[Battle_Scarred_Galactico]

As others have said, if this is now passing as the best that can be found we are in trouble.

[lorenzo]

Does anyone know how much was invested in this? Probably very difficult to tell, but can anyone make an educated guess?

I read that the "Tahiti project" costs US$ 35 billion.

Don't we want to know the real cost of those 6000bpd that are called a "huge find"?

It must be quite expensive oil, given the conditions of the field (very deep and nicely off-off-offshore).

[Pablo2079]

Isn't an exploratory well different than a producing well?

I don't know a lot about drilling, but I would think that once you've found the reservoir, then you can drill into it for maximum production. Horizontal drilling, nitrogen/co2 injection etc....

This whole newstory/well stinks of desperation though.... if this is our next great oil frontier, this should be a clue to the general population as to how bad things really are.....

[UncoveringTruths]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')fter the news broke on Chevron’s (CVX) latest deep water oil find, I was racking my brain trying to remember where I heard that story before. Today, as I was munching on some Doritos it hit me – Mexico!

According to an article by LA Times writer Marla Dickerson, dated March 15, 2006:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')bout 60 miles from shore and three miles down through seawater and earth lies Mexico's best hope to replenish its slipping oil fortunes.

Mexican President Vicente Fox announced Tuesday that state-owned oil giant Pemex had hit serious pay dirt in the Gulf of Mexico: A deep-water exploration known as Noxal had tapped a field off the coast of the southern state of Veracruz that could contain as many as 10 billion barrels of oil. If the field pans out, it would be one of the largest in the nation's history and go a long way toward bolstering Mexico's rapidly declining petroleum reserves, which some experts have warned could run out in as little as 11 years.

[mekrob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pablo2079', 'I')sn't an exploratory well different than a producing well?

I don't know a lot about drilling, but I would think that once you've found the reservoir, then you can drill into it for maximum production. Horizontal drilling, nitrogen/co2 injection etc....

This whole newstory/well stinks of desperation though.... if this is our next great oil frontier, this should be a clue to the general population as to how bad things really are.....

[Revi]

Deep hot biosphere will save us all! Check out the article in business week. What surprised me was that all the comments had some knowledge of peak oil.

http://www.businessweek.com/investor/co ... _investing

[Pablo2079]

Although, I wonder if that 6k bpd is a bi-product of the pressure from that depth. Seems like the deeper it is, the bigger it may seem.

Keep in mind, I'm pretty ignorant on the whole thing... but it also occurs to me that it would take a large amount of energy to inject anything at that depth.

[shortonoil]

.

Pretorian said:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')can u please explain ?

[nth]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Battle_Scarred_Galactico', 'A')s others have said, if this is now passing as the best that can be found we are in trouble.

[lorenzo]

I was asking, because as you know, it is very easy to create a field that yields 6000 barrels of oil per day. I can organise this in two weeks time for you, if you want to. All we need is a map, a cheque book and some plants. No need for huge offshore steel platforms, no need for huge supercomputers costing a million dollars per megabite to scan the earth's crust for months on end, no need to have an army and ten rescue teams standing by and costing millions, in case the exploration crew gets lost at sea or when a storm's nearing, no need either for billion dollar drills, no need for ultra-expensive deep-sea ROVs, even less need for millions worth of steel to actually build platforms and exploration ships, etc...
In my world, you simply point at a map and say: here's where we're going to put 10,000 barrels per day. Get your shovels ready. And two years later you have 10,000 barrels per day coming out of the ground for the next 3 decades.

In China they recently said: "see that valley over there? We are going to plant some seeds there, and they will yield more oil than our largest oil field [Daqing] that brings us 700,000bpd." Speaking about big finds. The valley!
http://biopact.com/2006/08/china-breeds ... -high.html


So does anyone know how much this entire joke of finding a mediocre 6000bpd's has cost? I want to compare. I have the vague feeling that my well delivers oil in a much cheaper and more secure way.

