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THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

General discussions of the systemic, societal and civilisational effects of depletion.

Re: THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Wed 04 Jul 2018, 00:54:57

What nonsense, rockteacherofthefrosh. Your continual point is that failing discoveries mean little, because all past reserve estimates were short . . . so we don't really need new oil. But the paper you quote to defend that position says that peak will occur before 2020. That paper almost a decade old. Today is 2018 1/2.


Are you illiterate or do you just not bother to read? I pointed to that paper because of it’s discussion regarding reserve growth and for no other reason, obviously you should go back and read your own posts or do I have to repost it all again. This was in response to your idiotic comments that suggested somehow reserve growth wasn’t real. There are countless papers over the years that have outlined the statistics in support of this and the USGS now uses it in their own assessment. Are you arguing that the one paper I referenced did not say reserve growth was real? Do I need to reference a bunch more including the USGS?

Your suggestion that I am making some sort of argument I never did is pathetic. And BTW 2012 to 2018 is 6 years which is not “almost a decade old” unless you skipped grade school math. :roll:
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Re: THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Wed 04 Jul 2018, 01:48:52

pstarr wrote:Your beloved paper also concluded that peak oil is here. Sorry for you. No chance to round out the CV.

sad

If peak oil "is here" why do global oil production volumes keep increasing?

Try making such claims AFTER global oil production volumes have fallen for a few years, so you aren't wrong as soon as you say it.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

Unread postby Sys1 » Wed 04 Jul 2018, 04:02:31

From this chart, peak conventional oil was in 2011 at 86mbpd.
https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&biw=1920&bih=947&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=m3w8W4m7EMi7UYnlt_AL&q=conventional+oil+collapse+global&oq=conventional+oil+collapse+global&gs_l=img.3...49622.50518.0.50709.7.7.0.0.0.0.74.377.7.7.0....0...1c.1.64.img..0.0.0....0.CINPSkOLvKs#imgrc=XeVxkwZnkPq76M:
Shorter Link http://www.resilience.org/wp-content/up ... .png?w=650
For the dirty and hard to get oil, we don't know, as total liquid production is still growing. But!
But actually, with process like coal's liquefaction, total peak oil is quite pointless to get how close we are from energy cliff.
But we are certain that :
- We are more and more dependant on unconventional oil, around 15% in 2015 from the same chart. Unconventional production collapses far faster than conventional, it means that those 15% still growing in proportion to all production are weak and need to be replaced fast in order just to maintain production... and we are supposed to increase it forever, thanks to growth paradigm.
- For the moment, conventional oil production decreases slowly, but as unconventional techniques are now applyed on conventional oil rigs, aka water injection, there are some serious chances that the decrease will at a certain point looks like a Seneca cliff .
Last edited by Tanada on Wed 04 Jul 2018, 10:13:59, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Added shorter image link
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Re: THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Wed 04 Jul 2018, 11:26:51

As has been pointed out many times here there is no such thing as "conventional oil". There are conventional and unconventional reservoirs and there is a wide range of oil viscosities that complicate matters. Much of the LTO being produced from basin centres in the US currently is almost identical, both from a chemical and rheologic perspective to Brent and other oils like Bonny Light. There is low gravity oil with low viscosity that produces on its own energy and there is low gravity oil with high viscosity that needs energy inputs (heat, chemicals etc).
Trying to separate out the two is at best a mug's game, especially since included in that so-called "conventional peak" is oil produced from many reservoirs that would be considered unconventional (eg: Austin Chalk, Deep Basin Fields in Alberta, oil produced from fractured basement in Egypt, SE Asia and FSU). IT is easy to take out production from oil sands in Canada and Venezuela and production of LTO in US from shale basins but there are is lot of historical production that is actually from unconventional reservoirs but lumped in as being conventional.
There is really no reason to separate the two. The actual cost/bbl to produce LTO in the US is cheaper than much of the worlds offshore oil that is considered conventional. Refineries in the US actually require the oil sands production so they can blend with lighter oils to get to refinery specs. Contrary to popular belief held on this site the world did not suddenly switch to chasing heavy oil because we were running out of light oil. Companies were full on drilling in the various oil sands areas of Canada (McMurray, Cold Lake, Wabasca etc) in the mid-1970's.
The bottom line is Outcast_searcher is correct, one has to look at total oil production, there is no rational reason to try and subdivide it when talking about Peak Oil, especially when the produced hydrocarbons are essentially fungible (when blended) as far as refineries are concerned.
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Re: THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

Unread postby Plantagenet » Wed 04 Jul 2018, 13:03:04

rockdoc123 wrote:As has been pointed out many times here there is no such thing as "conventional oil". There are conventional and unconventional reservoirs....


