Do Oil Wells Re-Charge Themselves?

There have been numerous reports in recent times, of oil and gas fields not running out at the expected time, but instead showing a higher content of hydrocarbons after they had already produced more than the initially estimated amount. This has been seen in the Middle East, in the deep gas wells of Oklahoma, on […]

Statoil confirms size of major Arctic discovery

* Field seen at 400 million to 600 million boe * Confirmation priced in Further test on Statoil’s Skrugard and Havis oilfields in Norway’s Arctic north confirmed an earlier resource estimate, the firm and the National Petroleum Directorate said on Tuesday. The find, the latest major discovery in a series for Norway, the world’s eighth-largest […]

Hidden in plain sight: Total Liquids is a Big Lie

There are a fair number of reports which present a particular data series: Total Liquids in Barrels over Time. For an example of this I will use a recent post to The Oil Drum which features a chart based on US DOE EIA data for total liquids in barrels over time. January Oil Supply Stuart […]

Dwindling Resources Trigger Global Land Rush

A global scramble for land and mineral resources fuelled by billions of investment dollars is threatening the last remaining wilderness and critical ecosystems, destroying communities and contaminating huge volumes of fresh water, warned environmental groups in London Wednesday. No national park, delicate ecosystem or community is off limits in the voracious hunt for valuable metals, […]

Net-energy (EROEI), Peak Oil denial & Oil Shale hype

Americans ought to stop complaining about the superficial “price of gas” and learn some geology. The world is finite and so is petroleum, coal, natural gas and even uranium. U.S. oil production peaked in 1970 and it’s become physically impossible for us to obtain the 10 MBPD flow-rate we had at the peak. New oil […]

Chevron Starts Drilling for Shale Gas in China

Chevron Corp. (CVX) said it began exploring for shale gas in China, holder of the world’s biggest reserves of the fuel, and expects to start a natural gas processing plant in the country next year. “The company signed a joint study agreement to explore for gas from shale resources in the Qiannan Basin in April […]

U.S. Geological Survey: North Alaska Holds Vast Natural Gas, Oil Reserves

Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey said this week that an area in Alaska could hold trillions-of-dollars-worth of natural gas and oil. The U.S. Geological Survey said that Alaska’s North Slope shales could contain roughly half of as much natural gas as is located in the Marcellus shale in the contiguous U.S., which by some […]

World oil supply debate between ex-Shell chief and ASPO-USA professor

Video of a spirited debate on peak oil between John Hofmeister (Shell) and Ted Patzek (University of Texas and ASPO-USA). The former president of Shell Oil Company debated Tad Patzek, Chair, Dept. of Petroleum Engineering, University of Texas on Feb 14 at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. The subject was: “The World Oil Supply: […]

Deep Secrets of Lake Vostok & The Fossil Fuel Myth

After over 20 years and miles of drilling Russian scientists have just reached their goal, one of the oldest untouched bodies of freshwater on Earth, Lake Vostok in Antarctica.  Part of a vast chain of subglacial lakes, Vostok hasn’t been touched in 20 million years and carries with it the potential to not only unlock […]

Eni Reports Second ‘Giant’ Natural-Gas Find Off Mozambique

Eni SpA, Italy’s largest oil company, reported a second “giant” natural-gas discovery off Mozambique, near the Mamba South find that it made last year. The new discovery adds 212.5 billion cubic meters of gas in place, bringing total resources in the Mamba complex to 850 billion cubic meters (30 trillion cubic feet), Eni said today […]

That falling feeling: Shale gas estimates continue downward

Estimates for recoverable shale gas just keep falling. Last year, the Potential Gas Committee, an industry consortium that focuses on long-term projections, estimated that recoverable natural gas from shale deposits in the United States would amount to 687 trillion cubic feet (tcf). (This optimistic appraisal laid the groundwork for the oft-repeated notion that the United […]

Three Major Journals Publish Articles on Limited World Oil Supply

In the past month, three major peer-reviewed journals have published articles relating to limited world oil supply: In Science, Technology is Turning U. S. Oil Around But Not the World’s, by Richard A. Kerr; In Nature, Climate Policy: Oil’s Tipping Point has Passed, by James Murray and David King; and In Energy, Oil Supply Limits and […]

3rd Massive Natural Gas Field Discovered near Israel

An American-Israeli drilling consortium on Sunday announced the discovery of a new Mediterranean natural gas field about 120 km northwest of the Haifa coast. The Noble Energy-Delek Group said in a statement that the find lies beneath 5,500 meters of sand and water, in 40-meter thick gas- bearing strata, according to the Globes business daily. […]

Nature: Has Peak Oil Already Happened?

