[MTO]

New opportunities for oil and gas investment blossomed yesterday as President Obama announced a plan to lift the long time ban on offshore drilling in the United States. The decision was not made lightly, the President said. He went on to assure Americans that “we’re going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy.”

Max Tech Oil
www.maxtechoil.com

[AAA]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MTO', 'N')ew opportunities for oil and gas investment blossomed yesterday as President Obama announced a plan to lift the long time ban on offshore drilling in the United States. The decision was not made lightly, the President said. He went on to assure Americans that “we’re going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy.”

Max Tech Oil
http://www.maxtechoil.com

>>> LINK <<<
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Brazil-West African Connection Sparks Subsalt Oil Search
by Benoit Faucon and Bernd Radowitz |Dow Jones Newswires|Friday, April 09, 2010

Over the past four decades, the operations now owned by Chevron Corp. in Angola's Cabinda province have crept from just offshore to 50 miles out to sea.

But as it drills further out and deeper down, the company is looking to a model 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to the coast of South America for guidance.

Chevron is just one of several companies and African governments taking a fresh look at West African prospects as they seek to replicate the huge discoveries made in a Brazilian region with a similar geology.

At Chevron's local offices in Cabinda, John Baltz, head of production for Southern Africa, says "you see a lot of similarities" with Brazil in terms of oil reservoirs.

[...]

[Pretorian]

Why dont you just tell me when will I get to fly around the world for $1200 again

[TheAntiDoomer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 'W')hy dont you just tell me when will I get to fly around the world for $1200 again

[KevO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vampyregirl', 'S')hell has announced a signifigant new oil discovery in the deepwater eastern Gulf of Mexico, adding to discoveries in the area from 2009.
The discovery is located in the Appomatax prospect in 2200 metres of water in the Mississippi Canyon blocks 391 and 392.
Shell drilled the discovery well on block 392 to a depth of 7,643 metres and found 162 metres of oil pay. Shell then drilled an appraisal sidetrack to 7,910 metres and found 116 metres of oil pay. Additional appraisal drilling is planned for later this year.
Shell is the operator and holds an 80% interest in the project.
In 2009 Shell made discoveries at West Boreas, Vito, and Cardamom Deep.

[KevO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AAA', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MTO', 'N')ew opportunities for oil and gas investment blossomed yesterday as President Obama announced a plan to lift the long time ban on offshore drilling in the United States. The decision was not made lightly, the President said. He went on to assure Americans that “we’re going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy.”

Max Tech Oil
http://www.maxtechoil.com

[Graeme]

Oil reserves: declining - but how fast?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') declaration by Venezuela last week that it hopes soon to overtake Saudi Arabia as the country with the biggest oil reserves has stoked debate on how much oil and gas the world really has left. OPEC said last week its proven crude oil reserves rose 4 percent in 2009 to 1.06 trillion barrels, led by an increase in Venezuela. BP (BP.L: Quote) estimated last month total global oil reserves were over 1.33 trillion barrels -- equivalent to more than 40 years of consumption at current rates. But many industry analysts have cast doubt on these figures, saying estimates may be inflated for a variety of reasons. Following is a selection of some of the key issues involved:

[Pops]

I'm thinking the BP Reserves to Production Ratio will probably go up again next year - Canada is waiting to be named a big time player right up there with KSA, heck it might keep on rising right along with the price of oil.

On the one hand higher prices make difficult and expensive to extract and refine FF's like tar sand, heavy or deep oil profitable - theoretically, and so able to be booked. But on the other hand, the fact they are more difficult means they take greater investment and the larger investment inherently contains more risk. And of course you don't just stick in a straw and let the good times roll, you gotta really work it.

I've always thought the R/P ratio was the number to watch but it seems more logical now that as FF prices rise, more and more former Dusters will be deemed to have a "chance of commerciality" and so booked as reserves. Whether anyone wants to assume the risk of investing in these Mega-Projects (as opposed to Mega-Fields) with a whole casino full of gamblers betting each other the price will rise (or fall) for no more reason than the computer says it should is the question.

