[Windmills]

Another seed of truth that is distorted in these types of urban legends is that, yes, there is a lot of oil that companies are "sitting on": it's the oil left in a field that can't be extracted, which is usually about 70 to 80% of the amount originally in the ground, if I recall correctly. As a field is produced, the pressure drops too far for anymore oil to be pumped out.

The myth-makers take a fact like that and ignore the part where the oil can't be extracted and just say, "look at all that oil left in the ground! They're just sitting on it...because...because they hate our freedom!"

[cynthia]

My father is 75 years old and lived in California for the first 20 years of his life. He saw numerous oil wells capped and believes if only we opened them up we wouldn't be so dependent on ME oil thereby making gasoline affordable again.
Hmmm. I like to keep the family visits pleasant and have stopped discussing contrary viewpoints.
cynthia

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Windmills', 'A')nother seed of truth that is distorted in these types of urban legends is that, yes, there is a lot of oil that companies are "sitting on": it's the oil left in a field that can't be extracted, which is usually about 70 to 80% of the amount originally in the ground, if I recall correctly. As a field is produced, the pressure drops too far for anymore oil to be pumped out.

The myth-makers take a fact like that and ignore the part where the oil can't be extracted and just say, "look at all that oil left in the ground! They're just sitting on it...because...because they hate our freedom!"

[Serial_Worrier]

Let Freedom Ring baby! BTW, Rush Limbaugh needs more of your money, so please contribute:

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/menu/f ... guest.html

[joeltrout]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cynthia', 'M')y father is 75 years old and lived in California for the first 20 years of his life. He saw numerous oil wells capped and

[Snik]

Total bunk Zeke. At $140 per BO there nobody is stupid enough to be "sitting" on any oil reserves, except for the federal government of course.

[eastbay]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Snik', 'T')otal bunk Zeke. At $140 per BO there nobody is stupid enough to be "sitting" on any oil reserves, except for the federal government of course.

[Snik]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eastbay', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Snik', 'T')otal bunk Zeke. At $140 per BO there nobody is stupid enough to be "sitting" on any oil reserves, except for the federal government of course.

[zeke]

I didn't know the average recoverable amount was in the neighborhood of 35%...lower than I thought...


well, the ppl I talk to who embrace this "lots of capped US wells" story are sort of losing their $#i* over what is becoming clearer and clearer to then...that PO isn't some fiction whipped up to cheat them out of driving happily ever after.

zeke

[katkinkate]

There's a similar story here in Queensland. My Dad's convinced that there is oil in western Queensland. He said an oil exploration geologist went west decades ago and when he came back, he told several people (one of whom worked with my Da) that there was lots of oil out there and don't sell your shares in .. whatever the company it was.. I don't remember. And my Da took it to heart and is really angry that those wells aren't being pumped to bring the cost of fuel down. I can't convince him otherwise. I know we've got lots of coal and they are tapping into the coal gas now, but if there was any appreciable amount of oil out there, you'd think someone would be 'producing' it by now. Therefore, there probably isn't.

[CarlosFerreira]

From what I understand, the only place in the world that could be producing more right now is Saudi Arabia, and even there it's not certain. The jury's out on that one.

What we're seeing with all the going back to stripper wells is a misdirection of economic incentives: petroleum price increases is driving up the incentives to produce both petroleum itself and alternatives. Alternatives are more expensive, require more investment and bring a long-term prospective yield, whereas pumping left-overs from old wells brings short-term money, therefore people are going back for what was there.

Imagine a time of hunger: you eat absolutely everything in your plate, the fruit, the grains in the fruit and the leaves in the tree. You eat the grass. You eat things you wouldn't touch with a stick in times of plenty.

So, I believe that there's no economic reason to be sitting on untapped wells. There's probably not much more that could be extracted per time unit right now.

That's PO.

[JJ]

I hear this all the time (I used to roughneck, and we capped off x number of wells, blah blah blah....)

and ate dinner at a seismologists house the other night and he said its not like we have any extra drilling rigs laying around...(I know this is off topic)

[allenwrench]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zeke', 'I')'ve been hearing and reading lately what seems to be an urban legend among some folks that there are "hundreds and thousands" of oil wells which could be pumping sweet crude at this very moment, if not for...


and then the story has it that the oil companies are sitting on more sweet domestic crude than in 50 Ghawars, yadda yadda..

I'm wondering what, if any, the kernel of truth there is to this story which has vaulted it to full-on whopper status.

anyone know about this?

zeke

[ROCKMAN]

Yep...I think everyone has figured out the reality of all those "capped" oil wells. I actually specialize in going after old abandoned wells (once a well stops producing the oil company looses all right and the mineral owner is free to do what he likes with the well). It's usually a matter of spending $X to recover Y amount of oil. Lot's of wells aren't worth resurrecting at $40 but are at $140. But usually the flow rate is low...5....10....maybe 20 bbls per day. And every now and then a real barn burner of a few hundred bopd that the previous company unknowingly walked away from.

But don't let the low flow potential fool you. We produce 7 million bbl of oil per day but the average oil well in the US produces less than 10 bopd. We just have hundreds of thousands of them. I don't have a current number but 10 years or so ago the average Saudi well flowed 5000 bopd. Another little bit of oil patch trivia: All the major oil companies combined don't produce as much oil in the US as all the little independents including real ma and pa operators. It's these same operators that can make a good living producing 10 wells at 5 bopd each. ExxonMobil couldn't even afford to handle the paperwork on those wells.

[aahala2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zeke', 'I')'ve been hearing and reading lately what seems to be an urban legend among some folks that there are "hundreds and thousands" of oil wells which could be pumping sweet crude at this very moment, if not for...


and then the story has it that the oil companies are sitting on more sweet domestic crude than in 50 Ghawars, yadda yadda..

I'm wondering what, if any, the kernel of truth there is to this story which has vaulted it to full-on whopper status.

anyone know about this?

zeke

[zeke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', '
')But don't let the low flow potential fool you. We produce 7 million bbl of oil per day but the average oil well in the US produces less than 10 bopd. We just have hundreds of thousands of them...

[Homesteader]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', '
')But don't let the low flow potential fool you. We produce 7 million bbl of oil per day

[joeltrout]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ROCKMAN', ' ')(once a well stops producing the oil company looses all right and the mineral owner is free to do what he likes with the well).

[CarlosFerreira]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zeke', '
')here we are, with some significant resource, and rather than smartening up, conserving, and re-directing resources in a way that will help our future, we're p|$$|ng it away like a 4-year-old tot let loose in a candy shop.

[ROCKMAN]

Pretty much the same rules in TX Joel.

Your number is probably better Homesteader. I just throw out the same stuff others do.

Clarification: a capped well usually means its been plugged and abandoned. Takes a new lease and some serois money to bring one of those back to life. A shutin well isn't P&A and is just sitting there not producing. An operaor won't spend the money to plug a S/I well until he has to so there are thousand of old wells with no production capability still being carried as S/I.

And don't scoff at 1 or 2 bbl per day. If I owned 10 wells doing 2 bopd each I could net around $150,000 per year. If i'm a one man company I've very happy because 90% of the time I can just sit under a tree with a cold one and watch those wells make my paycheck