Let me begin this thread by stating that it will be certainly be controversial.








As many of you know, I have posted on this board for some time now, and have done my utmost to research as deeply as I can to make an informed decision on the current status of peak oil depletion. Thus, I have not made the decision to post this lightly.

What brought about my recent foray into questioning the timing of peak is to what factor Iraq's undeveloped reserves, and their control by the U.S., will play into this.

This recent news report is what got it started:



At first, I thought: 400 BILLION? Hogwash!

After all, the consensus has previously been around 115 Billion barrels. I dismissed it as rhetoric. Yet, after running into a reference to a book written in 1977 by John M. Blair, entitled "The Control of Oil" recently posted on the blog Peak Energy sent me searching.


I learned that Iraq has had a very unique history in its oil reserves development and production, and that it might just be true that a fairly significant amount of oil remains to be developed. I learned that the majors may have worked mightily to contain the true nature of Iraq's reserves, and that Iraq has indeed not had the kind of development the reported amounts of those reserves would engender. There are a fair number of other considerations as well, most of which deal with a better estimate of Iraq's remaining proven, and probable, reserves.

Let us assume that the amount of reserves is far larger than many had surmised or expected. We then, of course, may see peak oil delayed, or, far more likely, managed for maximize control and profit. However, since the US and its intelligence community has long known about and planned for, the probable peak in oil production, plans would have been made to control resources upon the downslope. Indeed, many have already stated that.

However, WHAT IF, peak was indeed to happen, and it just so happens that the US and the West's interests in oil development happened to be able to CONTROL the downslope at at time of apparently declining supplies, while taking advatage of a truly awesome resource base, it would make the neocon conquest of Iraq make even clearer sense given the costs in lives, geopolitical relationships, and money thus far. In fact, if we estimate the remaining proved + probable reserves of Iraq at what appears to be a consensus estimate of 200 billion, at $50 barrel, that would imply a resource base of 10 TRILLION DOLLARS.... (one of my links goes through the resource estimates in detail). Remember, Cheney's energy task force, which STILL has not released details on the substance of their discussions (even after being sued), DID release a few documents, which were in fact, maps of the oil fields of IraqIraq Oil Map from Cheney Energy Task Force (along with UAE and SA - in references below). Thus, it was clear that the location of their oil fields and the extent to which they had been produced had been discussed, as did the potential suitors for Iraqi oil development, listed by country. Thus, as peak was predicted to come into view, controlling the largest resource base was key, no the question is, just how large a resource base is it? Has ASPO responded to this particular question with a truly in-depth analysis?

I have assembled an in-depth list of links for those who would care to dissect and/or refute this analysis. They are quite diverse as to source, political affilation, and background, and should make for interesting reading.

I wish my post to be understood in the light that I do believe that a peak is or will occur very, very shortly, but with this I am questioning as to whether it is being managed by way of a much larger than disclosed Iraqi oil reserve base, that, if and when the conditions become better, will be exploited, and I do mean exploited, to their fullest. In the meantime, any reserves in the ground may only rise in value as we peak.

The Virgin OilsFields Of Iraq - ENI's Magueri in Newsweek

National Geographic - Cheap Oil Era Far From Over

Global Oil Companies Undercut U.S. Policies Toward Iraq, Iran - WSJ

David Smith's economicsuk.com

Seattle Times - Global Race is On to Snag Oil Supplies

Dissident Voice - We're Not Going Anywhere/Ken Sanders

GeoTimes - Assessing Iraq's Oil Potential

EIA - Country Analysis Briefs -Iraq

Energy Bulletin - Seeking Oil's Prize

Aljazeera via Metareligion - The importance of Iraqi oil to the US

The Iraq Oil Bonanza: Estimating Future Profits - Global Policy Forum

Global Policy Forum - Oil in Iraq: the heart of the Crisis

How Much Oil Does Iraq Have? - Brookings Institution

Global Policy Forum - Oil Companies Hold Down Production in Iraq

Peak Energy - The Control Of Oil

Judicial Watch - Cheney Energy Task Force Documents/Maps

I think it was a segment of the BBC's "The Power of Nightmares"in which the owner of a small British petroleum exploration and development firm spoke about Iraq's true reserve totals. He did not give a total estimate - because it's not known - only that there was an awful lot of oil in Iraq. He said it in such a way as to be more than emphatic - talking about the amount of oil in Iraq in dreamy tones as if he were a conquistador talking about el Dorado.

He had completed making certain arrangements for the development of specific untapped fields with the Iraqi leadership when 911, and the subsequent invasion of Iraq spoiled his plans.

