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Page added on November 15, 2016
Feds Call West Texas Deposit ‘Largest’ in History
A western Texas oil and natural gas shale formation was labeled the “largest” of its kind by the U.S. Geological Survey on Tuesday.
Federal surveyors announced that the Wolfcamp shale in the Midland Basin portion of Texas’ Permian Basin now holds the record for most oil, natural gas, and gas liquid deposits that are “undiscovered, technically recoverable resources.”
The USGS notes that within its survey spanning from north of Lubbock to remote regions southwest of San Angelo, an estimated and previously unaccounted for 20 billion barrels of crude oil; 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas; and 1.6 billion barrels of natural gas liquids are able to be extracted by means typically involving slant drilling and hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as “fracking”. The figures are based on official methods that project untapped resources amid formations already surveyed and exploited.
Source: USGS
A government spokesperson underscored the historic nature of the finding in a release.
“The fact that this is the largest assessment of continuous oil we have ever done just goes to show that, even in areas that have produced billions of barrels of oil, there is still the potential to find billions more,” said Walter Guidroz, for the USGS Energy Resources Program. “Changes in technology and industry practices can have significant effects on what resources are technically recoverable, and that’s why we continue to perform resource assessments throughout the United States and the world.”
North Texans for Natural Gas, an organization that bills itself as “a grassroots organization that aims to give a voice to those who support natural gas” and booster of Barnett Shale projects hailed the finding to Breitbart Texas Tuesday.
“It’s no surprise that Texas has massive oil fields, but these new findings from USGS are jaw-dropping. Fracking and horizontal drilling have turned the United States into a global energy superpower, and the untapped potential in the Wolfcamp means we won’t be surrendering that status any time soon,” group spokesman Steve Everly said. “For the few remaining advocates of ‘Peak Oil,’ this certainly isn’t their lucky day.”
The USGS notes that it does not account for the profitability of new deposit extractions.
The previous discovery record dates back to 2013 for North Dakota’s Bakken-Three Forks oil accumulation. Texas’ latest discovery dwarfs the northern high plains state by a factor of three.
The Wolfcamp shale has been no stranger to extraction efforts over the past three decades. The USGS estimates that roughly 3,000 wells have been drilled using horizontal methods in later years alone.
Given the substantial jumps in local supply, the Petroplex is unlikely to be producing at pre-2014 levels in the months ahead. Brent Crude pricing has hovered in the low to mid-$40 range for weeks leading up to the 2016 Election. An unshackled Iran continues to speed past output benchmarks while OPEC has again advanced the question of cutting production among member states to stabilize markets, according to Bloomberg.
19 Comments on "Feds Call West Texas Deposit ‘Largest’ in History"
dave thompson on Tue, 15th Nov 2016 8:07 pm
Does the BS never end?
Apneaman on Tue, 15th Nov 2016 9:10 pm
Breitbart and the rest of the inbred media are always putting out shit like this. Luckily for them they can bank on the readerships 12 second attention span. Hey fellas, but what happened to those trillions of barrels y’all said they was gonna get from squeezing that kerogen a few years back? There was even a video with a preacher at the pulpit telling the faithful is was a coming – prosperity gospel preaching.
I bet I could make a good buck starting up my own conservatard news site. Just pick up stories off the wire and put the retard spin on them. After a time when the site gets about 100,000 unique mouth breather visits a day, the Koch, API, NRA, etc people will be wanting to advertise there. $$$$$$$
Boat on Tue, 15th Nov 2016 11:09 pm
Ape,
You should start that site. Even if the good news and proficy goes south, blaming the deep state Jew will sell adds as well.
