[copious.abundance]

A serious decline in global oil production will very likely mean a decrease in the material standard of living at best, and extreme hardship and suffering at worst, for everyone we know and ourselves. Claiming that people who believe peak oil is a problem want it to happen so that they can be correct is crass in the extreme.

On the contrary, I can show you at least two polls on this forum where the majority of respondents said 'yes' to the question of "Do you want peak oil to occur in the near future?" Here is one of them. 53% of the forum said they *do* want peak oil to occur in the near future. There was another poll about 4 or 5 years ago I saw once while I was browsing through some old threads, I can find it if you want me to. So, sorry, I am not being crass, I am telling you what the majority of people on this forum desire. Perhaps you haven't been too observant, but the kind of people who voted 'yes' in that poll are people who *want* a decrease in the material standard of living - which is why they want a near-term peak in oil production. It took me less than a month of posting on this forum to realize that. Perhaps you haven't been too observant.

[copious.abundance]

Long past time for an update!

The hydrocarbon discoveries in Brazil just keep a-comin'! Now they've made a huge natural gas discovery . . . onshore! It's like the Land of Cornucopia!

LINK

AUGUST 12, 2010, 2:29 P.M. ET.
OGX: Natural Gas Find Could Fill 25% of Brazil's Consumption

RIO DE JANEIRO (Dow Jones)--A natural gas find announced Thursday by Brazilian oil and gas company OGX Petroleo e Gas Participacoes SA could produce 25% of Brazil's current daily consumption, billionaire businessman Eike Batista said.

"The discovery was so important that I personally called President [Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva] Lula to give him the news," Batista said during a conference call.

Drillstem tests at the Parnaiba Basin discovery, dubbed California, showed natural gas pressure that indicated it could "easily" produce about 15 million cubic meters a day, Batista said. [note: that's about 530 million cubic feet per day]

The natural gas will be pumped directly to gas-fired power plants located above the fields and owned by OGX sister company MPX, OGX Chief Executive Paulo Mendonca added.

OGX plans to drill 15 additional wells at the site, with production expected within two years.

[...]

Here's a map showing the location of the discovery in the northeastern Brazilian state of Maranhao.


So much excitement!

[copious.abundance]

I won't add this to my catalog until they finish the appraisal well, but here's the news. Looks like we've got another Tupi.

LINK

Brazil’s Libra Field May Rival 8 Billion-Barrel Tupi
By Peter Millard

Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil’s deepwater Libra field may hold as much as 8 billion barrels of oil, rivaling nearby Tupi as the Americas’ biggest crude discovery in three decades, according to an official of the country’s Energy Ministry.

Initial estimates for the Santos Basin field off the coast of Brazil are between 7 billion and 8 billion barrels based on seismic and drilling data, Marco Antonio Almeida, head of oil and gas at the ministry, said today in Rio de Janeiro. That would rival the 5-billion-to-8-billion barrel estimate for Tupi.

“Libra is a well identified exploration opportunity,” Magda Chambriard, a director at Brazil’s oil regulator, told reporters today in Rio de Janeiro. “There are no bidding rounds in the world” for the amount of oil that Libra may hold, she said, adding that an independent certification firm hired by the regulator placed the reserves at about 7.9 billion barrels.

Brazil may possess more than 50 billion barrels of oil reserves in the so-called pre-salt region, which runs 800 kilometers along Brazil’s coast from Espirito Santo to Santa Catarina states, according to the national oil regulator. The biggest discoveries are in Santos, where a layer of salt traps oil located as much as 3,000 meters beneath the ocean surface.

A well currently being drilled at Libra on behalf of the oil regulator, known as the ANP, should be completed within 30 days and exploration rights for the field may be auctioned as soon as mid-2011, Almeida said.

[...]

[ian807]

.....she said, adding that an independent certification firm hired by the regulator placed the reserves at about 7.9 billion barrels.
Brazil may possess more than 50 billion barrels of oil reserves in the so-called pre-salt region...

Excellent news. At current consumption rates, 7.9 billion barrels could supply the USA for at least a year. 50 billion barrels would supply the whole world for a little less than two years. If we threw in some conservation, we could slow powerdown by 5 years or so, and we'll need that time.

[copious.abundance]

Excellent news. At current consumption rates, 7.9 billion barrels could supply the USA for at least a year. 50 billion barrels would supply the whole world for a little less than two years. If we threw in some conservation, we could slow powerdown by 5 years or so, and we'll need that time.

Ah yes, the predictable peaker response of "Oh, it will only supply the world with X years/months of oil." And, as I've pointed out about a gazillion times in response, this exposes the hypocrasy of trumpeting the decline of Cantarell or [insert existing oil field here] because those too are equally insignificant, according to this reasoning.

