[rockdoc123]

rockdoc,

"...and spit a stream of rum over it."

I didn't know about the rum part. This is exciting! One learns so much at this site.

(yellow smiley face goes up there)

I probably was just a bit too obtuse in my analogy for many....I was likening it to Haitian voodoo (lots of chicken parts and spitting of rum involved, seems like a waste of good rum to me but I don't want to be called out for religious prejudice here). My apologies to any practitioners of voodoo on this site. Especially the Haitians as I suspect your voodoo is much truer than that practiced in New Orleans or for that matter on the ETP thread

[AdamB]

I can only provide a link where you can sign up for access to their database yourself.

OK. So how about supplying the link then?

Sure.

https://www.ihs.com/products/oil-gas-tools-edin.html

Whats the point of you telling us the USGS and IHS have released new data on the topic being discussed here, but then once again not telling us what that data is or at least providing links to that new data on oil reserves at Ghawar?

The USGS can't release proprietary data, IHS's or anyone else's, any more than I can. Oh, you can try, give them a call, ask nicely, but they are restricted by the terms of that data contract same as the rest of us.

I'm looking forward to your next post which hopefully will finally have either the links you keep mentioning but not posting, or perhaps just the data itself.

THANKS.

As I mentioned to someone else who was looking for global data on oil fields and whatnot, this is a game where you really do pay to play. If you really want to have some more fun, buy yourself access to the Rystad UCube product:

https://www.rystadenergy.com/Products/E ... ions/UCube

and compare everything in there about Ghawar to everything in IHS on that field. Things that make you go...mmmmm.....

[Plantagenet]

buy yourself access to the Rystad UCube product:

https://www.rystadenergy.com/Products/E ... ions/UCube

and compare everything in there about Ghawar to everything in IHS on that field. Things that make you go...mmmmm.....

Considering that neither IHS nor the Rystad UCube product have access to any actual current data from the reservoir at Ghawar, you may as well get your information from Bill the cat and go.....mmmmmmm.


Bill the cat shares his proprietary opinion of the state of the Ghawar oil field. mmmmmmmm.

Cheers!

[rockdoc123]

Considering that neither IHS nor the Rystad UCube product have access to any actual current data from the reservoir at Ghawar, you may as well get your information from Bill the cat and go.....mmmmmmm.

are you not paying attention? Two major audit firms have said the reserves indicated by Aramco are there. Because of where the listing will go (either London or NYSE) they are liable for their report. What that means is the numbers Aramco have been claiming are correct.

Perhaps you have me on ignore now because of the number of times you haven't got it previously but this is the case now.

Irrespective of all the moaning about Saudi Arabia lying about their reserves we now have not 1 but 2 independent audits by the two biggest firms who do this. All the whining about Saudi Arabia lying etc is now completely meaningless....their reserves have been audited to the standards of at least the LSE if not the NYSE. You may understand what the means but basically from this point forward every barrel they produce and every cent they spend in that company they take private is public information.

The fact that the indpendent audits find no difference with what the Saudis have been saying all along is the confirmation everyone was looking for. You seem to be living in the past for some reason.

Are you somehow claiming these audits are invalid?

[Synapsid]

rockdoc,

Thanks for the reply about partial upgrading.

I've known more than one brand of rum for which the proper response is spitting it out. The last one I encountered (Rum of the Gods, at Trader Joe's) I poured into a large empty peanut-butter jar after one taste. I added enough dried figs to the jar to fill it and then sealed it and put it in a back corner under the kitchen counter. I tried it after a few months and had some nicely rummed figs.

My choice is Mount Gay.

[rockdoc123]

My choice is Mount Gay.

yup one of the best, I think because they use sugar cane rather than sugar beets. I still buy it in Canada but fondly remember buying gallon jugs of it in Barbados for about $15 US!
Another one that is surprisingly good is Hana Bay which is made in Hawaii (not sure which island) again from sugar cane.

[Synapsid]

rockdoc,

Hana Bay is new to me. I'll keep an eye out. And I believe Barbados is where rum was invented by the British.

I've never heard of anyone using sugar beet and calling the result rum. Every feeling is offended; the senses reel. Hanging's too good for them.

[ROCKMAN]

Syn - From 2013 - http://blogs.platts.com/2013/11/25/pdvsa-woes/

At the Wellhead: Venezuela’s upgraders are maxed out to handle its heavy oil

Venezuela has extensive heavy oil reserves, and increasingly, no way of treating it. It’s not a feedstock that can just get thrown into any refinery. Platts Venezuelan correspondent Mery Mogollon discusses that particular problem–one of many–in this week’s Oilgram News column.

Venezuela is producing more extra heavy crude in its oil fields in the Orinoco Belt region than it can process in the four “upgraders” that were built more than a decade ago. The upgraders were built by foreign oil companies and have a combined capacity of 630,000 b/d, or 51% of the actual aggregated output. With 297 billion barrels in proved and probable reserves covering more than 55,000 square kilometers in Venezuela’s southeast, the Orinoco Belt is one of the world’s greatest oil repositories.

