ROCKMAN wrote:I think it critical for folks to understand the dynamics behind the current boom and increased oil production. The danger is their believing that there is a potential to find more “new” resources to develop. Every oil resource in the US has been identified long ago. Those economic to develop at current prices are being developed. And there are those resource plays that aren’t economic to develop at today’s prices. One day they may also boom…when prices are higher.
R - You are right on the money as usual.
However, there remains the question of when these "new" oil discoveries occurred. While the Bakken Fm was defined decades ago, only very limited oil production occurred until the price of oil went up and fracking became commonly used. The announcement last week by the Obama Administration that there are now 7.4 BILLION bbls of oil to be gotten from the Williston basin using current technology and at current prices is new. These "new" bbls oil need to be accounted for as "new" discoveries of oil. Anything over 500 million barrels of oil is considered a "giant" field. And when you add up all the new "giant" oil fields available through fracking, it amounts to a very large rate of discovery going on right now.
One of the foundations of the peak oil theory is the idea that oil discoveries "peaked" in the 1960s, and have systematically decreased and declined since then, inevitably leading to inexorable declines in global oil production. But thanks to fracking, there is a large "bump" of new oil discoveries occurring right now. I know the peak oil model was developed for "conventional" oil fields, but when discussing peak oil we can't ignore the new unconventional oil as it holds the promise of delaying declines in global oil production to some time out into the future.
drilling and fracking can produce oil from throughout sub-surface shale beds