Why don't you just come out and tell me Ghawar is insignifcant too? After all, it would only supply the world for 5 years or so.

What a ridiculous argument.

FYI here is my running total of Brazilian oil discoveries for my catalog, including the as-yet-uncataloged Libra announced today.


Brazil Oil Discoveries: Name - Size - Month/Year
Papa-Terra - 700 million - 1 billion barrels - 12/05
Xerelete - 1.4 billion barrels - 7/07
Tupi - 5-8 billion barrels - 11/07
Golfinho - 150 million barrels - 7/08
Iara - 3-4 billion barrels - 10/08
Additions to Jubarte - 1.9 billion barrels - 10/08
Tiro - 150 million barrels - 10/08
Sub-salt layers of Baleia Franca, Baleia Azul, and Jubarte - 1.5-2 billion barrels - 11/08
Aruana - 280 million barrels - 8/09
Guara - 1.1-2 billion barrels - 09/09
Vesuvio - 500 million - 1.5 billion barrels - 10/09
Caricoa - 681 million barrels - 11/09
Well OGX-2A - 400-500 million barrels - 11/09
Addition to Marimba - 25 million barrels - 11/09
Addition to Well OGX-2A - 600 million-1.5 billion barrels - 12/09
Well OGX-4-RUS - 100-200 million barrels - 02/10
Well 1-OGX-3-RJS - 500-900 million barrels - 02/10
Well 4-PM-53 - 25 million barrels - 02/10
Additions to Barracuda - 65 million barrels - 2/10
Maastrichtian section of Well OGX-5 - 30-90 million barrels - 2/10
Piranema - 15 million barrels - 3/10
Wahoo - 300 million barrels - 4/10
Franco - 4.5 billion barrels - 5/10
Pipeline and Etna (well OGX-6) - 1.4-2.6 billion barrels - 5/10
Waimea and Fuji (wells OGX-2 and OGX-8) - 600 million-1.1 billion barrels - 5/10
Carimbe - 105 million barrels - 5/10
Brava - 380 million barrels - 6/10
Libra - 7-8 billion barrels - 9/10
-------------------------------------------
Running total: 32.406 - 43.366 billion barrels

[copious.abundance]

Oillooserdouche, you know even less about survey methodology and validity then you do about human psychology and petroleum geology. These surveys mean little, their design and execution are casual at best, the respondent base does not represent the total population, and so the results tell little about the membership here.

This was hilarious! Did you even click on the link? It was a poll I started on this forum - and you're talking about survey design and execution! But with 185 votes it is undoubtedly a good sample, and anyone who hangs out here long-enough becomes well-aware (unless they are blind) that at least a plurality of people here - and probably a majority - want oil production to peak and decline.

It's been obvious for years you have a simple, tedious repetitive agenda to debunk peak oil and its consequences. You defend your thesis with a lousy understanding of the relationship between reservoir measures and production actualities.

Fancy words, meaningless content.

You still have not risen to my challenge repeated over several years--show us the last time new discoveries of free-flowing liquid petroleum, preferably light-sweet crude, have come close to consumption. In lieu of that try showing how this petroleum-sodden industrial civiliation can function on alternative energies such as tar sands, shale oil, arctic and ultra-deep fields, a fraction of the size of the super giants we have come to depend on.

give it your best Oily.

Here is this year's tally to date, not counting Libra:

Recoverable running total year to date: 13.107 billion barrels minimum to 15.923 billion barrels maximum
OIP running total year to date: 57.26 billion barrels minimum to 59.8 billion barrels maximum

If we assume roughly 25% of the OIP number will eventually become recoverable (14.3 billion barrels min.) and add that to the recoverable amount (13.1 billion barrels min.), we get 27.4 billion barrels. Add in the 7-8 billion barrels from today's Libra announcement, and we have exceeded yearly world consumption.

Petroleum is not "free-flowing." It needs to be pumped out of the ground. Nor has historic oil been so overwhelmingly "light sweet" as you claim. I urge you to visit one of the many oil fields in your own state to find out for yourself. But then, we've gone through this ad nauseum and you still keep repeating the same thing over and over.

Now that I've responded to your challenge, I have a challenge for you: Please repeat after me:

"I, pstarr, do not want world oil production to decline. Deep in my heart I desire that it keep rising as needed by the world's technological/industrial civilization."

Oh yeah, and speaking of unanswered challenges, you've got the audacity to challenge me to answer some question of yours when you have repeatedly refused to accept or decline my natural gas challenge to you:

[copious.abundance]

Cantarell . . . Ghawar is insignifcant?

