Let's drill the watermelon outta everything <redux>

[lazs2]

well...  to put it another way...  why not allow them to explore if there is no oil out there anyway?

bongie.. no one knows what "peak" oil is.. it is a term that has been thrown around for at least 30 years and no one has been the least bit accurate.

How can you know what "peak" oil is if you don't know how much there is or even how it is made?   It may be being made faster than we are using it at this point.

lazs

[Nashwan]

Peak oil is pretty real, it's been proved by countless fields.

US oil production peaked in 1970 with 3.5 billion barrels produced. By last year it was down to 1.8 billion barrels.

North sea production peaked in 2000 at 6.4 million barrels a day. It's now down to about 4.5 million barrels a day.

Mexico peaked at 3.824 million barrels a day in 2004, it dropped to 3.477 last year.

Peak oil is real, it's just a question of when world production will peak, rather than individual countries.

[Holden McGroin]

1:  It will do nothing for today's or tomorrow's pump prices.

EMT: Doctor! Doctor! The patient is having trouble breathing!

Doctor 1:  Entubate and put him on oxygen

Doctor 2:  That won't help him breathe long term.

Doctor 1:  You're right...  best let him struggle and if he dies, he dies.

EMT: WTF?

[Chalenge]

I guess no one really expects the Honda hydrogen vehicle to succeed or for natural gas engines to become more popular and the Chevy Volt is just a hoax then? Yes there is no reason to believe that all the oil that can be found has already been found but also as technology improves gasoline engines will probably stay with us as other types are developed and begin to see more and more use. The stubborn 'no drill zone' attitude has to be dealt with just the same.

[JoeA]

You don't actually drill down to look for oil. I guess you could... but it's kind of a waste of effort. You roll out the seismic truck, fire it off, and very clever software gives you a graphical display of what's there.

Seismic data is useful but that's only how one decides to start exploration.  Real good data requires drilling & analysis of what comes up.  Look at the Bakkens.  Based on 1995 seismic data, the USGS said there was 151 million barrels of oil.  Some enterprising oil exploration companies sank a bunch of exploratory holes.  Based largely on the data from these holes, the USGS updated their estimates in 2008 to 3-4 billion barrels, a 25 fold increase over the estimate from the initial seismic data.  Others say there are 350+ billion barrels in the Bakkens.  Time will tell.  This story repeats itself for most oil fields. 

All US oil reserve estimates come from the USGS.  Almost all USGS oil reserve estimates are from the 1980-90's and based on oil staying at $20-30/barrel until 2020 or later.  There is lots more US oil than the USGS says there is.

[JoeA]

IIRC they are saying 10 years for ANWR to begin production, 5 years for offshore.

You are correct about the EIA plan.  The EIA is great for collecting/presenting data (I use it all the time) and for doing what they are told, in this case by the Democratic Congress.  I'm guessing the EIA was told to generate a 10 year plan, so they did.  For some strange reason (political) the EIA plan doesn't start work on the oil delivery system until year 5 and they plan for the delivery system to take 4-5 years to build, hence 10 years to delivery.  Why not start work on the delivery system on day 1 and have a 5 year plan?  Also note that the ANWR fields are just down the road from the existing Alaska pipeline (which has large spare capacity) so why should it take 4-5 years to connect to it?  There are many other "time savers" available if the goal was to get oil ASAP.

[sprattjack]

There are many other "time savers" available if the goal was to get oil ASAP.

And why do we do we need oil ASAP?

[JoeA]

And why do we do we need oil ASAP?

In all fairness, I said *IF* the goal was to get oil ASAP.

IMO ASAP is a good goal.  Additional US domestic oil ASAP would be a great way to reduce the hemorrhage of US $$$ to foreign counties and gain better control of the US energy supplies while the US works on the longer term goal of making renewable energy sources more mature and built out.  It's going to take decades.  Whatever the pricing impact, if any, the new oil has is a bonus.

[sprattjack]

Give it a few months, the fearmongering will die out.  We'll never see a buck 99 again, mind you; but the pump's will drop significantly. 

Shame to the outgoing, liners of thy pocket. 

[Nashwan]

For some strange reason (political) the EIA plan doesn't start work on the oil delivery system until year 5 and they plan for the delivery system to take 4-5 years to build, hence 10 years to delivery.

The EIA case for the OCS assumes the ban is lifted in 2012 and production starts in 2017, hence the 5 year timeline I mentioned.

For some strange reason (political) the EIA plan doesn't start work on the oil delivery system until year 5 and they plan for the delivery system to take 4-5 years to build, hence 10 years to delivery.  Why not start work on the delivery system on day 1 and have a 5 year plan?

That's in effect what they have done. The restrictions on access to the OCS will expire in 2012, the EIA have based their report on what would happen then if they were not reinstated.

