[rockdoc123]

well all the technical reasons why pumping water from a pool isn't like producing an oil well have been covered....but the more important differences that control oil production rates versus emptying your swimming pool rate are:

1. there is no regulatory body who tells you the maximum rate that you can pump your swimming pool out at
2. when you walk out to your pool to start the pump up it is not surrounded by indigenous peoples asking for jobs
3. chances are good that no NGO's will send protesters to your backyard who will blockade your pump

[MD]

I am checking my understanding here:

Water injection maintains pressure. If production is constrained below maximum at any given well bore, this tends to keep the water from "coning" or bypassing oil. In other words, the water will tend to stay below the oil, giving the higher viscosity oil time to move through the rock towards the bore, without the water being able to pass around the oil through cracks or rocks with higher porosity. This is basically why over producing a fieldl kills the ultimate recovery?

[shakespear1]

Your thinking correctly.

The viscosity differences creat problems for us to maintain the optimal profile of the moving fluids toward the wellbore. We have this problem in the vertical and areal plane.

[JoeGreene]

clv101, per your Jun 17 suggestion, I looked at graphs in Chris Skrebowski's presentation and noticed rare occasions where one might even see the swimming pool extraction curve I envisioned.

My only thought, and it's just that, is that technology modifies the shape of today's global production curve - making it more square - as compared to that made in the 50's by Hubbert.

If true, peak predictions based on the original would be premature, with the peak itself flatter and the decline more drastic. This would fit the concept that everything mankind does to better himself, in the end only makes the doom more pronounced.

[rodk]

Hey guys! My first post over here. Interesting reading...one of the best oilfield forums I've found so far (seem to be few and far between).

Oil does make the world economy go around....it's transportability will always make it an easy product of choice in remote or offshore locations. However, I haven't found too much talk about natural gas (I know, the website is Peak Oil!) and it's domination of the USA drilling activity right now. Natural Gas is clean.....it is much less problematic to produce than oil and has much, much higher recovery rates. Drawback is you need pipelines and sufficient capacity to get it to market.

As everyone knows on the boards.....recovery rates for oil are generally low (the lower the gravity typically the lower the recovery)....I think technology will continue to expand in this area to improve recovery rates in even the lowest API gravity oils....this will make a huge difference in the world market...revitalizing this old, dead oil fields that were thought depleted but now brought back to life with new technology. Technology continues to improve and evolve and we continue to reach oil and gas reserves before that we thought were unreachable due to: water depth, depth, temperature, pressure, low permeability (shale & CBM), etc.

I think most people would be amazed at the cutting edge technology utilized in the oil patch. I think the general perception is that it's a dumb and dirty business with a bunch of red-necks at the helm....which is unfortunate.

[Kylon]

I was thinking what if we developed an anarobic bacteria that consumes oil and produces methane, and pump it into depleted oil wells.

Depeleted oil wells still hold 2/3rds of their initial oil, but the oil is inaccessible. If bacteria were placed down there, they would consume the oil, produce methane, which would in turn produce high amounts of pressure, which in turn may increase the amount of oil extracted out of the ground. At the very least it would produce methane from the ground, at the very least natural gas would be produced from the ground which could be used for energy production.

[turmoil]

it'd be good if the bacteria were self replicating, cause you'd need lots of them to produce millions of cubic feet of gas every day.

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('stupid_monkeys', 'i')'d be good if the bacteria were self replicating, cause you'd need lots of them to produce millions of cubic feet of gas every day.

[turmoil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergySpin', 'H')ow about feeding beans to humans , who end up producing natural gas (aka farts?). Bean protein for human power, bean fiber to heat your house.

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('stupid_monkeys', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergySpin', 'H')ow about feeding beans to humans , who end up producing natural gas (aka farts?). Bean protein for human power, bean fiber to heat your house.

[turmoil]

(in a really bad British accent) What a good idea!!!

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('stupid_monkeys', '(')in a really bad British accent) What a good idea!!!

[turmoil]

Quick!!!! you get the beans, ill get the beer, and Kylon can get the storage tanks.

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('stupid_monkeys', 'Q')uick!!!! you get the beans, ill get the beer, and Kylon can get the storage tanks.

[turmoil]

or how about Kylon Energy Monkeys

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('stupid_monkeys', ':')lol: or how about Kylon Energy Monkeys

[turmoil]

Muahahaha. Our first ad!!!

===

[Kylon]

Most bacteria are self replicating(except for mutants, which don't last very long), and will replicate very quickly unless you have some special limiting factor(like a needed amino acid which can't be gotten from their environment, as done with intestinal bacteria to produce antibodies against certain diseases).

[turmoil]

sweet... so these bacteria would have to consume everything in the oil except carbon and hydrogen, and output the carbon and hydrogen stuck together in the ratio of 1:4 (CH4), which is methane. It'd be great if that's possible. You know any chemists...er...biochemists?

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('stupid_monkeys', 's')weet... so these bacteria would have to consume everything in the oil except carbon and hydrogen, and output the carbon and hydrogen stuck together in the ratio of 1:4 (CH4), which is methane. It'd be great if that's possible. You know any chemists...er...biochemists?