But a lack of investment in recent years has stressed its refining, upgrading and transport infrastructure and is impeding increases in output.

“The upgraders are at their limit. We are producing a lot of diluted crude oil, or extra heavy oil that is mixed with naphtha, which is why we need to resolve the bottlenecks with the upgraders and expand their capacity with our present partners or with new ones,” said Rafael Ramirez, who is both president of state-owned PDVSA and the nation’s petroleum and mining minister. He spoke this month before international oil executives in Caracas.

Upgraders are plants that heat and dehydrate heavy oil, improve its quality, and also mix in naphtha or lighter crude to make the tar-like substance transportable and ready to process by traditional refineries."

And from 2016 - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -heavy-oil

"Venezuela’s state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA is said to be looking into leasing the Aruba refinery, where it would ship tar-like oil to be upgraded into higher value synthetic crude rather than produce fuels like gasoline.

PDVSA, through its U.S. subsidiary Citgo Petroleum Corp., is in talks with the Aruba government to lease the refinery, according to an Aruba government official who isn’t authorized to speak publicly. The Caracas-based state oil company is studying whether to configure the refinery into an upgrader that processes heavy crude from Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt, according to a person familiar with the developing plan.

The plan is being considered as cash-strapped PDVSA doesn’t have the financial resources to build the oil upgraders that it needs to turn its asphalt-like crude into a product that refineries can process. The last upgraders were put into operation in the early 2000s. The country owns four of them in partnership with firms like Total SA and Chevron Corp."

[Plantagenet]

I believe Barbados is where rum was invented by the British.

What we call rum today was perfected in Cuba by a Catalan named Bacardi.

Facundo Bacardí Massó, a Spanish wine merchant, was born in Sitges, Catalonia, Spain, in 1814, and emigrated to Cuba in 1830. During this period, rum was cheaply made and not considered a refined drink, and rarely sold in upmarket taverns.[citation needed] Facundo began attempting to "tame" rum by isolating a proprietary strain of yeast still used in Bacardi production. This yeast gives Bacardi rum its flavour profile. After experimenting with several techniques he hit upon filtering the rum through charcoal, which removed impurities. In addition to this, Facundo aged the rum in white oak barrels, which had the effect of mellowing the drink. The final product was the first clear, or "white" rum in the world.

Moving from the experimental stage to a more commercial endeavour, he and his brother José set up a Santiago de Cuba distillery they bought in 1862, which housed a still made of copper and cast iron. In the rafters of this building lived fruit bats – the inspiration for the Bacardi bat logo.[8] This logo was pragmatic considering with high illiteracy rate in the 19th century, it enabled customers to easily identify the product.[9]


In Cuba you can still get original Bacardi rum made in the original factory in Cuba (although they factory is now owned by the Cuban state and they don't call it Bacardi). Its very very good rum.


Cuba libre!

[Synapsid]

ROCKMAN,

I remember the Aruba possibility; China was interested in either that one or the Curacao refinery. I haven't followed up.

Ian Austin was focusing on partial upgrading specifically to remove asphaltenes, so as not to need diluent for pipeline transport of the product. He wasn't presenting it as a new idea, just suggesting that it deserved more attention for the oil sands. I don't know if Venezuela's upgraders go that route but whether they do or not it's a safe bet they aren't working properly.

[ROCKMAN]

Syn - The Aruba refinery utility has been kicked around for decades by one group or another. I recall from some years ago the beginning of the collapse of the Venezuelan oil patch began when El Presidente nationalized the industry. The first casualty was the upgrading infrastructure: a combination of inexperienced replacement workers and lack of maintenance. I think most, if not all, of the upgraders were shut down.

In addition to making export transportation much more difficult it greatly reduced the price of exports in particular by limiting the market.

[asg70]

Why would anyone give merit to the ETP when simple economic modeling also matches events of the last three years?

ETP is mental fabrication that allows a small number of peak-oilers to latch onto it to avoid abandoning their religion during an indefinite regime of low oil prices. In its own way it kind of reminds me of abiotic oil theory or explaining global warming as a function of sunspots. It has classic pseudo-scientific trappings but is ultimately driven by a strong agenda--to maintain a continual state of doom and gloom about the future as a consequence of oil depletion.

When I read the ETP thread I see this continual retreat back to repeating unassailable truths like the 2nd law of thermodynamics and limits to growth. And while all that IS true, that doesn't by itself validate ETP theory. It requires some huge leaps of logic to go from here to there. It does become a matter of cult-like faith.

[AdamB]

Why would anyone give merit to the ETP when simple economic modeling also matches events of the last three years?

ETP is mental fabrication that allows a small number of peak-oilers to latch onto it to avoid abandoning their religion during an indefinite regime of low oil prices.

Obviously. And you are perhaps being too kind.

