[J-Rod]

Yes, this is a real post from a blog I scanned today from Wired.

Name: "Matt"

Oil isn't running out, we find more every year than we take out the ground, and less than 3% of the middle east, which seems to be one of the richest areas in oil terms, has been searched. This is just about independence from imports.

What really needs to be done first is the construction of more refinerys. America can't sustain itself from crude oil imports alone as it doesn't have the refinery capacity. Seems somewhat absurd.

Congratulations to those who say they'll go on burning oil 'till it runs out. Especially candle, you backed up your argument so well. We're all going to die of nuclear fall out. Well gosh why didn't I think of that? Screw the world! (/end sarcasm).

The article in Wired from AP doesn't even try to explain exactly how they plan on extracting all this beautiful shale.



linky

[mekrob]

"Only .54% of the Arctic has been searched. It's all the oil companies fault! Sue them!!!"

Let the dumbasses rot. I'm sick of saving them from their own shit.

[gnm]

Name: "Matt"
Oil isn't running out, we find more every year than we take out the ground,

I think that statement alone is false is it not?

-G

[Dreamtwister]

Name: "Matt"
Oil isn't running out, we find more every year than we take out the ground,

I think that statement alone is false is it not?

-G

By a fairly wide margin, yes. I'm sure someone around here has the discoveries vs production overlay.

less than 3% of the middle east, which seems to be one of the richest areas in oil terms, has been searched.

I haven't seen anyone looking to drill a wildcat in my backyard, but I'm reasonably sure there isn't any oil there either.

[J-Rod]

To be fair, a good number of the repliers had sensical posts. I just saw that and got a good chuckle. Pardon me, there's some slate on my roof, and I have to get some gas to go to work today. All that squeezing really makes my hands tired. Not to mention the neighbors complaining about the refinery I built in the backyard. I swear some people can be so bitchy.

[Don35]

It can't really be right that on;y 3% of the ME or SA has been explored!! Of all the places on earth hasn't that area been explored more than any other?

[Denny]

You want to ask him where he got his 3% figure. Sounds like nonsense. Petroleum hunters have been all over the ME for 100 years

Yes, a percentage is strange unit of measurement for this. I guess if the magazine meant that there is still open land in the ME that has never seen a drill bit!

While we are at it, I have never gotten around to doing a good dig below my backyard to check for gold. Its never to late to start though. Heck, there is gold in other parts of Ontario, so why not below my backyard too? It is high time to look for partners, raise some cash by a stock sale, and get the shovels in the ground. Maybe I'll approach those Wired people and see if they want to buy some stock in my little company.

[neocone]

Heck... over there we have 1000 times more methane and complex hydrocarbons in lakes that would dwarf Ghawar!!!!

Minor problem: How the f*** get there????

[rockdoc123]

The 3% number is indeed correct and speaks to the areas covered by sedimentary basins divided by the area which has been explored by the drill bit.

It misses the fact that of that total sedimentary basinal area a goodly portion is not prospective as there are either no viable traps, source rocks are over or undermature or there are problems with sealing.

Even in very mature basins such as the Western Canada Sedimentary basin very little of the basin has been explored area wise (remembering that a dry hole only samples an area about 20 inches in diameter).

The key is how much of possibly prospective acreage has been explored with modern methods and multiworking hypothesis approach. I think the argument can be made Saudi Arabia is still underexplored and much more will be found, however field sizes will be much smaller than the current P50 size. On the contrary the Permian basin is well explored and very little is left to be found.

[NEOPO]

By this standard - bit to ground - only a small portion of the globe has been physically searched for anything besides maybe water.
Not false yet A very misleading statement indeed.

Mekrob: When did you become a Savior?
I did not get an invitiation or you know I would have came to your crucifixion!

RD: Do you think future discoveries will offset or even overcome the anomally in reserve estimates that the following chart represents?:



To me it appears to be a huge 300 billion barrel white lie so to rephrase that question I should ask "do you think there are 300 billion barrels that remain to be discovered in the ME?".

[Niagara]

The 3% may be true for areas physically drilled with wildcats. But my understanding is that most of the earth has been searched in a broad sense using gravity surveys, magnetic surveys, seismology, etc.


The way I see it is this...

Case 1: there is oil existing in obvious locations (geologically favourable conditions)

Case 2: there is oil existing in obscure, unlikely places

For case 1, the oil would have been discovered already.
For case 2, who's going to find it?

[Laughs_Last]

[deleted by author]

[mrobert]

I am still waiting for the day when people will discover that oil supplies are actually unlimited, and oil flows from parallel universes.

What's the point to explore when the actual oil reserve is way larger then the surface you explored and drilled?
Does it have any use to drill every few feet?

This is like telling someone : There is plenty of water in the lake.
It has 10 square miles surface, and we only use a tube that has a tiny surface (3%) to pump water out.