Obviously when Pstarr or other people at this site discuss conventional or unconventional oil, they are talking about the oil obtained from conventional and unconventional reservoirs, respectively.

It saves to time to write "unconventional oil" instead of "oil from unconventional reservoirs." This kind of usage is very common in the English language. For instance, we talk about "business men" instead of "men who work in a business" or about "crime writers" instead of "writers who specialize in books about crime." The use of these kinds of short-hand descriptive terms are very basic to the way our language works, and I'm sure you are the only person who didn't get what Pstarr meant when he was discussing "unconventional oil" as opposed to "conventional oil" in the context of global oil markets. For almost all people the meaning is obvious from the context of the usage, and I'm fact I'm surprised that the erroneous conclusion that there was something unconventional about the oil itself ever occurred to you.

I hope this explanation helps and you get the meaning now? :)

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Re: THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Wed 04 Jul 2018, 13:36:20

I hope this explanation helps and you get the meaning now?


Don't be an ass with the word games. The definitions are clear, use or don't at your own peril.

My point....as was outlined above is there is basically no difference between the oil produced in LTO and what is produced from many of what are classified as conventional reservoirs such as Brent and Bonny light. They are also less expensive to produce on a per bbl or per boe basis than many of the conventional reservoirs. As a consequence, there is zero reason to separate them apart in terms of inclusion in the idea of Peak Oil. And, as I mentioned above there are already oils produced from unconventional reservoirs that are included in the diagram posted from the EIA, hence it is a meaningless analysis.
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Re: THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

Unread postby Plantagenet » Wed 04 Jul 2018, 14:04:12

pstarr wrote:So yes, the oil that comes out of the source rock called Permian is fine oil. It's just that the entire oil production system is quite unconventional.


Of course you are right again.

crocdoc can't win the agreement based on facts, so he looks for nits to pick. His suggestion that "unconventional oil" doesn't refer to oil from unconventional reservoirs but instead means the oil is peculiar in some way is totally illogical and inconsistent with the context of the discussion.

Cheers!
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Re: THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Wed 04 Jul 2018, 15:09:28

crocdoc can't win the agreement based on facts, so he looks for nits to pick. His suggestion that "unconventional oil" doesn't refer to oil from unconventional reservoirs but instead means the oil is peculiar in some way is totally illogical and inconsistent with the context of the discussion.


The argument I was making is that there is no reason to separate out oil from unconventional reservoirs versus oil produced from conventional reservoirs when looking at Peak Oil (which is what Outcast_searcher was trying to say). The oils from unconventional and conventional reservoirs are exactly the same in many cases, they are both easily refinable (either with the right refinery specs or through blending), their price is on par with each other based on similar oil characteristics and access to market, the cost to extract from unconventionals on a boe or bbl basis is often lower than is the case for some conventionals. There are numerous examples to back this up. As a consequence differentiating the two for the purposes of discussion of when Peak Oil happens or what it will look like makes little sense.

Plant, similarly rockdentist refuses to consider fracting of tight shale to be a "tertiary" production technique. Even though it is as unconventional as any other tertiary system, such as SAGH and THAI. Rather than injecting steam into very heavy petroleum (as applied to tar sands etc) so-called 'fracting' injects water (up to 10 million gallons plus sand and chemicals) applied to dense shale rock. I suspect that is for several reasons.


God you are truly an idiot. On at least three separate occasions I have provided the industry standard definition for Tertiary recovery which comes from the Oil Field Dictionary of terms. It requires that intervention is accomplished in order to change the material behavior of the oil (i.e. reduce viscosity or change wettability). This requires the addition of heat or chemicals that interact with the oil. In the case of fracking the chemicals in the frack fluid are inert, they have to be completely compatible with the formation and formation fluids to avoid the formation of gels or scale that would inhibit permeability, as a consequence the oil is not altered in anyway whatsoever, it does not react with the fluid or the process, all that happens is pathways in the surrounding rock are opened to allow that oil to flow. It isn’t even close to the same process. It might behoove you to actually learn something once in awhile rather than to continue to spew your ridiculous notion of oil and gas production.