In its own way it kind of reminds me of abiotic oil theory or explaining global warming as a function of sunspots. It has classic pseudo-scientific trappings but is ultimately driven by a strong agenda--to maintain a continual state of doom and gloom about the future as a consequence of oil depletion.

My first encounter with pseudo science in the peak oil world, besides the bell shaped curve religious symbols hyped as the unified field theory of oil production, was EROEI. And then I discovered that Charlie had been throwing that red herring out there since the early 80's...except had become very quiet about it in the modern era, again obviously when you realize he had predicted the end of US oil drilling by the year 2000 and we all know how that went.

When I read the ETP thread I see this continual retreat back to repeating unassailable truths like the 2nd law of thermodynamics and limits to growth. And while all that IS true, that doesn't by itself validate ETP theory. It requires some huge leaps of logic to go from here to there. It does become a matter of cult-like faith.

After discovering that the ETP thread was just someone attempting to sell a relationship similar to this, I never went back.

[asg70]

I am active in other internet communities and the common thread I see is people sparring over predictions. Whether it's Nostradamus, Jim Cramer, or Nate Silver, the whole purpose in sharing a prediction is some degree of self-aggrandizement. When you stick your ego on the chopping block like that don't be surprised to see people resist conceding.

Everything's basically a law of averages game. I tuned out the superbowl thinking the Patriots were toast, only to wake up the next morning stunned to find out they tied the game, went into overtime, and won. Strange things do happen, but rarely.

I think people are more freaked out by the prospect of black swan events than they are by the much more likely probability they'll get hit by a car or be given a terminal cancer diagnosis.

I've lurked because I don't really see a way to contribute to the discussion without a major movement on the world stage in the short-run. I've read reports lately of continued shale drilling, for instance, which supposedly isn't supposed to still be happening due to a combination of low profitability and depletion. I'm not seeing us pass the ominous inflection points that were supposed to have happened by now.

The only real value there is in coming here is to kind of watch these arguments go around in infinite loops and wonder why it is people feel compelled to perpetuate them when they obviously aren't going anywhere.

[yellowcanoe]

I've lurked because I don't really see a way to contribute to the discussion without a major movement on the world stage in the short-run. I've read reports lately of continued shale drilling, for instance, which supposedly isn't supposed to still be happening due to a combination of low profitability and depletion. I'm not seeing us pass the ominous inflection points that were supposed to have happened by now.

Changes haven't happened as quickly as I had expected in 2008 but the reality that we are running out of oil that is cheap to produce is still there. It may be that some shale drilling is still happening but you need to keep in mind that the cost of drilling in terms of renting a drilling rig, paying your crew and paying service companies has been significantly reduced. However, if drilling resumed on a large scale all those costs would go right back up.

[AdamB]

I am active in other internet communities and the common thread I see is people sparring over predictions. Whether it's Nostradamus, Jim Cramer, or Nate Silver, the whole purpose in sharing a prediction is some degree of self-aggrandizement. When you stick your ego on the chopping block like that don't be surprised to see people resist conceding.

I've noticed the same thing. And it goes back a LONG ways, this natural aversion to admitting that some prediction or another was a crock, people really get tied up in it, lacking the kind of objective and critical thinking that is admittedly so rare in our country nowadays, taking out their ability to learn from those types of mistakes, rather than doubling down.

I think people are more freaked out by the prospect of black swan events than they are by the much more likely probability they'll get hit by a car or be given a terminal cancer diagnosis.

In the doomer world, people are HOPING for black swan events, and some had configured peak oil just that way. Now vigorously attempting the same with climate change. Interestingly, they often leave out real fears of real events, mega-volcanoes, Carrington events, cosmic collisions, the kinds of things that are givens in the probability world, only lacking a specific "when". Remember how fedghettos were the thing to fear? The draft? I can't even say those folks guessed at any of the black swans that are reasonable.

I've lurked because I don't really see a way to contribute to the discussion without a major movement on the world stage in the short-run. I've read reports lately of continued shale drilling, for instance, which supposedly isn't supposed to still be happening due to a combination of low profitability and depletion. I'm not seeing us pass the ominous inflection points that were supposed to have happened by now.

The only real value there is in coming here is to kind of watch these arguments go around in infinite loops and wonder why it is people feel compelled to perpetuate them when they obviously aren't going anywhere.

Learn from history, or be doomed to repeat it forever. I think the main problem is that "learn" thing....not enough of it, even when it slaps you in the face, and isn't even shaped like a bell shaped curve anymore.

[Plantagenet]

In the doomer world, people are HOPING for black swan events, and some had configured peak oil just that way. Now vigorously attempting the same with climate change.

The scientists who predict global warming aren't "vigorously attempting" to do anything. In the real world the physical properties of atmospheric gases are well known and molecules of CO2, CH4, H2O (vapor), and some other gases trap heat in the atmosphere and warm the planet.

Thats just how it is.

Cheers!