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pstarr wrote:

Plantagenet wrote:Why drill Antarctica when you can frack North Dakota?

What a wonderful idea! Then we can even drill Alaska! Send up the roustabouts. Send in Elvis.

Yeah, I mean that hasn't been done yet, right? I hear the guv'mint is sitting on a squadzillion barrels of oil, it's all capped and that there is a secret Martian technology that provides free energy from eating hamburgers.

pstarr wrote:I know peripato. I am going up to Bakken and get a piece of that action. Then i'st a mukluk for me and trip to the Antarctic. Can't wait. I hear they are selling home lots on the ice. With a view of ice lol And you get free ice cubes.

Sign me right up, Captain!

peripato wrote:

pstarr wrote:

Plantagenet wrote:Why drill Antarctica when you can frack North Dakota?

What a wonderful idea! Then we can even drill Alaska! Send up the roustabouts. Send in Elvis.

Yeah, I mean that hasn't been done yet, right? I hear the guv'mint is sitting on a squadzillion barrels of oil, it's all capped and that there is a secret Martian technology that provides free energy from eating hamburgers.

I love me some hamburgers!

But in all seriousness if we decide as a civilization to keep burning oil we will get to Antarctica, sooner or later.

It’s funny that some can't see a potential future even when the recent past could serve as a model. Forget the international treaties and think purely economics. We just watched the shale plays boom, oil patch debt skyrocket, then bust and bankruptcies lining up. And that was due to some rather simple and relatively cheap onshore development costs (compared to just Deep water GOM let alone producing offshore Antarctica). Now just extrapolate the price point oil will need to reach to make the Antarctic seem viable if only on paper. And then consider memories of how the price volatilities crushed the shale boom…memories that will fade very slowly.

OK then: with that in mind let’s all hold our breath waiting for conditions that will allow Antarctic oil development. LOL.

ROCKMAN wrote:OK then: with that in mind let’s all hold our breath waiting for conditions that will allow Antarctic oil development. LOL.

Considering that it took only about $100/bbl to prototype large onshore shale development in the US, proving up the next 100 billion barrels internationally won't even require that much price.

Antarctica is the last thing anyone is thinking about, when not only are those kinds of volumes available just for just some onshore drilling, but you've got the USGS quantifying half a trillion barrels of growth in existing fields. No need to go looking for more, when you are already sitting on the more, and just need the capital to make it happen.

And if there is one thing low oil prices will cure, it is low oil prices.

ROCKMAN,

Opossums are not at all aggressive anywhere, except in Texas.

Pretty sure I read that somewhere. Pretty sure...

Opossums are not at all aggressive anywhere, except in Texas.

steady diet of barbeque and shiner bock will do that to you!

AdamB wrote:

ROCKMAN wrote:OK then: with that in mind let’s all hold our breath waiting for conditions that will allow Antarctic oil development. LOL.

Considering that it took only about $100/bbl to prototype large onshore shale development in the US, proving up the next 100 billion barrels internationally won't even require that much price.

And a few decades to make the conditions necessary for shale oil to develop. Of course, there are other opportunities around the world waiting for conditions allowing them to develop... conditions which can be summaried in two words: greed factor.

tita - This "world is full of commercial shale plays" bullshit is getting very old. They never try to explain why when oil prices were high for years and companies like Chevron tested oil barring shales around the world NO FOREIGN COMMERCIAL SHALE PLAYS WERE FOUND. But now in the future when oil prices increase we'll suddenly see those trends boom.

They also ignore the fact that dozens of other oil bearing shale formations were evaluated in the US and nothing popped: 80%+ of production still comes from two trends.

Foreign shale trends will never produce a meaningful amount of oil: only COMMERCIAL foreign shale trends could do that. And despite hundreds of $millions being spent looking for them when oil prices were high none were found.

ROCKMAN wrote:tita - This "world is full of commercial shale plays" bullshit is getting very old. They never try to explain why when oil prices were high for years and companies like Chevron tested oil barring shales around the world NO FOREIGN COMMERCIAL SHALE PLAYS WERE FOUND. But now in the future when oil prices increase we'll suddenly see those trends boom.