You can download the three installments of "Power of Nightmares" using Bittorrent or free peer-to-peer software like LimeWire. It's very good. It was shown on British TV last October.

Fat chance of the American public getting a dose of anything like it.

Good post OilsNotWell! can you give your source for the two maps. From ASPO (newslette 024):

A workmate of mine was with the UN on the first weapons inspections teams back in to 1990's. He reckons that the whole country is floating on oil. Many times when they had to carry out controlled explosions on unexploded ordnance they struck oil. He said the locals would come and laugh at them as a gusher went on where the detonation had taken place. Thses areas were not near any official oilfields.

200 billion barrels of oil would see the US right for 25 years.

OK reality check people. The USGS assessment done in 2000 has reserves less than 200 MMB for Iraq. This isn't a number pulled out of the air but one that was arrived at through analysis of historical data followed by statistical projection. Having spent considerable time wading through their projections for various basins I am of the opinion that, on average, they tend to be optimistic when there is a lot of data available and somewhat pessimistic when there is little data available. In the case of Iraq almost all of the fields are contained in one geologic province...the Zagros overthrust. These structures are very obvious, many of them having been drilled on surface expression. The only structures that were known but not developed are those that lie on the Iranian border. One could argue that Super giant fields such as Majnoon (means crazy in Arabic) or East Baghdad will benefit from infill drilling, horizontal drilling etc. but these are not simple reservoirs, often complicated by fractured zones and variable reservoir quality.
The hopes for Iraqi "massive" remaining reserves would have to lie in two areas....the relatively undrilled Western Desert and reservoirs that to date have not been found to contain reserves (possibly need stratigraphic traps). In terms of the Western Desert the USGS estimate is pretty small (a couple of billion barrels if I remember correctly) although the small database they have to work from limits their ability to predict properly. But what is known is that the Western Desert is relatively unstructured in comparison to the Zagros and the few wells that have been drilled have not been promising with respect to a reliable petroleum system. Certainly there could be a considerable amount of oil here....but double or greater the current original oil in place in the huge Zagros traps?....I just don't see that. Unfortunately I think it will be ages before there is a proper government and security situation in place such that Western companies get proper access to all of the information available and better reserve predictions come out.
BTW I wonder if a lot of the problems in the numbers floating around out there are that often they are reported by business analysts who really have not grasped the concept of resource versus reserves, nor the difference between proven, probable and possible. It is possible that at least occassionally they read an OOIP number and then just report that as reserves.....in most fields this would be an overestimate of reserves by 3 times.

I wondered about that quote too when I read it. It's maddening how similar the problem is to the larger PO issue. Without third-party audits of reserve numbers we just don't know what the real numbers are. I'm convinced that even if 9/11 had not occured the neocons would have found an excuse to invade Iraq anyway - what little we know of the energy task force meetings seem to point that way and Richard Clarke said as much when asked about 9/11, "they (the neocons) said, 'great, now we can do what we've always wanted.'" Which in this case was take the Iraqi oil fields at US taxpayer expense (in lives and dollars).

But without some sort of audit I don't see how John Q. Public will really know how much oil Iraq has.

Another important question about Iraq would be the amount of NATURAL GAS RESERVES sitting under the country.

It might be worth as much as the oil someday.

Khebab, thank you for finding that ASPO reference.

ASPO envisions higher production. How MUCH higher remains to be seen, and how it would affect peak. One would assume the lengths to which the US would go to keep that number hidden. It would be logical to assume that a more accurate estimate, whatever it is, would be called a 'national security' (even though the oil is in IRAQ) issue for the US.

Thus, even though a call has been made for far greater transparency in oil reserve and production figures, in the case of Iraq, they might be dreaming for a while...

And even though Iraq has ostensibly been under the control of US for over two years now, I still have yet to see official or even semi-official survey figures coming out...They are certiainly being done, one would think, even with the level of violence... I also suggest that to delay production one is basically keeping it in storage until later, thus taking full advantage of its inevitable rise in value, and making the Saudi's and everyone else produce theirs first...

I have been a believer in peak for quite some time, still am, in fact, however, but due to what I see as this 'black hole' numbre I find it's extremely difficult to ascertain how peak will play out. Unfortunately, some will find my post or similar information as cause for apathy...as the time for change is truly now to mimize inevitable disruptions, whether they come next year or 10 years from now, they will come.