So yes, the oil that comes out of the source rock called Permian is fine oil. It's just that the entire oil production system is quite unconventional


As pointed out above the cost to extract oil from shales is generally less than it is from many conventional reservoirs around the world. The oil has the same chemical and rheologic characteristics as light oil elsewhere, it is blendable for the refineries in the US and can be directly processed in European refineries with sufficient distillation capacity (and a few new ones in the US). On what basis are you then saying it is different than oil produced from conventional reservoirs (other than it fits your mislead beliefs?). Peak Oil is a measure of the maximum production of oil. What is oil is well defined and everything produced from either the oil sands or unconventional reservoirs fits that bill. Hence the continuing increase in production regardless of it’s source is what informs on Peak Oil.

We are running out of the free-flowing pressurized reservoirs of high-grade light sweet crude that powered modern civilization for more than a century.


Spoken like someone who knows almost nothing about historical production from reservoirs. There has been much less oil in the world that was produced from “free-flowing pressurized reservoirs” than from those that required artificial lift, water or gas injection (or both). Your understanding of the subject matter is very poor, yet it doesn’t seem to keep you from pontificating. :roll:
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Re: THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

Unread postby rockdoc123 » Wed 04 Jul 2018, 19:54:38

The Bakken is tertiary/quandary play in an old oil region. Oil production in the Williston Basin began in earnest in the early 1950's, and many fields underwent tertiary production for decades. Thus final production in the Bakken formation (part of the underlying source structure) is most certainly a final production event, whether one describes it as Tertiary ver 2.0 or Quandary ver 1.0 is beside the point. The Bakken represents the final final production in a subsection of entire Williston structure.


In no part of the Bakken is there injection of fluid to alter the chemistry or rheology of the oil. The only attempt at enhanced oil recovery which would be classified as secondary recovery has been recent testing by HESS through gas injection in one well and recovery in another (not a full project effort). This gas injection is intended to be immiscible, not intended to alter the chemistry of the oil (that would be a fully miscible flood). As a consequence, it does not classify as tertiary recovery or the name you made up Quandary whatever. Get it through your thick skull, this is not even close to Tertiary recovery.

As per Tertiary definition, fracting involves the use of long-chained molecules called polymers to increase the effectiveness of waterfloods, or the use of detergent-like surfactants to help lower the surface tension that often prevents oil droplets from moving through a reservoir.


Entirely incorrect as I have told you when you posted this nonsense last time. Fracking (almost always slick water these days) involves little in the way of additives and those additives are there to help with the effective distance and interconnectivity of the fracture network created. The surfactants used are to reduce the friction of the injected water which allows water and sand to be pumped at much higher rates allowing for larger fracture networks. It has nothing to do whatsoever with altering the chemistry or wettability of the oil given the production counts not on what oil is intersected by the fractures but the amount of microporosity that can be connected to minor cracks and their interconnectivity with the mega fractures. The vast majority of produced oil will never see any of that injected fluid and you certainly don't want it to react with the fluid given the nanodarcy permeability which would get blocked quite easily if a gel formed (quite common). So once again, this is not Tertiary recovery, not a chance.

The same can be said re Permian. It is the main oil producing section of the Mid-Continent Oil Producing Area. It was here that Spindletop blew its cork back in 1901, and likewise the entire region (which the Permian is only a part) has undergone secondary and tertiary methods for decades. Now the Permian is also undergoing complex, costly and final Quandary enhanced oil recovery.


My God....why do you keep posting claims that are so far from reality as to just be plain stupid?
It is called the Permian basin because the main producing horizons are all of Permian age. The basins (eg: Midland, Deleware) are nowhere near the East TX/LA basin where Spindletop was drilled. Completely different stratigraphy, completely different reservoirs and completely different trap types. Spindletop discovery sits on and around a Jurassic salt dome (a structural trap), the producing horizons are Pliocene to Eocene in age (so you are only off by say 90 to 100 My) and they are very porous and permeable sandstones.

