We still have a LOT of oil.
We still have a LOT of oil.
(OP)
It seems that not everyone believes we have a shortage of oil.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15715744/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15715744/
"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
Part of a problem is where the 'easily accesible' oil is in relations to where wants/needs it.
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
Now that people are loosening up on the price decks, the ultimate recovery fractions are moving upward. It was inevitable that the magical "peak oil" point will move out in time as people start beleiving that higher prices are here to stay. If prices plumet al la 1986 then a huge amount of oil and gas will be plugged to try to remain profitable.
Known technology is another big issue. Last week I was at the ASME annual meeting and sat through a couple of fluids presentations where people are successfully changing the wetability of rock on labratory scale. If you can change oil-wet rocks in a place like East Texas or Permian Basin or the shallow Gulf of Mexico (to say nothing of the North Sea and North Slope) to water-wet then you can increase your recovery from 20-30% to something closer to 50%. If this kind of technology ever gets out of the lab then Peak Oil is pushed back a few decades more.
I've seen so many articles that say "Oil is Gone" and just as many that say "Oil is Infinate" that I'm not buying into any of them.
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
www.muleshoe-eng.com
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The harder I work, the luckier I seem
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
-The future's so bright I gotta wear shades!
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
That's why oil producers often turn to "secondary recovery" processes to squeeze some of this remaing oil out of the ground.
By the other side policies of oil savings and new energies will enlarge oil reserves life.
I suppose that we are still far from the “peak oil”. After this relive on oil prices to raise the demand the guys of OPEC will lower the production to raise the prices.
Cheers
Luis
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
David
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
Who benefits from falsely saying that it's long-lasting?
Who benefits from saying that it's running out?
To me, it seems there's only an answer to the second one, but maybe I'm wrong and painfully uninformed. Its happened before.
Ed
www.engineerboards.com
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
The value of an oil company is measured by its booked reverses (like zdas I have signed off reserves estimates, and that experience is why I moved from reservoir engineering to well engineering!!). If you underbook your reserves, you are devaluing your company, which is generally bad (it will adversely affect your share price, possibly make you a takeover target, affect your borrowing capabililty, and maybe make it harder to prequalify for liscense applications or large projects). It is also illegal under SECC and London Stock Exchange rules and the Sarbanes Oxely act. Also, for the big multinationals, the US is a small part of their global portfolios, and many places (the UK for example) tax production rather than reserves.
Look at what happened to Shell when it had to admit to deliberately underbooking it's reserves by as much as 25%- the shares took a big tumble, many of the board of directors were sacked, the Royal Dutch bit effectivley ceased to exist, and there was a massive crow eating session withte finacial markets to try and restore their confidence in Shell's management (and rest of us had a good laugh - as Shell do have a reputation for being an arrogant, impolite company).
What a lot of teh peak oil guys seem to forget is that as zdas says, reserves estimate have an explicit economic consideration in them. You can have a certain amount of reserves at $20/bbl and much more reserves at $50/bbl without doing any extra exploration, or using new technology or anything. I know my company is still basing all their economics and reserves on $25- $20 oil (everyone's been burnt before by the price cycle and no-one wants to f**k it up again). Also the API/SECC yellow book rules for reserves estimates are quite conservative in their definitions of proved, probable and possible reserves- probabilistic methods (ie Monte Carlo simulations) aren't allowed, so internal company reserves estimates can often be larger than the certified published reserves estimates.
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
In either case, maybe we'll never get an accurate handle on what's really left.
Thanks for the insight.
www.engineerboards.com
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
We should be able to determine when peak oil was a few years after the last oil is ever extracted from the world. Everything else is WAG's (certainly not SWAG's).
David
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
"One man's trash is another man's treasure".
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
My gut feel is that the next 6-10 years are going to be very challenging for the industry as the world follows the new US government's irrational policies of "Windfall Profits Tax" and other techniques designed to kill the industry. Peak oil may be last year.
David
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
Thanks
www.engineerboards.com
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
David
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
If you think about it even gold is not /that/ valuable. We still routinely throw it away (printer cartridges, PCs).
I'm sure the same will happen with oil.
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
http://ww
I would add that I can't figure out whetehr oil companies gain or lose by promoting or criticisng peak oil. If they encourage it then their current absurd profits are justified, as they won't last long, but then that will also encourage oil-from-coal, and other effective measures.
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
http://w
for the other point of view. Note that Exxon is picking a peak in non-OPEC, not global, production, and the argument is that the oil producers are trying (sensibly) to maximise their returns, rather than just delivering cheap oil.
Let's just bear in mind, the cheapest feedstock for industrial ethanol production in some circumstances is ... oil. Oil is still ridiculously cheap.
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
As for energy from oil, there always seems to be better methods of refining, exploring, drilling, discovery, and use of previously inaccessable oil. Even in the past few years, we have seen more development of non-oil, oil-like alternatives like ethanol and bio-diesel, in addition to new field discoveries and use of tar-sands in Canada.
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.
But even offshore, it's possible to go back to an abandoned field: just as Tuscan did with the Argyl field, 10 years after it was decommissioned.
RE: We still have a LOT of oil.