The poster who mentioned the almost breathless legendary "El Dorado" type qualities of Iraqi oil...WHAT IT??? It WOULD BE THE GREATEST TREASURE KNOWN TO MAN....EVER....It's why Cheney calls it 'where the real treasure' lies..

EDIT: spellin'

The source for thos two maps are the Geotimes article...(BTW, just right click over the image and you will see its URL address if you then left click on properties...)

Hmmm, one of the links you list contains:



There doesn't seem to be a lot of solid facts behind that assumption. When you add in rockdoc123's comments about the western desert and also add in how comparing the number of rigs to those in Texas is spurious, at first blush, the projection seems a bit rosy.

But at the same time, it's understandable why Cheney and his oil buddies are drooling at what is known to be there, with a potential huge windfall on top of it.

Is there anybody who stil thinks Iraq wasn't primarily about oil?

yes I read that article as well.....shows a bit of ignorance in the way petroleum systems work. One could just as easily say that because there has been a ton of oil found in the Gulf of Suez that equal success should come from drilling the Dead Sea trough or the Gulf of Aden....just doesn't work that way I'm afraid. The great hope for Iraq upside would be the Western Desert but unfortunately the prospective reservoirs are mainly Paleozoic which have not been shown to be prolific reservoirs in the area to date. There is a good Silurian source rock but it might be so deep as to be generating gas rather than oil. Any gas here would have to compete with the huge easily accessible gas reserves in Qatar and Iran for LNG markets so I think it would sit in the ground for a considerable time....although I guess it could be sent east through Syria and Lebanon to the Medd for transport to the UK.
I took a minute to dig through some data I just happen to have regarding wells drilled, fields, known production etc. A lot of it doesn't make sense. For example one of the fields that has noted about 20 billion barrels has been on production since 1978 but has produced less than 3% of the reserves. The oil is a bit heavy (26 API) but that should not account for the low recovery, even given shutdowns for the Gulf war(s)......what is really puzzling is there are twice as many wells as producers suggesting there are a lot of dry holes (ie. reservoir discontinuity issues) or a lot of gas/water injection wells (i.e. reservoir energy issues). Any of these numbers are of course completely in question given that Iraq was probably guilding the lily about reserves and production from about 1980 onwards.
I did plot up a creaming curve for the period 1925 to 1993 and it looks like a basin that has reached maturity....but again that could be due to a lack of appraisal, in-fill, step-out efforts during the Iran/Iraq and Gulf wars rather than diminishing returns.

rockdoc123

Thanks for inputting your far greater expertise...

Now you can see why it's so hard to put a finger on just how these reservoirs have been played out...it's a black hole..

Most people don't realize that Sadaam has worked with/for the U.S. for many, many years, even going back to how he came into power in the first place with 'assistance'...it is not unreasonable to therefore theorize that field management has been politicized...

Since I don't know if many are going to click on the docs from the Cheney energy task force as a PDF file, I scanned them and post them here (I had to split them in two for decent detail):






I think a point should be made that there are fewer wells producing that what could be..

And, as another poster commented in a side thread...all this won't make a difference for oil, because of the ongoing resistance, it can't be developed, delivered, etc. Infrastructure is aging, reservoirs may have been damaged by improper management, etc.

This is true, certainly, but that insurgency came about because there were those who salivated at the current reserves and future prospects..

TRILLIONS of dollars...and military control of it...going back into Western oil majors control...

Many here have read that a famous quote by who was it I can't recall offhand, but that 'oil is too valuable to be left in the control of Arabs'?

EDIT: of which quote, I will add, I disagree with. Self-determination should rule.

EDIT2: I am going to add an image from the FTW site, who said it was from the BBC. What is interesting is that look at the large oil fields in Western Iraq shown on this map. Now compare to the others on this page thread...



Yes, here is the BBC link...

BBC Iraq oilfield info

While I'm at it, I'll also add a link to a 1992 CIA map of Iraqi oil fields:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_e ... s_1992.jpg

Another Iraqi oil field map the St. Pete Times:



And a link (because they are huge maps) to an excellent industry Greg Croft site of Sourthern Iraqi oil fields:

http://www.gregcroft.com/area2indexmap.ivnu

http://www.gregcroft.com/area3map.ivnu

Clouseau2 said

That’s true, but obviously the Bush admin thinks the security situation will turn around soon enough.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/30/cheney.iraq/index.html

If there is an increase in troop levels, I think it can be looked at as a desire to improve the security situation to get the oil to the market. The longer the insurgency continues without the Bush admin increasing troop count, the more legitimacy there is to the argument that the Bush admin is in no rush to get the oil to the market, for whatever reason.