There is no unconventional reservoir in the Permian basin that has been subject to Tertiary recovery, there is no place where unconventional reservoirs have been subjected to Secondary recovery either. There are conventional reservoirs in the Permian that have been subject to secondary recovery and in some cases tertiary miscible CO2 floods (eg. Occidental). The conventional reservoirs in the Permian basin are clastics and carbonates with relatively high porosity and permeability and have been produced for decades. They are nothing like the unconventional reservoirs which have been subject to E&P in well less than a decade.
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Re: THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

Unread postby onlooker » Sun 12 Aug 2018, 15:14:07

The U.S. shale oil industry hailed as a “revolution” has burned through a quarter trillion dollars more than it has brought in over the last decade. It has been a money-losing endeavor of epic proportions.

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2018 ... -billions/
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Re: THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

Unread postby onlooker » Sun 12 Aug 2018, 15:19:26

Two-thirds of U.S. oil producers failed to live within their means in the second quarter, even as oil rose above $70 a barrel. Collectively, 50 major U.S. oil companies reported in their second-quarter results that they have spent $2 billion more than they took in, according to an analysis of free cash flow by FactSet.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/frackers-b ... 1534078844
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Re: THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Sun 12 Aug 2018, 15:37:37

onlooker wrote:
Two-thirds of U.S. oil producers failed to live within their means in the second quarter, even as oil rose above $70 a barrel. Collectively, 50 major U.S. oil companies reported in their second-quarter results that they have spent $2 billion more than they took in, according to an analysis of free cash flow by FactSet.


https://www.wsj.com/articles/frackers-b ... 1534078844

By all means, let's pretend profits don't matter. Let's look only at one issue, in the Cassandra doom-distortion-field lens.

When a large number of oil makers are enjoying huge profits, and often near record profits, with oil prices FAR BELOW where they were in 2010 - 2014, continually bleating FUD to suggest bankruptcy across the oil price makes about as much sense as the constant wrong calls of soon-to-be US or global financial armageddon the Cassandras love to bleat about.

Supply and demand works. Don't worry, dude. :razz:

If oil production becomes "unaffordable" -- they'll produce less. Perhaps far less.

If THAT happens, the price of oil will rise, perhaps significantly. Because global demand continues to grow year by year, just like global GDP. (This might not continue for several decades, but it certainly is a solid trend thus far, and looks set to continue for quite a while).

And lo and behold, if the price of oil rises significantly, demand will drop somewhat AND it will be much more affordable to produce.

Again, supply and demand works.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

Unread postby onlooker » Sun 12 Aug 2018, 15:43:44

What profits? My two links are clear that some serious hemorrhaging of money is occurring in the Shale Industry
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Re: THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

Unread postby Outcast_Searcher » Sun 12 Aug 2018, 15:51:23

onlooker wrote:What profits? My two links are clear that some serious hemorrhaging of money is occurring in the Shale Industry

Just look at the earnings announcements for MUCH of the oil industry. Hint: MUCH of the oil industry is heavily involved in oil fracking now, as it's now mainstream oil tech.

Also, cash flow (including investment) in the short term doesn't equate to profitability over time. Which folks like the rocks have pointed out repeatedly, and your ilk continues to ignore.

Have fun with that. If you're so certain oil production and the stock markets are so doomed, you should just short them like crazy and become a billionaire? If that doesn't work out so well, just remember I repeatedly stated that such behavior is HIGHLY RISKY, especially when based on ignorance of economic concepts.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.
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Re: THE ENERGY CLIFF APPROACHES

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Sun 12 Aug 2018, 15:59:49

Onlooker - “50 major U.S. oil companies reported in their second-quarter results that they have spent $2 billion more than they took in…”. FYI this has always been the case during “good times”. Rarely does a well recover 100% of its cost within the first 12 months let alone any of its profit margin. Think about: when have you ever made an investment that recovered 100% of the principal within 1 year? Or even 2 or 3 years? I would give my left nut for a CD that paid 10% interest…wouldn’t you? Think about it again: you invest $10,000 in a CD and expect $10,000 interest paid back to you in 12 month? So a company spends $5 million drilling a well and should expect a net revenue of $5 million the first year? A good well might take 2 to 3 years to net $5 million. And that would yield a very nice rate of return.

So in good times when there are ample economic prospects to drill they borrow money (especially when loan rate are relatively low as they are now) to drill. If you could get a 15% CD and borrow the money at 8% wouldn’t you borrow as much as you could? And even though you net 7% you still wouldn’t recover 100% of the loan in 1 year, would you? Or even 2 or 3 years?

Folks hyping that statistic are only exposing their ignorance of the real business world.
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