A new analysis concludes that easily extracted oil peaked in 2005, suggesting that dirtier fossil fuels will be burned and energy prices will rise Despite major oil finds off Brazil’s coast, new fields in North Dakota and ongoing increases in the conversion of tar sands to oil in Canada, fresh supplies of petroleum are only […]

ConocoPhillips Reports 2011 Organic Reserve Replacement of 120 percent

ConocoPhillips [NYSE:COP] today announced preliminary 2011 organic net proved reserve additions of 738 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE). This represents an expected organic reserve replacement ratio of 120 percent of 2011 production.  “Replacing our 2011 production with new reserves reflects the success of our strategic focus on organic growth,” said Jim Mulva, chairman and […]

A Basic Understanding of Oil

The creation of oil, gas, coal, and kerogen is an ancient process, which has taken place over the eons ever since photosynthetic life first occurred in the oceans and seas. For example, did you know that the Alberta oil sands area was once part of a prehistoric sea? Alberta’s oilsands are in an area that […]

Seabed gas find blows all other energy sources out the water

A SCIENTIFIC discovery may have more than doubled the world’s energy reserves. Scientists have found vast amounts of natural gas frozen into the seabed, potentially containing more energy than all the world’s known coal, oil and gas reserves combined. The methane gas is mixed with water, and frozen solid by the high pressure and low […]

Cairn’s $600 Million Greenland Oil Campaign Ends in Failure

Cairn Energy Plc ended this year’s $600 million drilling program off Greenland after the biggest exploration campaign attempted in the Arctic island’s waters failed to make a viable discovery. The AT7-1 well, which had encountered traces of oil and gas, has been plugged and abandoned, the Edinburgh-based company said today in a statement. The AT2-1 […]

Statoil makes major oil discovery in Barents Sea

Norway’s Statoil announced Monday a major oil discovery in the Barents Sea that could contain up to 300 million barrels of crude. The Havis prospect is the twin of Skrugard, another deposit Statoil discovered in April 2011, confirming the potential of the waters as yet untapped in the Barents Sea. Together the two deposits could […]

There’s More To It Than Oil

The end of our industrial lifestyle paradigm will be dictated by Liebig’s Law, and by humanity’s response to its consequences. Unfortunately, it is impossible to know at this point which increasingly scarce nonrenewable natural resource (NNR) or NNR combination will ultimately prove to be industrialized humanity’s limiting factor. Consequently, humanity’s global societal collapse may be […]

Shale gas turns energy tables

Countries that have always depended on imported oil and gas, like Chile, Paraguay, Poland or Ukraine, and especially heavy consumers such as the United States and China, could become self-sufficient in natural gas in the near future and even start exporting it. Shale gas – natural gas extracted from shale rock – may well be […]

Natural gas and the trouble with estimating fossil fuel reserves

Over the past few years, I’ve heard several people in the natural gas industry estimate that the United States is sitting on 100 years worth of natural gas. Every time I’ve heard the 100-year estimate batted around, it’s been presented as a positive thing, a shorthand way of saying, “We’ve got tons of home-grown energy, […]

Is there really 100 years’ worth of natural gas beneath the United States?

The recent press about the potential of shale gas would have you believe that America is now sitting on a 100-year supply of natural gas. It’s a “game-changer.” A “golden age of gas” awaits, one in which the United States will be energy independent, even exporting gas to the rest of the world, upending our […]

Arctic oil and natural gas potential

According to an assessment conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Arctic holds an estimated 13 percent (90 billion barrels) of the world’s undiscovered conventional oil resources and 30 percent of its undiscovered conventional natural gas resources. While risks associated with economics, the region’s harsh environment, and ongoing territorial disputes are considerable, potential rewards […]

A Monster from the Deep

With relatively little fanfare on the international stage, Lundin Petroleum and Statoil (and partners) have just recently jointly discovered one of the largest oil fields ever found in the North Sea. The Aldous Major South – Avaldsnes discovery on the Utsira High structure is currently estimated to contain 1.7 to 3.3 billion barrels of recoverable […]

Chevron finds natural gas off western Australia

Chevron Corp. said Thursday that a well being drilled off the coast of western Australia hit natural gas. The company said its Australian subsidiary found gas in water nearly a mile deep and 186 miles from the coastal city of Exmouth. The well was drilled to a depth of 12,461 feet. It was Chevron’s 12th […]

Oil’s getting harder and harder to come by

Are oil companies are finding it increasingly difficult to find new oil? It can certainly seem that way. Most of the older, easier-to-drill oil fields appear to be running near full capacity, while newer supplies often prove costly and difficult to drill — think of deepwater extraction off the Gulf of Mexico or shale production […]

List of Oil Megaprojects as a Google Spreadsheet

I’ve started a spreadsheet copy of the Wikipedia oil megaprojects database. All the original data has been transferred (see below the fold) except for links that I may add in the coming days. I think a Google spreadsheet is much more appropriate than Wikipedia tables for manipulating data and exports in various formats. If anyone […]

Geologic Resources Supply – Demand Model (GeRS-DeMo)

Last year I placed a summary of my PhD thesis on The Oil Drum. The thesis described a new model that projects fossil fuel (coal, conventional oil, unconventional oil, conventional gas, and unconventional gas) for all countries to determine the world’s fossil fuel supply and demand. At the time I did not make the model […]

PetroChina finds shale gas reserves

PetroChina has discovered shale gas in China’s Sichuan province, confirming that the energy-hungry country is sitting on vast reserves of this unconventional fuel source. Shale gas, or natural gas trapped inside deposits of shale rock, is expected to transform China’s energy supply in future decades by providing a potentially cheap and plentiful new source of […]

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