maybe... maybe sooner... maybe never

[Bas]

oh, thank you uncovering, should have known this was already discussed...

[Bas]

So you guys think, Merica might invade Antartica and claim all the oil? I mean, Merica have been like such unilateralists since Bush took office, such a move wouldn't surprise me....

[MD]

So you guys think, Merica might invade Antartica and claim all the oil? I mean, Merica have been like such unilateralists since Bush took office, such a move wouldn't surprise me....

Probably not any time soon, there are plenty of easily accessable resouces to fight over first.

[MicroHydro]

Agree with MD, the logistics of doing anything at all in Antarctica are daunting. This would require the cooperation of Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, or New Zealand. The only country on that list that is currently a reliable US satellite is Australia. There might be oil there, but it won't be cheap oil, and not without political issues either.

[onequestionwonder]

How would you even drill for oil down there?

Sure you could do it offshore, but you have problems with icebergs calving down there. Not sure how a platform would do if even a small one impacted.

There may be ocean areas there which do not have this problem, but if they exist and are oil prospects is something I don't know.

If you drilled on land, doesn't the ice flow? There may be stable areas (no downhill slope) you could drill on, but doesn't a lot of it flow? Just a couple of inches a year would be too much for a steel reinforced shaft to take I'd think. Also if the oil were allowed to cool to arctic conditions (or even close) would it flow, even if it were not 'heavy oil?'

I would think Greenland would have the same problems.

If anyone here knows much about this, I'd be interested in the answers.

[Bas]

you could use floating platforms instead of fixed ones, like the ones they use for deepsea drilling....

[sicophiliac]

I have thought about this myself too, the place is totally untouched and from what I understand it could have vast amounts of oil since it was once part of the super continent Pangea.. thats what it was called right? Anyways I think the best we could hope when peak oil hits is offshore drilling around the coasts of the continent.. this would be costly but very very doable todays technology. Who knows how much oil is down there though.. Ive heard a few estimates as high as 200 billion barrels in the coastal bay areas but the oil companies would need to go down there and do exploration with all the modern technology we have now to really find out what we are dealing with. Since theres been an international treaty banning exploiting Antarticas resouces I doubt anybody has bothered to do any serious examination of whats down there anytime recently. Who knows.. Id estimate we could probably find at least 50 billion barrels offshore around the entire continent.. maybe much much more.

[anomaly]

I haven't read anything on Antartica, but I believe drilling for oil is banned there. I don't think the region has been explored either but chances are there could be a gigafield out there. While in the current political climate, drilling on the continent is out of the question, this could change rapidly once we are in a big oilcrisis. Though still, environmental groups will heavily oppose drilling in the antartic, crisis or not. They will probably succeed in delaying any development for some time so I think we shouldn't expect antartic oil to hit the market before 2020.

Any thoughts, sources on this subject?

Bas

I'm no expert and I haven't read anything on Antartica, but I kind of doubt there is any oil there because there has never been life there. Doesn't oil form from ancient plants and animals? (thus explaining the abundance in the Mesopotamia area...) I doubt the enormous population of penguins that lived there 10 million years ago will amount to very much oil...

I could be wrong though.

[Bas]

anomaly, Millions of years ago, Antartica was part of pangea and had alot of forests and stuff, I'm sure there's oil there...

[Sunspot]

I read somewhere, from one of the oil experts (Deffeyes maybe?) that because of repeated glaciation, the land under all that ice has been hammered so much that, if there was any oil, it would have been pushed down too far and the land would have ruptured to such an extent that any containment would be impossible.
Unfortunately, oil was only formed in certain areas of the world under specific geological and biological circumstances. And most of it got destroyed long before we came along. There is only the possibility of oil in certain places, and most of the planet is simply ruled out. Including under most of the ocean. We have a great deal of knowledge about the planet now, and despite the advances in that knowledge over the last 40 years, the fact remains for all to see that the discovery of oil on the planet peaked in 1964.

[Sunspot]

Also, it's impossible to drill through all that ice and keep your hole for long: the ice flows at a different rate at different depths, so a hole drilled straight down would soon distort sideways and rip apart any pipe you put down there!!