[Graeme]

The world's first really green oil deal

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he world's first genuinely green energy deal is about to be sealed. In a plan which could be a blueprint for saving large tracts of the planet from exploitation, a greater value is being put on a pristine wilderness than on the oil that lies beneath.


While the world's industrialised countries are building complex carbon markets to enable them to carry on polluting, Ecuador has come up with a much simpler idea for mitigating climate change: leave the oil underground. It is promising to lock up as much as a fifth of its oil reserves indefinitely, providing rich nations pay out at least half the market value of the oil – some $3.6bn – as compensation.

The trail-blazing proposal was first floated in 2007, but it took a step towards reality last week when the UN Development Programme signed an agreement with the Ecuadorean government to be the independent administrator for the project's trust fund. The accord makes Ecuador the only country in the world offering to leave lucrative oil reserves untapped in an attempt to slow climate change.

Crucially, the oil in question – some 846 billion barrels of crude – lies beneath the Yasuni National Park, one of the most bio-diverse swathes of rainforest on the planet. Located in the heart of the Ecuadorean Amazon, one hectare contains more tree species than the whole of the US and Canada combined. It is also home to 105 amphibian species – the UK has six – more than 500 birds, 200 mammals and countless insects and plants. Declared a world biosphere reserve by Unesco in 1989, the park is also the ancestral land of two of the world's last remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes, the Tagaeri and the Taromenane.

The plan, backed by Greenpeace, the WWF and even the oil-producing Opec countries – applies to a 675sq mile area of Yasuni known as the ITT block after the three oil-fields that lie beneath it. Locking up the oil would not only protect the rainforest and the indigenous tribes, but it would also stop at least 407 million metric tonnes of CO2 being released into the atmosphere, according to Carlos Larrea, the initiative's technical adviser. "That's more than the total annual emissions of France or Brazil," he said.

In return, Ecuador is asking for $3.6bn – roughly half the expected revenue if the oil was extracted and sold at current prices – to be invested in renewable energy developments to help the country further cut its carbon emissions.

[Xenophobe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'L')et me guess. Ecuador (or is it Columbia?) has agreed to clear cut said rainforest and convert it into a palm oil plantation, so we can drive to the shopping mall, eco-conscious intact, powered by green fuel?

did i get that right?

[timmac]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'L')et me guess. Ecuador (or is it Columbia?) has agreed to clear cut said rainforest and convert it into a palm oil plantation, so we can drive to the shopping mall, eco-conscious intact, powered by green fuel?

did i get that right?

[Xenophobe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'T')hat's what I am saying. Those 846 billion barrels refer to the green cellulose (the trees) on top of the ground rather than 45 million barrels beneath it.

[Tanada]

Call me a cynic if you must but as a student of human nature I strongly suspect this oil field will be tapped in due time, just later than it would have been without this agreement.

[hillsidedigger]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'C')all me a cynic if you must but as a student of human nature I strongly suspect this oil field will be tapped in due time, just later than it would have been without this agreement.

[The_Virginian]

It's 850 MILLION barrels of oil ( max).

http://www.sosyasuni.org/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=144:ecuadors-biodiverse-paradise-could-still-be-lost-to-oil&catid=1:news&Itemid=34

"Ecuador's Biodiverse Paradise Could Still Be Lost to Oil
By Pamela L. Martin, PhD, ENS Newswire

CONWAY, South Carolina, February 16, 2010 (ENS) - In December 2009, as the world waited for a global climate change agreement at the UN Copenhagen climate summit that was never resolved, one bright spot for conservation remained - the protection of a paradise of biodiversity, a portion of Yasuni National Park in Ecuador's Amazon.

Ecuador's innovative plan to keep some 850 million barrels of oil underground and avoid nearly 410 million tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide was heralded as a first step forward for the planetary protection of megadiverse areas.

In exchange for keeping the crude oil in the ground in the Ishpingo, Tampococha, Tiputini (ITT) region of the national park, the Ecuadorian government asked for compensation of $350 million a year for 10 years. The money was to go into The Yasuni Trust Fund to be managed by the United Nations Development Programme. "

[KevO]

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