Oooo! You need to bone up on your bonerisms.

And you need to get a better eyeglass prescription. Note the inclusion of the word "too" at the end of my sentence where I mentioned Ghawar.

[copious.abundance]

OIP running total year to date: 57.26 billion barrels minimum to 59.8 billion barrels maximum

Utter nonsense and you know it. Please do not confuse OIP with reserves p95, much less p5

Notice that I did not. I said I would assume that only 25 percent of that OIP figure would be recoverable. I strongly suggest you take that visit to your eye doctor!

[ian807]

this exposes the hypocrasy of trumpeting the decline of Cantarell or [insert existing oil field here] because those too are equally insignificant, according to this reasoning.

It's spelled "hypocrisy."

Why don't you just come out and tell me Ghawar is insignifcant too? After all, it would only supply the world for 5 years or so.

If we were limited to that field, yes, it would be fairly insignificant. What makes Ghawar a good field is that the oil is of good quality, easy and cheap to access, and so has a high EROEI. Fields vary in quality and cost of extraction due to any number of factors like location, depth, permeability and reservoir distribution. Pay zone estimates from any field can be wildly off and are changed by things like oil prices and even well blow-outs.

What a ridiculous argument.

It's um, math.

[copious.abundance]

I'm bumping this thread in preparation for tomorrow.

[dixonge]

Trrumpet discoveries all you want. BUT...you DO know that they have absolutely nothing to do with peak oil, right? You know that Brazil just barely became a net exporter, right?

Wake me up when they decide to focus on increasing their production numbers...

[TheAntiDoomer]

Brazil’s Libra May Be Americas Top Find in 34 Years

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-1 ... years.html

Brazil said an offshore oil field may hold as much as 16 billion barrels of oil, twice initial estimates, which would make it the biggest crude discovery in the Americas in more than three decades.

The government’s Libra field off Brazil’s southeastern coast may have 7.9 billion to 16 billion barrels, said Haroldo Lima, the head of the oil regulator known as the ANP, according to the agency’s press office. The ANP plans to publish a report on drilling at Libra as early as about 11 a.m. New York time, a press official, who can’t be named because of an internal policy, said by telephone from Rio de Janeiro.

[copious.abundance]

^
Actually, the correct number is 15 billion, and more precisely, the range of probability is from 3.7 to 15 billion barrels. I'll add this to my catalog later today.

LINK

Brazil Libra Oil Field Holds Up to 15 Billion Barrels
October 29, 2010, 1:11 PM EDT
By Peter Millard

Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil said the government’s Libra field may hold “gigantic” reserves of as much as 15 billion barrels, almost twice initial estimates, which would make it the biggest discovery in the Americas in more than three decades.

[...]

[ian807]

Well, 3.7 billion would stave off peak oil a month or so, and 15 billion would extend things another 6 months. But look, a few billion here and there. Pretty soon it adds up. We might slow powerdown by a decade or more if we're lucky.

[Ludi]

We might slow powerdown by a decade or more if we're lucky.

What good will that do if we aren't actually powering down? If instead of powering down we're counting on find after tiny find to make up for depletion? It's just putting off the inevitable for our children and grandchildren to have to deal with, rather than dealing with it ourselves.

[ian807]

We might slow powerdown by a decade or more if we're lucky.

What good will that do if we aren't actually powering down? If instead of powering down we're counting on find after tiny find to make up for depletion? It's just putting off the inevitable for our children and grandchildren to have to deal with, rather than dealing with it ourselves.

We won't get a choice. Here's what's likely to happen. Developing countries want more oil. Demand goes up, and in economic terms, it gets inelastic, since oil is needed to feed a growing population. When demand is inelastic, and supply suddenly drops because of terrorism, resource nationalism or just plain old dwindling supply, the price goes up and doesn't come down quickly.

So what happens then? Oil price feedback. That is to say, high oil prices increase the prices of everything else, including the price of finding, drilling, refining and distributing petroleum products.

So high oil prices cause oil prices to increase which causes higher oil prices which cause oil prices to increase which causes higher oil prices which....

You get the picture. Eventually world economies just can't sustain this and we all crash together. Oddly, this is sort of a good thing. There's still oil in the ground and expertise, and infrastructure. We'll still have a minimal amount - hopefully enough to transition to a lower energy lifestyle gradually. Of course, if we just keep spastically drilling and trying to use oil in the same ways and repeat this cycle a few times, the damage might be difficult to recover from. Wars could result, but at least, they won't be as extensive. No oil to move people around, you know. Unfortunately, I think this will tempt the large powers to put nukes in the field, which won't be pretty at all.