They also ignore the fact that dozens of other oil bearing shale formations were evaluated in the US and nothing popped: 80%+ of production still comes from two trends.

Foreign shale trends will never produce a meaningful amount of oil: only COMMERCIAL foreign shale trends could do that. And despite hundreds of $millions being spent looking for them when oil prices were high none were found.

Don't worry ROCKMAN, when the price goes up again whether that is next week or three years down the timeline and all those magical world wide shale plays fail to manifest there will be plenty of finger pointing going on.

T - True. But what's sad is despite conversations we've had about the very unique NON-GEOLOGIC conditions that allowed the shales to boom here the global shale cornucopians still don't get it. Even if there were a few Eagle Ford/Bakken look-a-likes around the world the odds of them booming are slim. I'll not waste space repeating the details I've laid out at least a dozen times.

ROCKMAN wrote:Foreign shale trends will never produce a meaningful amount of oil: only COMMERCIAL foreign shale trends could do that. And despite hundreds of $millions being spent looking for them when oil prices were high none were found.

Fortunate indeed that yesterday's shale trends in the US became those commercial shale trends of today. Remember the Eastern regional gas shales project of DOE and USGS, back in the early 80's Rock? Ah yes, when the shales were young, and so were we, right?

http://www.netl.doe.gov/kmd/cds/disk7/d ... Report.pdf

The USGS work in this regard actually quantified the resource, more than 1000 TCF they said! I recommend Chapter N.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/1909/report.pdf

All that trend and no commercial volumes to be found!

..and then one day.....REVOLUTION!




I find it difficult to never say never about international shales, if only because the story of US shales is exactly the same as what folks are claiming about the international shales. And what might be needed to make this wonder of wonders happen again? Well, that is where the POD comes in, right? Oil or gas, doesn't matter, POD is what makes things happen...just like it happened in Pennsylvania. Or North Dakota. Or Texas. And might next in...the Bazhenov? The Vaca Muerta in the Neuquen? Come on Rock, while Americans in general might have achieved our lofty status on this planet by the exceptional nature of our character and resolve, our source rocks aren't the best thing since sliced bread, and if the only thing holding back the others is a little coin? Well, suddenly, the only question left is...how much coin, for the next revolution to explode in rising waves of oil and natural gas...just like we did here in the US?

pstarr wrote:
There isn't an oil terminal with 5,000 miles of the Antarctic. Not only would the -100 degree cold freeze oil in a pipeline, it would shatter the pipeline. And the oil worker standing next to the pipeline.

Once upon a time there were no oil terminals, anywhere. And no commercial shale production internationally either.

But if there is one thing that we all know, and that is that from such small beginnings, our world was built.

Anyone thought about how much fun it would be to CROSS the Southern Ocean with a loaded oil tanker?

Synapsid wrote:ROCKMAN,

Opossums are not at all aggressive anywhere, except in Texas.

Pretty sure I read that somewhere. Pretty sure...

The most revealing comment in this entire thread, which is otherwise a rehash of existing prior threads.

Synapsid, the opossums are engaged in a covert war with the armadillos, and the humans in Texas are busily selling arms to both sides.

Armed Opossum Militia Member.

Rolling Thunder, Armadillo Air Force ground attack craft.

Little do both sides know - both opossum and armadillo are secret ingredients in Texas chili recipes.

rockdoc,

If that combination won't do it I expect Texas has others as potent. Perhaps, though, Texans are prone to hallucinations about aggressive opossums. Who knows why.

Kaiser Jeep,

I confess that I'm an armadillo sympathizer though I've nothing against opossums. 'Dillos haven't made it anywhere near the Puget Lowland and that is one of the sadnesses in my life. I believe they have yet to reach New Mexico, and that's a long way from here to walk especially with short legs.

I suspect there's more than one secret ingredient in Texas chili--one of them may make Texans prone to hallucinations about aggressive opossums.

We live in a world of wonders.