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The project's predicated on this NG pipeline being completed; it's about twice as long as TAPS which took five years of surveying and three of construction, so I wonder where they get this 10 year timeline stuff from.

Haven't even brought up the issue of melting permafrost throwing infrastructure out of whack. Then again maybe conditions won't quite be as nasty as in the Thing; more like McCabe and Mrs. Miller perhaps?

Or earthquakes - here's an excellent articleon threats to pipelines from fault lines shifting, soil liquefaction, etc.

putting 2 and 2 together when it comes to price

If seahorse was here, he would tell us that in addition to price, the current condition of the financial markets has a direct impact on the availability of the oil, because interest rates are a key element in the ROR calculations for these projects.

For now, with cheap money available for responsible borrowers, things are looking a little easier. Later, if inflation kicks up and the bond markets go to hell, not so much.

Peak oil is not about how much we have left out there, it is about the timing in which we can retrieve it and how that matches up against worldwide depletion.

Thanks for your contribution, Rockdoc.

Sorry for the double post. Gotta add one more thing:

Oil_finder is right. This 900,000 barrels per day is a lot of oil. We watch the domestic production every week, and since the GOM stabilized after Katrina and Rita in 2005, domestic production has been on a steady downtrend. In the summer of 2005, before the hurricanes hit, domestic production was about 5.5 million barrels of oil per day. Two weeks ago, the domestic production was under 5.0 mbpd, Last summer, it got a little over 5.2 when the north slope was thawed out

So, at the current decline rate, of about .3-.5 mbpd in three years, by the time this oil comes on line, this could easily be 25% of the domestic supply. So not only should this get extracted, it will, because we will really need the oil by that time.

Also I have to tell you, despite the whining, ANWR will get drilled.

--> CNN <--

BP sees further 2 bln barrels of oil in Alaska field
February 22, 2008: 11:59 AM EST

LONDON, Feb. 22, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- BP PLC said it expects to unearth a further 2 bln barrels of oil at its giant oil fields in Alaska.

BP previously thought the fields, which include the 400,000-barrel-a-day Prudhoe Bay, could only pump up to 9 bln barrels when drilling started in the 1970s.

'That has gone up to 11 bln barrels (a few years ago). Now, we're looking at an extra 2 bln barrels,' said a BP spokesman, adding that this was partly due to new technology which helped the group unlock more resources from the ground.

This will bring the recovery factor to around 70 pct from 60 pct previously, he said, adding that the group continues to drill around 60-70 wells at the site each year.

[...]

Looks like they're about to open up more land for exploration, in an area with an estimated 8.4 billion barrels.

--> LINK <--

BLM decision sets stage for major NPR-A lease sale
Nick Snow
Washington Editor

WASHINGTON, DC, July 17 -- The US Bureau of Land Management issued a record of decision that sets the stage for a major lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska's northeast portion.

Land in the NPR-A's northwest section also will be offered in the sale expected in the fall, the US Department of the Interior agency said on July 16. It said that the acreage, which will become available in the two sections, could result in as much as 8.4 billion bbl of oil being developed.

Several trillion cubic feet of natural gas also might be produced for shipment to markets in the Lower 48 states on pipelines which have been proposed, BLM added.

Officials emphasized that the announcement was not a response to a proposal by US House Democrats last week to require BLM to offer more leases within the NPR-A as an alternative to Congress authorizing leasing on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's coastal plain.

"We've been on a track to complete this planning process for some time. We completed this final [environmental impact statement] a month ago and made no secret about making a final decision after the 30 days we were required to wait. I don't think this anything to do with whatever is happening on the Hill," Deputy BLM Director Henri Bisson told reporters during a teleconference.

"This is an opportunity for what we hope will be a major lease sale for land in the northeast NPR-A in October that has not been leased as well as for land in the northwest NPR-A. I think we've achieved a pretty good balance and that most people will be satisfied," he said. The decision includes a 10-year deferral of leasing on land north and east of Teshepuk Lake, Bisson said.

[...]

Yup.

Things are starting to happen in the oil patch this summer here in Alaska.

I can't wait until the oil price goes even higher.

Tyler_JC wrote:

Oil-Finder wrote:

Tyler_JC wrote:Why does everyone always turn each discovery into a reserve/consumption ratio?

Dunno. Must be the fashionable thing to do.

You and I know exactly why they do it.

They do it to dismiss the value of any individual reserve.

Just like they dismiss every single alternative energy source because it doesn't fix 100% of the problem and how they dismiss every single action any individual takes because it doesn't solve every single one of society's problem.

And yet all of these small steps added together somehow don't matter.

Apparently in order for the optimists to be right, we have to produce a cornucopia. And if we do, we get called Cornucopians.

This forum is a joke...

I do not see anything that will stop us from exploiting every reserve that can be brought to market at a profit. But what that means depends on our choices now. The fact that should make green doomers very happy is that the more we burn the less we have, so the day of your green cornucopia is marching on. Then the happy little lemming like survivors can develop overshoots of their own liking and whim.

That natural gas going into LNG sounds pretty tasty. The problem here is to actually learn not to grow as rapidly as possible but to moderate growth so that we don't end up using those resources in the wrong way. We should use what is left to aid the transition away from fossil fuels, not go mad on a new '90's me'ism glut and then wake up to nuclear war in the middle east in the roaring '20's, 2020's that is. Will we be wise? Will we?

If all assumptions were to occur, an additional 36 billion barrels of oil and 137 trillion cubic feet of natural gas would be added over current reserve estimates. This result would help limit oil imports and increase America's energy security.

