[Graeme]

New oil, gas sources surpass traditional

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'U')nconventional resources now account for more new production of oil and gas in North America than do their conventional counterparts.

"I guess you might ask if they are really still unconventional," said Stephen Trammel, who addressed the IHS Energy Regional Roundup in Wichita this week. "They've become more the mainstream."

At the top of the list of unconventional resources is coalbed methane. And Kansas is mainstream in that resource with growing production in the Cherokee Basin, the fourth-largest coalbed reserve in the United States.

Additional unconventional resources include oil sands, oil shales, bitumen and natural gas from shales, including the Barnett Shales in Texas and Oklahoma.

"The bottom line is these are huge resources," Trammel said. "The reserves in Canada and Venezuela are three times the size of the reserves in Saudi Arabia. Exploration of the heavy oil sands in the United States is just beginning, but there's evidence that those reserves are also enormous."

While that's good news in terms of energy security, tapping into that oil and gas won't be easy.


"All of this is happening because there is a need for the oil and the price to support going after it," he said. "We need 24,000 new wells a year just to maintain the current level of production because of the decline in conventional wells."

[peasea]

greater minds than mine have often pointed out on this site that this "oil " required large quantities of gas and water as essentially its ashphalt/tar - something in the range of 2 tons of rcok per barrel of oil ? not enough NG or water to refine it.

It would be great if they can get it to scale up but I don't think the cavalry has arrived yet............

the last bit about 24,000 wells rather depresses me into thinking this guy, Stephen, hasn't thought it through.

P.

[Blacksmith]

Read the words very carefully "account for more new production of oil and gas".

Then consider that it takes about 1.5 BOE (barrels of oil equivalent) in natural gas to produce one barrel of oil from the oil sands and up to four barrels of water. Am I the only one who sees a problem here?

[mkwin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('peasea', 'g')reater minds than mine have often pointed out on this site that this "oil " required large quantities of gas and water as essentially its ashphalt/tar - something in the range of 2 tons of rcok per barrel of oil ? not enough NG or water to refine it.

It would be great if they can get it to scale up but I don't think the cavalry has arrived yet............

the last bit about 24,000 wells rather depresses me into thinking this guy, Stephen, hasn't thought it through.

P.

[TheDude]

Nuclear Power for the Oilsands, from the Oil Drum. I've read that this idea is on the shelf for the moment - one reactor can only cover a limited area, for one thing. They're not mobile, like, uh, nuclear bombs. PO Debunked suggests we NUKE THE TARSANDS. I can see that happening down the road, sure...

At the pace the tar sands are ramping up all they'll do is offset declines in conventional Canadian oil. If they could keep pace with that for 150 years, great, but why not just build nukes and electric cars and leave all that bitumen in the ground?

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', '[')b]New oil, gas sources surpass traditional

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'U')nconventional resources now account for more new production of oil and gas in North America than do their conventional counterparts.
...
tapping into that oil and gas won't be easy.
...
"There are a lot of issues of access," Trammel said. "There are environmental concerns to overcome and technological hurdles to extraction."
...
"All of this is happening because there is a need for the oil and the price to support going after it"
...
he said. "We need 24,000 new wells a year just to maintain the current level of production because of the decline in conventional wells."

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'T')he article is a kind of "doomer porn in disguise".
Wonderful technologies are mentioned and then we are explained why they are not applicable to our problems.

http://peakoil.com/fortopic31187.html

[Judgie]

Here's a far-fetched and crazy-idea, perhaps TPTB actually intend for the world to slip in to a Children of Men-esque (minus the loss of fertility, although you never know what they may do about overpopulation) situation to make this all viable?.