[Aaron]

BackStop -

(Every time I address you I start to use an acronym lol)

So you contend that our secret police already has this data? Like they sneak into Aramco headquarters and steal the numbers?

A possibility I'll grant you, but how can they know if the data is real?

I postulate that to be sure, you have to do the field geology.

I follow your logic, which is pretty flawless I think, but end up with the same unreasonable conclusion which caused me to originate this post...

It just sounds wrong to say if we had accurate data, it would make no difference.

At the very least, Matt Simmons seems to agree that "transparency" is the critical factor in defining a sound energy policy for our future.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 't')his pdf goes with

http://www.csis.org/energy/040224_simmons.pdf

this audio link

http://www.visualcommunications.com/csi ... al_oil.m3u

Boris
London

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Aaron', '
')So you contend that our secret police already has this data? Like they sneak into Aramco headquarters and steal the numbers?

[Aaron]

Fair enough...

But the CIA can't be performing field surveys.

The bottom line it would seem to me, is that the only way to know for sure, is to go look.

[backstop]

Aaron - Maybe we're looking at quantum energy-politics here.

We're in a state of uncertainty over reserves' extractable volumes, but know that they may be high enough merely to make waves to souse market confidence, or perhaps low enough to crumble that confidence into particulate matter.

Yet to explore reserves by force will further destabilize oil production in the ME and elsewhere, thus providing the lower potential supply as a consequence, and foreclosing on the possibility of the higher potential supply. Not undertaking that adventure leaves both outcomes as potentials.

The present uncertainty is proposed as a serious hindrance to the West's addressing the issue of peak oil. Yet the West has for decades resisted any change to expanding fossil fuel dependence on whatever grounds were expedient at the time, but most particularly on grounds of feigned incompetence, that more information is needed before any relevant action is taken.

If we look at the choice from the perspective of where we want to get to asap, then suppose J Kerry is one day faced with signing one of two cheques:

one is for a $100Bn Global Oil Reserves' Investigation Force [GORI-Force] for the first couple of years of its meanders;

the other is for $100Bn of R, D & Deployment of, say, Passive Solar, Offshore Wave, and Coppice Forestry for Methanol Fuel-Cell Vehicles, and to purchase, say, two years worth of extra Tradable Emission-Allocations (from low per-capita emissions countries).

In terms of likely productivity, his signing the latter cheque appears to me preferable from diplomatic, political, industrial, economic, societal and ecological perspectives.

In this light, while espionage on reserve capacities may well intensify, given the neocons' aggression to date it may be that we've already passed Peak Data on the global reserves' extractable capacity.

I guess Healey's dictum is relevant here :

"When your in a hole, stop digging."

regards,

Backstop

[Aaron]

Nice Backstop,

So military surveys "collapse" the probability wave and outcome... I like that.

How about this:

Concealing real reserves data for oil, has been "Weaponized" by OPEC producers and will bankrupt western economies.

They don't even need to realize this weaponization themselves...

Plenty of soccer-moms out there with "Weaponized" motor vehicles. (aka - SUV's). Albeit unknowingly, these death machines are fatal for other passenger vehicles in accidents.

I suppose that's at the root of my question... is reserves transparency potentially devastating enough to merit serious military response?

And even if a military solution for reserves reporting did interrupt some oil exports, is that not better than the absolute cliff we would face if, for example, Ghawar is really 90% gone already?

[backstop]

Soft_Landing - If Ghawar were 90% gone, which is one possibility, then using a significant percentage of US imports for the year on finding this out looks v. expensive. Quite apart from handing Saudi Arabia to Bin Laden on the US withdrawal.

But then blowing what shreds of credibility the US has left with the international community looks ruinously costly.

So where do we invest : in sustainable energies' development and global co-operation, or in a military acqisition of fossil fuels' data ?

regards,

Backstop

[Grasshopper]

Simple seismic surveys of OPEC would not be able to reveal actual recoverable reserves, though it might help find some more oil. Part of the reason there is such a wide range of estimates out there for peak oil production, is that the accuracy of predicting the recoverable reserves of a pool increases as the ultimate recovery is approached. This means oil pools that are undeveloped or newly discovered will not have accurate recoverable reserves, or even accurate original oil in place estimates. We won't know when the peak will be until after the peak, if you know what I mean.

For example:
Estimates of original oil in place from a seismic map of a structure that might contain several producing zones (any of which may or may not be capable of producing oil) would necessarily be pretty vague. Estimates of recoverable oil in a newly discovered pool in that structure, even with only one well, would be much better, because the potential producing zones would have been tested, and the uneconomic, or water-filled ones would be written off. This estimate might be several hundred percent off compared to 5 years later, when the pool has a number of wells that have been producing for a while and some dry holes that did not produce, but helped define the edges of the pool. Later, enhanced recovery, might have changed the recoverable reserves again. As time goes by, the estimates of ultimate recovery and actual recovery converge.

We seem to be in a period where demand for oil equals or exceeds supply capacity, it may be that capacity can't be increased much, i.e. Peak is now, or the Sauds and others can increase production. I would guess that demand will equal or exceed production from now on, with continual supply crises. This might get OPEC to co-operate with consuming countries and increase their transparency voluntarily.
I am hopeful that Saudi Arabia will open up to foreign investment again, like the central Asian republics of the FSU have, which would help with transparency. Any place where only one entity is looking for oil will not be as efficiently explored as one that has several competing companies.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Grasshopper', 'S')imple seismic surveys of OPEC would not be able to reveal actual recoverable reserves, though it might help find some more oil.

[holmes]

nigel and aaron how much do u honestly believe is under the mid east? Im not so sure there is that much. maybe 20 years of global consumption at increasing levels? more?

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')imple seismic surveys of OPEC would not be able to reveal actual recoverable reserves, though it might help find some more oil.