[seahorse]

Nice article on Energybulletin about the many, as of yet, unfounded optimistic statements about the new oil find in the gulf and how the re-release of this find (original find in 2004) may be politically motivated.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 't')he total amounts are highly speculative. Additionally, the discovery likely won't impact oil markets but could potentially impact natural gas markets since the discovery is probably mainly natural gas. The area will not come online for at least 4 years and, at a full rate, for at least 7 years. Further, it is likely that there are political motivations behind the announcement, as the vote to open offshore drilling in the United States is upcoming in the US Senate.

[Armageddon]

Bush, " condi, didnt you use to work for chevron ? "
condi, " yes, of coarse i did "
Bush, " well, get on the phone and call your people and tell them we need something big, like a giant oil discovery, because the elections are coming up, and we need to ease the energy tension so them damn dems cant use energy against us "
condi, " good idea georgy porjy, you are so smart "
Bush, " well, i cant take credit for that, my daddy and his new world order buddies told me i had to do this "
condi, " kinda like those fake voting machines that our buddies at diebold rigged for us ? "
Bush, " your learning condi, keep it up, someday I will fill you in on the entire plan "

[Raminagrobis]

one again, they are creating confusion between one field and one province. They've found oil in an exploration well. They're not saying how much.

Instead, they say that "GOM deepwater can hold 3 to 15 billion barrel" - presumalbly yet-to-find. We know that, it's not new.

This figure has to be compare to the cumulative production in the US since the 1860's 180 billion barrels. So it's a 2 to 8% supplement. World consumption is 30 billion barrels per year.

If one of the largest regions being explored in the world can yield at the very best the equivalent of 6 months of world consumption, and perharps 5 times less, we are really in trouble.

Or perharps, the "3 to 15" figure don't refer to the new play they've found. It's volontarly unclear.

But the real question is : How much oil THE field they've found?

It would be "the largest new us oil source since alaska north slope". Great... Just rememenber that Alaska North Slope wasn't able to reverse the overall decline is US production.

A few month ago, the mexicans said they had found 10 billion barrels in a well named Noxal-1. We learned later that the well itself had found only a small amont of natural gas and traces of oil! They explained they mean that it proved the existance of a working petroleum system in the region, a system that may yield 10 billion barrel. Completely unproven extrapolation.

Two years ago, the Chinese annonce the 8 billion barrels "Tahe" field, and we never heard of it again. In the late 90's, commentors said Kazakstan had has much oil as saudi arabia. It really has big reserves, but at best equivalent to 25% of saudi ones. And it's a very difficult to extract, bery low quality oil.

[TWilliam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he company said the well sustained a flow rate of more than 6,000 barrels of crude oil a day during the production test.

[nth]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seahorse', 'N')ice article on Energybulletin [...]
EnergyBulletin

[seahorse]

Nth,

Fair points. What I see is this, even if it produces 400kbpd by 2012, many good models of PO show world decline firmly set in by that time period, so, I don't think it will do much by fuel the tanks and planes for the resource wars.

[seahorse2]

New oildrum article discussing this new find.

Oil Drum

[DantesPeak]

I only found out yesterday that, in addition to the 6.0 earthquake in the eastern/central GOM, there was a 5.2 earthquake within the Lower Tertiary area earlier this year. From what I understand here, the Jack #2 test was conducted after the earthquake, although I have not seen anything anywhere that states so. In fact, I haven't seen any comments anywhere concerning actual or possible earthquakes in the Lower Tertiary from the energy companies. Has the threat just been ignored by them? Does anyone know?

[nth]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DantesPeak', 'I') only found out yesterday that, in addition to the 6.0 earthquake in the eastern/central GOM, there was a 5.2 earthquake within the Lower Tertiary area earlier this year. From what I understand here, the Jack #2 test was conducted after the earthquake, although I have not seen anything anywhere that states so. In fact, I haven't seen any comments anywhere concerning actual or possible earthquakes in the Lower Tertiary from the energy companies. Has the threat just been ignored by them? Does anyone know?

[shakespear1]

When I worked in Indonesia seismic activity was a cause for a few wells being put out. Reason was that the well was drilled across a fault line that moved. Hence the wellbore shifted and the bottom of the hole was lost. Required redrilling.