[rockdoc123]

To me it appears to be a huge 300 billion barrel white lie so to rephrase that question I should ask "do you think there are 300 billion barrels that remain to be discovered in the ME?".

and as I have said time and time again Campbells claim that this jump in Middle Eastern reserves is all lies is speculation without any basis. It happened around the time they started to use reserves as a basis for quotas....it is equally reasonable that they might just have decided to quit reporting proved reserves and gone to proved plus probable reserves in order to have a common frame of reference for quota decisions.

To me it appears to be a huge 300 billion barrel white lie so to rephrase that question I should ask "do you think there are 300 billion barrels that remain to be discovered in the ME?".

At this point in time I see no reason to believe the numbers are not correct, ie they don't need to find it as they already have. There will always be changes to reserve numbers as time goes on. The information you have when you make a discovery is not as good as the information you have after a few appraisal wells which, in turn, is not as good as the information you have after a few years of production. This is precisely why you see reserve category moves, reserve adjustments etc. P3 reserves become P2 which become P1 through time. In some cases you will see 3P reserves increase through time and in some cases you will see them decrease.

The 3% may be true for areas physically drilled with wildcats. But my understanding is that most of the earth has been searched in a broad sense using gravity surveys, magnetic surveys, seismology, etc.

If I had a dime for every well that discovered hydrocarbons in an area where someone had previously shot seismic and declared the area "barren" I would truly be a rich man. Bottom line is that the only way you can be 100% sure that a particular closure/anomaly/etc has no oil potential is to have a well into it. There are particular cases where a seismic line illustrates complete absence of any sedimentary basin, hence precluding the possiblity of hydrocarbons but generally speaking people don't shoot expensive seismic over areas they aren't relatively sure have a significant sized sedimentary basin present.

In discussing this issue you need to be congizant of the fact that not all wells are created equal. The argument about well density isn't a bad one when well's are particularily sparse in a prolific hydrocarbon basin but much less so in the case of a basin that has for example no evidence of source rock or reservoir rock.

[mrobert]

@rockdoc123 : Basicly, we still have plenty of oil .... right?

[rockdoc123]

@rockdoc123 : Basicly, we still have plenty of oil .... right?

read my other posts.....I've been pretty forthcoming with my view on when we will hit conventional peak as well as the difficulty in predicting how much is left to be found and the fact that Campbell and his crew are dealing with half a deck of cards (outdated data)...and I do know something about this subject as this is my living whereas it is most others here hobby.
It's getting more difficult to find oil, fewer places to look, more expensive to find but that doesn't mean there isn't a lot more out there as shown by a number of recent discoveries. My view and that of a bunch of people who are paid a lot to analyze this is we can't explore enough to replace what's being produced....so the consequence is a peak fairly soon....but we sure as hell aren't running out certainly not in anyone heres lifetime. There just isn't going to be enough to go around and it is going to be very, very expensive.

[MonteQuest]

Name: "Matt"
Oil isn't running out, we find more every year than we take out the ground,

I think that statement alone is false is it not?

-G

Yes, we consume 4 barrels for every one we find. Some say 6.

World discoveries peaked in the 1960's.

[MonteQuest]

It can't really be right that on;y 3% of the ME or SA has been explored!! Of all the places on earth hasn't that area been explored more than any other?

No, the US has been explored and drilled the most.

[NEOPO]

RD - About the Quota - It seems to me that oil reserves have always been as good as gold for the company who proves and owns them thus why did the American owners of Aramco show less then 100 billion barrels on the books before SA nationalized in the 1970's?
Are we to suspend logic and believe that they were not greedy all of a sudden?
That really doesnt make sense to me and even though I understand completely p1 p2 p3 etc etc I still have a hard time believing that is the case.
Funny all this was going on right about the same time America was awakening to the cruel realities of its own Peak.
I cannot escape the implications of geopoltics upon the logic for nationalizing SA oil.....and then the subsequent glut of the oil market which can be said led to the rapid demise of Soviet Russia.
The history of oil and the world tells us something completely different yet I appreciate your comment nonetheless.

Could you comment on your beliefs outside of Geology based on what I have just observed please?

I would also like to know if the large finds were in places where you would expect oil to be or was the large or even medium finds in places that you normally would not find oil?

How much oil has been found in "normal" places vs. places where we normally would not look?

Lastly I have asked this on another thread - how have predictions vs. production went for most oil basins?

When they predicted for instance 12bb for one area - did it peak at 6bb or at 12bb/.7URR/.5 peak= 4.2bb? minus some for liquids...?

I know someone that works in this field, who is experienced in this field and who does not "do" PO as a hobby could provide the answers without much thought or effort

Monte - looking for the 6to1 or 7to1 data now - I think that was 2Q 2005 - 2Q 2006 data.....looking.
Ok this is just my hobby and after searching I cant find anything but the 4-1 yet I know I read it somewhere....

Wonder what RD thinks the ratio is now
Like I told Spike - checks in the mail