Apneaman on Wed, 16th Nov 2016 12:09 am
Yes boat, Jews are important, but the main thing is to push the victimization buttons and direct all the blame to other groups. Never republican politicians. No their policies have just been so fucking kind to the working man. The hollowing out of the country is 100% liberal politicians fault. Conservative politicians and propagandists like $70 million a year Junkie Rush Limbaugh only care about the little guy. It’s real hard to feel any empathy for people that fucking stupid and that insistent in their certainty. That other team, the liberals, have really lost it too. Their propagandists are spinning articles about Trump and going all “Minority Report” on him by trying and convicting him of 500 future crimes even though he won’t be sworn in for a couple of months. The Pre crime unit is here. Trump is a sub human skid mark and will probably do a bunch of that shit, but the funniest part of all is their claims that “now” the climate is fucked for sure. Sorry libtards, but the climate has been fucked for sometime and the hour is way late. Just look at what is happening at the poles. What’s going on in the Arctic right now is a freaking horror show and nothing is going to stop it. The liberals are trying to dump all that shit on Trump. Decades of progressive failures are being dumped on Trump when oil boomed under Obama and the keeling curve climbed. See the similarities boat? All these human problems will be over before you know it. Mass extinctions are none too kind.
joe on Wed, 16th Nov 2016 12:23 am
Thats cause nows the time for librals to quit with honor on GW and CC. If they blame Trump now and he makes even a couple of pro-oil laws then liberals as usual will run off to moveon.org and start a petition and thank God they didnt have to actually preside over the destruction of towns and cities that once put so many democrats into power when unionised jobs once prevailed. Liberals will cry that their 3rd way empire of values didnt come true when Madame and Mister Corruption couldnt play the pipe one last time. Trump will one day be their Jesus, a man in whos reputation they can wash off all their own sins and begin again.
makati1 on Wed, 16th Nov 2016 12:23 am
“Feds Call West Texas Deposit ‘Largest’ in History”
Biggest pile of bullshit, certainly. LMAO
rockman on Wed, 16th Nov 2016 12:32 am
Well looks like I gave Davy my opinion a few hours too early. And since this is the appropriate thread to express my thoughts here you go…again. But a couple of additional points first: all oil is technically recoverable… just a question of how much capex can be justified. Second don’t be confused and think the Survey is saying this is a new play. Watch their wording closely: “…and previously unaccounted for 20 billion barrels…”.
IOW they knew the reserves were there for 30 years but didn’t bother to make an estimate until now: “The Wolfcamp shale has been no stranger to extraction efforts over the past three decades. The USGS estimates that roughly 3,000 wells have been drilled using horizontal methods in later years alone.”
Why they’ve made an estimate now and not 20 years ago when both horizontal drilling and frac’ng were established technologies is another question.
So skip the repeat if you already saw it below:
Davy – Don’t need to fact check. Of course there’s 20 billion bbls UNDERNEATH the west Texas desert in just that one formation. Big f*cking deal. LOL. There is more PROVEN residual oil in already discovered fields UNDERNEATH the west Texas desert. Big f*cking deal. And there are hundreds of billions of bbls of oil trapped UNDERNEATH just the area along the Gulf Coast. Big f*cking deal.
And globally? There are TRILLIONS of bbls of oil still trapped in the ground. And yes: big f*cking deal.
I’m a bit surprised at you. I’m sure you know the difference between oil in place, technically recoverable oil and commercially recoverable oil at a specific price point.
So here’s THE question: of those 20 billion bbls how many are [really] TECHNICALLY recoverable? [Meaning with little history of recoveries from frac’d horizontal wells this number is questionable IMHO] Most folks, such as the USGS et al estimate only 10% to 20% is technically recoverable. [Which means the Survey is estimating many times that 20 billion bbl in place]
And the even BIGGER question: how many of those 20 billion bbls are COMMERCIALLY recoverable at $45/bbl? Oh, one more biggie: of those reserves that might be recoverable at the current oil price how long will it take to produce them: 10 years…20 years…40 years? And would the added production rate exceed the decline rate of the existing wells?
In truth until someone can come up with CREDIBLE answers to those questions it doesn’t really matter if the 20 billion bbls are FACT or not, does it? LOL.
[More to the point: if these 20 billion bbls aren’t being produced at a meaningful level today when will this next “boom” begin? After all the technology was available when oil was $100/bbl to develop these reserves that were known and drilled for 30 years. And when it does will it have similar short lived and financially disastrous life as the Bakken and Eagle Ford?]
Go Speed Racer on Wed, 16th Nov 2016 12:35 am
I love it. Undiscovered oil and gas.
Similar to the undiscovered millions of dollars
in my checking account.
