[KevO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dub_scratch', '
')
Wouldn't the fact that this vast majority of oil from old fields indicates that the discovery trend for big fields is long past dead?

[dub_scratch]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KevO', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dub_scratch', '
')
Wouldn't the fact that this vast majority of oil from old fields indicates that the discovery trend for big fields is long past dead?

[SoothSayer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dub_scratch', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KevO', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dub_scratch', '
')
Wouldn't the fact that this vast majority of oil from old fields indicates that the discovery trend for big fields is long past dead?

[dub_scratch]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SoothSayer', '
')
Of course. We'll bury a 50 gallon barrel of gasoline (with anti-gummung agent) and give it to you in 2035.


You will be the richest guy on the block!

[Geko45]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dub_scratch', 'A')s far as Lynch, Maugeri et. al. are concerned, the universe is made up of nothing but oil until someone drills a hole and discoveries dirt and rock.

[rockdoc123]

zardoz wrote

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')eonardo Maugeri wrote:

...In Saudi Arabia only 300 oil and gas wells (including developmental wells) have ever been drilled...

Huh? Excuse me?

Calling rockdoc! Come in rockdoc!

[mekrob]

rockdoc,

Is it really likely to find any major fields or any significant amounts of oil in Rub al-Khali? I know that oil can form just about anywhere, but looking at the fields in the Middle East, they all seem to lie along a narrow band from Northern Iraq down through the Persian Gulf.

Very little oil in the Levant and western Iraqi desert. But there is oil in the north, east and south of Iraq, the west of Iran (I believe), far eastern (upper) corner of SA, Kuwait, UAE, and Persian Gulf. I'd guess that about 99% of the proven reserves in the Middle East are all along that long band that encompasses such a small area.

I'm not discounting the finds of oil in the rest of SA, but it just doesn't seem to be very likely to have any large reserves. Have their been any geological studies that have shown that the area (Rub al-Khali) has a good chance for large reserves?

Also, are the Chinese oil companies and Shell allowed to drill for oil, or just gas? I thought SA was restricting exploration and production only to that of gas as of late.

[rockdoc123]

mekrob

I think what the Saudis were doing is following the shallow relatively easy trend of oil along the Ghawar Arch. There are structures in the Rub evidenced on old widely spaced 2D seismic data (Tukman is an example of such) and newer denser data will no doubt identify more. The source rock is mature so that isn't a problem. No one really knows that much about the reservoirs simply because there are so few wells. It is unlikely there will be huge discoveries here but it is possible. I think the Ghadames basin exploration history in Algeria is a good example. In the late eighties Sonatrach pretty much gave up on there being any potential in the Ghadames based on their sparse 2D seismic data and a few wells. Anadarko and others proved them wrong in the mid-ninties by finding around 5 Gbbls of oil and likely in the order of 10 TCF of gas....this done with high resolution 3D data which could identify small faults and stratigraphic traps.
Yes the foreign companies only have rights to Permian Khuff gas....but to get to that gas they have to drill through the other prospective horizons (Cretaceous and Jurassic), hence they end up evaluating the oil potential for Aramco for free (Aramco gets any oil that is discovered).

[Leanan]

They've got a huge special report up:

Forbes

It's got a bunch of articles, plus photos, graphs, and video, including:

It's The Consumption, Stupid

What the World Pays For Energy

Global Energy Overview

Really, Really Cheap Oil (Michael Lynch)

The Saudis Of The Southern Hemisphere

The All-Energy Economy (Russia)

Continental Divide (Europe)

China's Oil Safari

Your Power Bill Is Standing By

Fort Knox's Buried Treasure (Geothermal)

Ethanol Gusher!

[NEOPO]

It was ok.
Michael "spike" lynch wouldnt buy right now

POWERING THE WORLD - started ok but then ehhh....
He said "environmental benefits" and I am sure that burns pstarrs ass
Go get em tiger!!!

Oh the IEA makes predictions on the science of global warming aye? did you guys cetch that?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')IEA: efficient tech can hold co2 emissions in 2050 to just 6% above 2006 levels"

[Carlhole]

It appears that geopolitical tensions have diminished and hedge funds have unwound some of their speculative positions and this has caused a price decline.