As to ANWR, the EIA timeline is:

• 2 to 3 years to obtain leases, including the development of a U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) leasing program, which includes approval of an Environmental Impact Statement, the collection and analysis of seismic data, and the auction and award of leases.
• 2 to 3 years to drill a single exploratory well. Exploratory wells are slower to drill because geophysical data are collected during drilling, e.g., rock cores and well logs. Typically, Alaska North Slope exploration wells take two full winter seasons to reach the desired depth.
• 1 to 2 years to develop a production development plan and obtain BLM approval for that plan, if a commercial oil reservoir is discovered. Considerably more time could be required if the discovered oil reservoir is very deep, is filled with heavy oil, or is highly faulted. The petroleum company might have to collect more seismic data or drill delineation wells to confirm that the deposit is commercial.
• 3 to 4 years to construct the feeder pipelines; to fabricate oil separation and treatment plants, and transport them up from the lower-48 States to the North Slope by ocean barge; construct drilling pads; drill to depth; and complete the wells.

I'd say that's optimistic, given the political difficulties involved. The EIA also provide 2 examples:

The Alaska North Slope Badami and Alpine oil fields are recent examples of how long it might take to develop new ANWR oil fields. Located near the western border of ANWR, on State lands, the Badami field was discovered in 1990 and went into production in 1998, thereby taking 8 years between the oil discovery and initial production. On the western border of the State lands, near the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, the Alpine field was discovered in 1994 and initial oil production occurred in 2000, thereby taking 6 years from discovery. These Alaska North Slope oil field development time delays do not include the time delays associated with BLM leasing, the collection and interpretation of seismic data, and the drilling of exploratory wells

[lazs2]

nashwan..  "peak" oil for the world can't be shown since we haven't found all the oil there is to find.  Until we explore all the planet for oil and have a way to assess the size of the fields and know how fast it is being replenished.. we will have no idea.  If we find a way to make oil shale into oil in an economical way then that will change several countries ideas of what is "peak" oil.

If we use less oil per year than the planet makes per year then there is no such thing as "peak".   

As it is.. the date for "peak" oil gets moved around on an almost monthly basis with wild swings.  it is a pretty useless number since there is very little real knowledge involved in the calculation.

If we explore for and drill offshore.. we may find fields bigger than any discovered so far.. at the very least we will have a couple million barrels a day more in less than a decade..  10 years from now we will be asking why we hadn't started ten years earlier.. 

I have heard that it will only lower the price a few cents at the pump..  only strengthen the dollar a cent or so..  the alternative is that the price continues to go up for ten years.

That is if we only find the stuff we absolutely already know is there.   If we find some huge field..  all bets are off..  we will be swimming in the stuff..

I believe that is what democrats and socialists fear most... people being able to have good lives without them.

lazs

[bongaroo]

Crude oil is created by a natural process known as catagenesis. Organic material is trapped in sediment, and as it is gradually buried under more sediment it is warmed by heat from the earth and converted to oil and natural gas.

The organic material is composed primarily of phytoplankton (tiny plants) and zooplankton (tiny animals) that live in the ocean or in lakes. Some plant material is also trapped in sediments, generally carried into the ocean by rivers. In some instances this process may take place at the bottom of fresh water lakes. In order for the material to be preserved, there must be anoxic conditions within the sediments, meaning that there is no oxygen. The sediments are typically carried into a basin by rivers, but another environment where organic sediments are trapped are mudflats known as sabkhas, and some other lagoonal settings. The common idea that dinosaurs contribute to oil is wrong, because the bodies of large animals rot and decompose quickly, and the organic parts are almost never preserved. Most of the organisms that go into oil are microscopic in size.

As this organic-rich sediment is buried under river deltas or other depositional processes, it will eventually reach what is called the oil window. This is the area of the subsurface where the temperature exceeds about 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees F.). At that temperature, the organic material in the rock begins to convert to oil. As the sediment continues to be buried deeper and deeper it may warm to the point it reaches the gas window, about 160 degrees Celsius (320 F.), and will begin to form gas. If it stays this hot long enough, most of the oil will change to natural gas. If it gets too hot, both the oil and gas will eventually convert to graphite. This process of catagenesis can be duplicated in a laboratory.

One of the ideas that has been presented here is the hypothesis of abiotic oil generation. It has been proposed that oil may form from carbon deep within the earth's mantle. If this happens, it is extremely rare, and it is easy to verify that the vast majority of oil and natural gas do not form this way using isotopic testing, and the visible microscopic evidence of phytoplankton and zooplankton remaining in crude oil. Also, if the abiotic oil generation hypothesis were true, oil would be found in metamorphic and igneous rocks that originate deep within the earth. Oil is never found in these types of rock, so most geologists conclude that the abiotic process must be very insignificant. I don't know where the other answerer gets the idea that it is found there, as he doesn't give any sources for his information, and his explanation about clay is some sort of a combobulation of unrelated concepts (oil expulsion has nothing to do with the formation of oil). Oil is found in sedimentary rocks such as sandstone, limestone and shale. Some shale, known as a "source rock" is so rich in oil that it can be crushed and burnt. That is because shale is one of the original places where the remains of the plankton and plants were trapped and stored.