Cloggie on Wed, 16th Nov 2016 3:11 am
Stop worrying about the world running out of carbon fuel.
Begin to worry about how to stop using this garbage without having to return to the stone age.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_Kingdom
In 2005 it had proven recoverable coal reserves of 171 million tons. It has been estimated that identified onshore areas have the potential to produce between 7 billion tonnes and 16 billion tonnes of coal through underground coal gasification (UCG). Based on current UK coal consumption, these volumes represent reserves that could last the UK between 200 and 400 years.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2593032/Coal-fuel-UK-centuries-Vast-deposits-totalling-23trillion-tonnes-North-Sea.html
There is enough carbon for centuries to come. Mining is for dummies, you can burn the tar on location. Canadian tar sands same story. Transport the gas, heat and electricity, not the tar and leave the landscape untouched.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-37839909
‘Wrong’ to oppose fracking, former Greenpeace head says
The strategy must be to use renewables as the energy base and increasingly tax carbon out of existence (and The Donald into submission.lol).
Cloggie on Wed, 16th Nov 2016 3:16 am
http://tinyurl.com/hydlnd3
The Push to Coal Gasification in Alberta
This paper will look specifically at coal gasification as this has the largest impact on Canada and Alberta, specifically in developing a higher value and more environmentally acceptable usage of coal when compared to straight combustion. Modern coal gasification also introduces a cost-effective substitute to natural gas in the form of syngas and hydrogen that can replace natural gas usage for larger natural gas users (such as the oil sands) allowing the natural gas to be freed up for other commercial markets. Finally,
the hydro-gasification process produces a relatively pure and easily captured CO2 stream that normal coal combustion does not allow (or is highly uneconomical). In Alberta this carbon dioxide stream is an additional product line for the coal gasifier, who can sell the product to the oil industry for enhanced oil recovery.
Davy on Wed, 16th Nov 2016 4:38 am
Rock, I guess I should have “Sarc” you. I tend to treat any of these articles as hype so I expected you to trounce it with your expertise. I am not the West Texas expert.
rockman on Wed, 16th Nov 2016 9:55 am
Davy – I suspected as much…I always read your posts. LOL. And I’m not a W Texas expert either…far from it. But between the www and 40 years of decoding the hyping of oil/NG bullsh*t it’s not difficult to add a dash of reality to such stories.
Revi on Wed, 16th Nov 2016 10:47 am
Breitbart news. Huh…
Dredd on Wed, 16th Nov 2016 2:12 pm
Construction workers getting paid good money watched soft looking clouds float overhead as they worked on “the great wall” of New Orleans. It was being built to hold off flooding from the sea. The clouds proceeded over the great wall to produce flooding that rendered them homeless.
(The IPCC Record on Global Warming Temperature Projections – 3)
J-Gav on Wed, 16th Nov 2016 3:09 pm
Thanks Rockman,
This is what I was trying to explain to my brother who lives in Midland. You did it so much better.
Shortend on Wed, 16th Nov 2016 8:21 pm
AUSTIN, Texas A research team led by The University of Texas at Austin has been awarded approximately $58 million to analyze deposits of frozen methane under the Gulf of Mexico that hold enormous potential to increase the world’s energy supply
http://news.utexas.edu/2014/10/22/methane-hydrates-energy-supply
Estimates vary on the amount of energy that could be produced from methane hydrate worldwide, but the potential is huge. In the Gulf of Mexico, where the team will be sampling, there is estimated to be about 7,000 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of methane in sand-dominated reservoirs near the seafloor. That is more than 250 times the amount of natural gas used in the United States in 2013
Small potatoes compared to methane hydrates.
You couldn’t make this stuff up.
Newfie on Wed, 16th Nov 2016 8:21 pm
Here’s news that will never be published in Breitbart:
2016 will be the warmest year on record.
Mark Ziegler on Thu, 17th Nov 2016 9:25 am
Imagine the barren Texas landscape filled with well pumps and completely trashed water table. Occasional earthquakes with Methane flows oozing into the atmosphere.
DerHundistlos on Fri, 18th Nov 2016 1:14 am
@ Joe MaMa
Aren’t you embarrassed driving around in your little clown car spewing forth Drudge copy and paste vomit? Pathetic.