Yet, all over the news on programs on CNN and in this Forbes article, cornucopianism is declared triumphant over the the warnings of that peak oil entails. But where have we seen a list of the new projects coming online that would justify the renewed optimistic fervor? The GOM find looks expensive as hell.

Nothing seems to be much different than it was two months ago - except the fear factor has been wrung out the price per barrel.

I'll be interested to read Petroleum Review's inevitable rebuttal to this article.

[emersonbiggins]

One of the usual suspects, Detroit, plus a plethora of others: Mexico City, San Francisco, Timbuktu, Venice, all doomed because of environmental/geological considerations. There's nothing to be found about cities dying due to worldwide economic collapse, though.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')or 900 years, Moenjodaro, a city in what is now Pakistan, was the urban hub of a thriving civilization, the New York or London of its day. Around 1700 B.C., residents suddenly abandoned the Indus Valley city, and it was lost in the sands of time until archaeologists began excavating it in the 1920s. Today, visitors can wander for hundreds of acres among its deserted streets and homes.
...
Forbes

[Cobra_Strike]

I like that NYC will be partly underwater due to sea level rise. Seems almost fair punishment, the loans and policies created there have expanded production of the very things that could mess them up.

[I_Like_Plants]

Water rise of any substantial degree would help the San Francisco Bay Area revert to the estuary it is supposed to be. I'm not sure if I'm sitting at any elevation above sea level at all right now.

[frankthetank]

I think 2050 should be good enough

[SILENTTODD]

I take exception to San Francisco. Yeh it will go through convolutions. But if any city on the Pacific Coast can survive it will be San Francisco.

It existed as the largest city on the west coast clear up the Second World War. A title it held from the time of the California Gold Rush before the age of Oil.

It and San Diego posses the best natural harbors on the West Cost of the North American continent.

It gets adequate rainfall, (more than its neighbor to the south L.A.)

If you had said L.A. I would agree, but not San Francisco

[gg3]

Silenttodd, you forgot about earthquake.

San Francisco is doomed.

As is the East Bay, which I say whilst sitting 1/4 mile from the deadly dangerous Hayward fault.

Any decent quake will break up the underground mains: water, sewer, and gas, thus creating firestorms and rivers of poo. It will also bring down the local grid, so even if we get our nuclear reactor (installed safely inland) it won't be much help without transmission lines.

If a quake rips through when the Cheney/Bush Regime is still in power, we can count on getting Katrinafied and dispersed to widely-separated Republican voting districts. If it waits until President Gore, I'm not sure even he'll be able to do much. I intend to be outski before it happens.

[SILENTTODD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'S')ilenttodd, you forgot about earthquake.

San Francisco is doomed.

As is the East Bay, which I say whilst sitting 1/4 mile from the deadly dangerous Hayward fault.

Any decent quake will break up the underground mains: water, sewer, and gas, thus creating firestorms and rivers of poo. It will also bring down the local grid, so even if we get our nuclear reactor (installed safely inland) it won't be much help without transmission lines.

If a quake rips through when the Cheney/Bush Regime is still in power, we can count on getting Katrinafied and dispersed to widely-separated Republican voting districts. If it waits until President Gore, I'm not sure even he'll be able to do much. I intend to be outski before it happens.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SILENTTODD', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gg3', 'S')ilenttodd, you forgot about earthquake.

San Francisco is doomed.

As is the East Bay, which I say whilst sitting 1/4 mile from the deadly dangerous Hayward fault.

Any decent quake will break up the underground mains: water, sewer, and gas, thus creating firestorms and rivers of poo. It will also bring down the local grid, so even if we get our nuclear reactor (installed safely inland) it won't be much help without transmission lines.

If a quake rips through when the Cheney/Bush Regime is still in power, we can count on getting Katrinafied and dispersed to widely-separated Republican voting districts. If it waits until President Gore, I'm not sure even he'll be able to do much. I intend to be outski before it happens.