[MD]

When the rest of the planet is a burning hell, and antartica is a temperate zone, the remaining population can have at the resources there

[nth]

I read somewhere, from one of the oil experts (Deffeyes maybe?) that because of repeated glaciation, the land under all that ice has been hammered so much that, if there was any oil, it would have been pushed down too far and the land would have ruptured to such an extent that any containment would be impossible.
Unfortunately, oil was only formed in certain areas of the world under specific geological and biological circumstances. And most of it got destroyed long before we came along. There is only the possibility of oil in certain places, and most of the planet is simply ruled out. Including under most of the ocean. We have a great deal of knowledge about the planet now, and despite the advances in that knowledge over the last 40 years, the fact remains for all to see that the discovery of oil on the planet peaked in 1964.

Oil discovery peaked in 1964?
I thought it peaked a lot earlier than that.
Any how, there is no such thing as oil being too deep to be drilled. If you look at current technology and the amount of improvements made to drilling deep into the Earth, you will see that there has not been any oil fields that are too deep to get, since this decade.

Also, it's impossible to drill through all that ice and keep your hole for long: the ice flows at a different rate at different depths, so a hole drilled straight down would soon distort sideways and rip apart any pipe you put down there!!

That is simply incorrect.
There are oil wells in the artic that are drilled over ice sheets.
There are drilling in antarctica that have placed pipes and drilling equipments for more than one year at a time and they are able to overcome all issues as of last year.

[Sunspot]

Well, I'll have to look into drilling through ice sometime, seems like the shear forces have to be a big problem.
But drilling deeper ignores a fact about oil - if it goes to a depth below 15,000 ft, the heat from the earth turns it into natural gas, which is where natural gas comes from. But when you go too much deeper the heat will even destroy the natural gas.
In order to preserve oil deposits, stable "pockets" have to form. The violent changes enforced on the underground strata by the repeated melting and reforming of the ice sheets is very likely to squeeze the pockets of oil, submerge it too deep, etc. etc.
Not to mention the fact that, with the likelyhood if imminent collapse, we're going to have enough trouble getting across town soon, say nothing of a nice little trip to Antarctica to drill for oil. If there were ten Saudi Arabia's worth of oil there it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference at this point.

[nth]

Well, I'll have to look into drilling through ice sometime, seems like the shear forces have to be a big problem.
But drilling deeper ignores a fact about oil - if it goes to a depth below 15,000 ft, the heat from the earth turns it into natural gas, which is where natural gas comes from. But when you go too much deeper the heat will even destroy the natural gas.

First, depending on where you are drilling, you may hit heat.
You make it sound like 15k feet and you will hit heat. If that is the case, you can have geotherm powerplants anywhere. Earth's crust is not uniform. The thickness ranges from estimated 10km to 45km+.

Second, natural gas fields can be created in a few different scenarios.

In order to preserve oil deposits, stable "pockets" have to form. The violent changes enforced on the underground strata by the repeated melting and reforming of the ice sheets is very likely to squeeze the pockets of oil, submerge it too deep, etc. etc.

No idea what you are trying to say here.
How you get the idea that ice sheets can squeeze things?
You know there are frozen lakes in antarctica?
There is also continental shelfs in the ocean that should contain oil.

Not to mention the fact that, with the likelyhood if imminent collapse, we're going to have enough trouble getting across town soon, say nothing of a nice little trip to Antarctica to drill for oil. If there were ten Saudi Arabia's worth of oil there it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference at this point.

If it makes economic sense or military sense, we will go drill it. Antarctica is not especially far considering some current oil shipment routes. Shipping is the last thing to worry about.

And a message for other people, Antarctica's oil will have no influence on PO. Before we hit PO, no one will likely go there to produce oil because of political and economical considerations and after PO, not enough oil can be produced to prevent PO.

[shakespear1]

The issue is not if we can drill there. We can, we have the technology and if problems occur we will find a solution around them. This has been proven in the oil industry over and over again. The real issue however is to get off this stuff.

That means detox for the world Move on and fix the Real Problem. Dependence on a nonrenewable resource!!!