Reference:
Hunt, John M., 1996, Petroleum Geochemistry and Geology, New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 743 pp.

Also see my answer to a question about the amount of time it takes for oil to form:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...
1 year ago
Source(s):
Petroleum Geologist.

and

Four thousand years is the age of one of the youngest known examples of natural oil generation that was in a reservoir in the Guaymas Basin in the Gulf of California (Kvenvolden and Simoneit, 1990, AAPG Bulletin V 74, No 3, p 223-237). This oil was not generated by the most common process that creates oil in the subsurface, but the example does give an idea of the minimum time required for the process, known as catagenesis under natural conditions.

Catagenesis itself may not really be a long time-consuming process, but the deposition and burial of material that creates the right conditions and temperature for oil to be generated may take several hundred thousand to several million years. Oil is not generated from buried organic material until the temperature of the rock reaches about 140 degrees F (60 F.). This is known as the oil window. To reach this temperature, the rock may have to be buried to depths over ten or twenty thousand feet deep. At these depths the internal heat gradient of the earth reaches high enough temperatures to begin the oil generation process. The time involved is due to the rate at which sediment is being deposited by rivers, or by plate tectonic movement that may be forcing the rock that the oil originates from downward.

Most of the oil reservoirs found today probably come from rock that is 1 to 65 million years old. There are quite a few examples of oil reservoirs in rock that is as much as 540 million years old, but oil of that actual age is probably rare. In most cases the oil found in very old rock came from sources generated in younger rock that migrated into the older rock. I do know of examples of oil that was generated in the Mississippian Period, about 300 million years ago.

For more information see this text:
Hunt, John. M, 1996, Petroleum Geochemistry and Geology, W.H.Freeman and Company, New York. 743 pp.
1 year ago
Source(s):
Geologist

So a process that takes between 1 and 65 million years for the right conditions for oil creation is going to be producing as much as we take out lazs?

[Nashwan]

nashwan..  "peak" oil for the world can't be shown since we haven't found all the oil there is to find.

Peak oil is peak oil production. It's not the end of oil production.

Lately we are not finding enough oil to replace what we are using. Sooner or later production will no longer be increasing for the world as a whole. Some countries have already passed that point.

Until we explore all the planet for oil and have a way to assess the size of the fields and know how fast it is being replenished.. we will have no idea.

It's not being replenished. Some oil fileds may appear to refill because oil will seep back in to them from underground pockets. But the US experience proves oil fields are not self replenishing.

US production peaked in 1970. Fields are not replenishing themselves, and US production is falling. High oil prices have helped that flatten out, but the new fields coming on line are not enough to completely offset the declines at existing fields.

If we use less oil per year than the planet makes per year then there is no such thing as "peak".  

We use a lot, lot more. That's why the North Sea is declining, it's why the US is declining, it's why Mexico is declining, and a host of smaller producers.

As it is.. the date for "peak" oil gets moved around on an almost monthly basis with wild swings.  it is a pretty useless number since there is very little real knowledge involved in the calculation.

Agreed. No one knows when peak will be. It's not just geological factors, politics plays a big part in some countries as well. For example, Venezuela is showing large declines in oil output, but that's probably due to mismanagement and nationalisation.

If we explore for and drill offshore.. we may find fields bigger than any discovered so far.

No. The oil industry has a good idea where oil is and isn't, and the prospects for the OCS just aren't that good.

at the very least we will have a couple million barrels a day more in less than a decade.

No, the prediction is 1 million barrels, not a couple of million.

That is if we only find the stuff we absolutely already know is there.   If we find some huge field..  all bets are off..  we will be swimming in the stuff..

No, that's if they find what they expect to find. It could be a bit worse, it could be a bit better. It's not going to be "swimming in the stuff".

I believe that is what democrats and socialists fear most... people being able to have good lives without them.

I don't think it's so much that they fear it, it's that they don't believe people can manage their own lives effectively without direction from above. That's true of all politicians to some extent, but doubly so for the left wing.

[bongaroo]

I didn't know that McCain was opposed to drilling in ANWR.  Interesting.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080827/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_gop_platform

[lazs2]

nashwan..  I do not believe that they know of every oil deposit on the planet.    I think that even you would not be tooooo  surprised if suddenly they discovered a field as vast as any discovered so far.

They simply have no idea since they have not.. in some cases.. can not at this time explore the majority of the planet.   The unexplored parts are much more vast than those that have been explored.. granted.. most of these areas are under miles of ocean and are not even possible to explore at this point but..  we really don't know what is out there.

Every few million barrels a day that we find and drill for will make us (America) better off..

lazs