THE 'How much oil is remaining?' Thread (merged)

[AntiEverything]

Hello I have just returned from watching a very interesting if some what alarming documentary "Crude Awakening". One thing that interested me was how "reserves" rose dramatically to sustain current production levels. In some cases these were increased by 50% but have never been reduced since despite millions of barrels being produced.

I have looked into the Saudi fields and it seems they may be telling porky pies regarding reserves.

So my question is as follows: Is there historical data available that provides an analysis of previous reserve estimates, new field estimates and then translates this to a more accurate reserves figure?

Basically I am trying to establish when the tipping point for society will occur!

[Cashmere]

Welcome aboard. A moderator will be along shortly to direct you to other, useful portions of PO.com The answer to your question is: Reserve Figures are extremely difficult to pin down because in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the numbers are not reviewable.

In other words, the KSA may simply be lying about how much oil they have in the ground. The same is true in many other countries. So, we have only our best guesses as to when a production peak may occur.

Most on this site believe that a peak has occurred or will soon occur (w/in 3 years). After that, it's off the cliff.

[TheDude]

Not only did the Saudis increase their reserves in a big way in the 80s, but they've stayed essentially flat year after year - effectively discovering the exact amount they produced. This is either an example of the Big Lie, a subconscious desire to be caught (ala having sex in public places), having a bit of fun with us, or wanting to drop hints that all is not well. Any way you look at it, it's not good, since this situation is blithely accepted at face value by almost anyone who bothers to examine closely.

[la2al2tex]

We used up the trillionth barrell in December 2005. If there is 1 trillion left, then we are past the peak. If there is 2 trillion left, we have only a few more years to the peak.

Of course, the quality may matter more so than the quantity, read about EROEI (energy return on energy invested). There will come a point where the oil left is no longer an energy source because it takes almost as much energy to extract a barrell as the barrell contains.

[Pops]

Welcome.

The BP website has about as much info as is publicly available on their graphing tool. Reserves to production ratios grew steadily until the mid '80's and has been around 40-years supply since.

From our Intro:

World discovery of oil peaked in the 1960s, and has declined since then. If the 40 year cycle seen in the US holds true for world oil production, that puts global peak oil production, right about now; after which oil becomes less available, and more expensive.

I wrote that 4 years ago and oil does seem to be getting more expensive.

[AntiEverything]

Thanks for the reply. The terrorist state of Saudi is lying about its reserves. I was shocked at the number of water pumping stations they have in locations that should still be producing oil. I read some place they were pumping in millions of gallons of water just to sustain pressure. But we must have some baseline data that shows how the reserve figures they have produced have been climbing/remained static and compare it with output figures.

After looking around the net before it would seem that we are on the verge of societal collapse. Time to get a shotgun license?

[Pops]

Again, go to the BP website and look at their graphing tool.

[mos6507]

After looking around the net before it would seem that we are on the verge of societal collapse. Time to get a shotgun license?

Read around here and get caught up. You've got some more phases of grief to go through before you should be enacting an action plan.

[AntiEverything]

Thanks all for the replies and suggestions.

[Alcassin]

This is either an example of the Big Lie, a subconscious desire to be caught (ala having sex in public places), having a bit of fun with us, or wanting to drop hints that all is not well.

The big lie is easier to push than the small lie, moreover it can be very quickly qualified as truth, and it functions as a part of definition of reality.

[DaleFromCalgary]

"I was shocked at the number of water pumping stations they have in locations that should still be producing oil. I read some place they were pumping in millions of gallons of water just to sustain pressure."

Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing any statistics trying to correlate the amount of seawater pumping they do with what amount of oil that seawater would push out. Or do the Saudis keep their seawater pumping volumes a national secret as well?

Does anyone know of any attempt to correlate x megalitres of seawater pumped per day with y amount of oil depletion?

[aahala2]

Hello

I have just returned from watching a very interesting if some what alarming documentary "Crude Awakening".

One thing that interested me was how "reserves" rose dramatically to sustain current production levels. In some cases these were increased by 50% but have never been reduced since despite millions of barrels being produced.

It's explained by the "new math"(also being used in the US credit
markets). That is, leverage thru subtraction.

The more we use, the more that's left.

[ROCKMAN]

Dale,

There's not a direct correlation between daily SW injection vs. oil production. In general, water injection volumes will increase as the net oil volume decrease over time. This is called the "water cut" or, conversly, the "oil cut". If you're making 70% oil and 30% water you have a 30% water cut. A very useful number for projecting future reserve recovery is to plot how the water cut number increase over time. It tends to be a very reliable, and more importantly, a very projectable number. Needless to say, this is a highly guarded number by the KSA. To give a sense of scale, I've worked with similar, but smaller, fields in Texas. Some have recovered over 150 million bbl of oil but also produced well over a trillion bbl of water to do so. Most of these fields are still producing nice profits even though oil cut is now down to 1 or 2%.