Sorry, no such thing. Might slow the rate of grwoth of imports a bit is all.

Why? Take ANWR, for example.

"TAPS can transport a little over 2 mbpd, and carried about 740,000 bpd last year. Therefore, if we brought ANWR online today, it could at maximum deliver about 1.25 mbpd. But in reality, it would take 8-10 years after approval to begin producing the first of that oil. Furthermore, preliminary estimates by the USGS indicated that ANWR would likely only produce around 750,000 barrels per day at peak."-ASPO

All oil out of Alaska has to come via the pipeline.

Maximum delivery would be 1.25 mbpd.

About an hour's worth of US daily consumption.

Pfft!

Tyler_JC wrote: Just like they dismiss every single alternative energy source because it doesn't fix 100% of the problem

And with the "problem" being overpopulation and overshoot, do you wonder why?

Development of these fields should provide production rates of about 900,000 BOPD until about 2015.

About 1 hour of US daily consumption.

21/24= 875,000 barrels.

MonteQuest wrote:

Development of these fields should provide production rates of about 900,000 BOPD until about 2015.

About 1 hour of US daily consumption.

21/24= 875,000 barrels.

Pfft!

If you think they are going to take oil from ANWR and distribute it and stage it all across the US so they can throw a switch and use it all at the same time during one hour, then you really don't understand how how the US energy system works.

Plantagenet wrote:

MonteQuest wrote:

Development of these fields should provide production rates of about 900,000 BOPD until about 2015.

About 1 hour of US daily consumption.

21/24= 875,000 barrels.

Pfft!

If you think they are going to take oil from ANWR and distribute it and stage it all across the US so they can throw a switch and use it all at the same time during one hour, then you really don't understand how how the US energy system works.

LOL! No, silly, I don't. LOL! What a hoot!

MonteQuest wrote:

Plantagenet wrote:

MonteQuest wrote:

Development of these fields should provide production rates of about 900,000 BOPD until about 2015.

About 1 hour of US daily consumption.

21/24= 875,000 barrels.

Pfft!

If you think they are going to take oil from ANWR and distribute it and stage it all across the US so they can throw a switch and use it all at the same time during one hour, then you really don't understand how how the US energy system works.

LOL! No I don't. LOL! What a hoot!

Hahahahahah! Exactamentico!

Plantagenet wrote:Hahahahahah! Exactamentico!

No, I don't think they are going to take oil from ANWR and distribute it and stage it all across the US so they can throw a switch and use it all at the same time during one hour.

What is your point????

Many people think if we just drilled ANWR, we could wean ourselves off the 13.9 mbpd of oil we import.

No, we gain 1 hours worth of oil.

MonteQuest wrote:
Many people think if we just drilled ANWR, we could wean ourselves off the 13.9 mbpd of oil we import..

Nope.

The numbers don't work that way. You can't get all the energy needed from just one source or even from one kind of energy.

That isn't to say ANWR is insignificant....ANWR could produce 1-2 mbpd for a few decades.....about the same amount as Qatar or U.A.E. or one of the other second tier OPEC nations.

Plantagenet wrote: You can't get all the energy needed from just one source or even from one kind of energy.

You can't get 13.9 mbpd of energy from everything in the US.

ANWR could produce 1-2 mbpd for a few decades

.9 mbpd is peak production. 1.25 mbpd is peak delivery.

Dino’s explanation is good as a general characterization of evaluating a field’s relative value over time. But there’s an even better reason to look at the time factor. It literally determines life and death of the project from the oil patch perspective. The decision to explore for or develop a particular project is controlled by this field life vs. reserve size factor. Essentially oil patch economic decisions are dominated by “net present value”. NPV adjusts the cash flow to take into account the time factor. A fld producing 2 millions bo over 20 years has a much lower NPV than a fld producing 1 mmbo over 4 years. The common discount rate is 15%. Think of the DR as the interest rate on a loan. A 15% loan paying back $1.15 in one year would have a NPV of $1 and thus no profit would be made. The NPV factor is used to determine the rate of return on any investment. The stock market demands y/y improvements in a public company’s position. As odd as it may seem virtually all public corps would chose a high NPV approach to development over a low NPV approach even if it produced a greater ult recovery. This is especially true in those big Deep Water plays. During those long development phases that 15% keeps compounding. If you look at the decline curves of the initial Deep Water Gulf of Mexico flds you’ll see high initial rates and relatively rapid declines. You’ve heard it before: Time is money. And when you’ve sunk $1.5 billion into a project before it flows the first bbl of oil that time is very expensive. Because of the logistic costs and similar time lags major projects on the North Slope will be evaluated over similar protocols.

It's not that it dismisses value but puts values into a time sensitive function so it's value can be compared to economics of other projects. A simplistic example would be to consider having $10 million in the bank under your name. Most would classify you as rich. But if you could only withdraw $1 per day I don't think to many long lost relatives would show up on your door steps. Under those withdrawl conditions the NPV of the $10 million would be zero.

"TAPS can transport a little over 2 mbpd, and carried about 740,000 bpd last year. Therefore, if we brought ANWR online today, it could at maximum deliver about 1.25 mbpd. But in reality, it would take 8-10 years after approval to begin producing the first of that oil. Furthermore, preliminary estimates by the USGS indicated that ANWR would likely only produce around 750,000 barrels per day at peak."-ASPO

TAPS can only transport 1.14 mbpd right now, since they have reconfigured the pumping schemes. It would take a lot of time an money to even push that up to 1.4 mbpd (provisions were made for adding pumps) -- and going back up to 2mpbd would take a major engineering and construction effort.