[jeromie]

There are some very datailed analyses.

The starting point is

http://www.fe.gov/programs/oilgas/eor/T ... ments.html


These are specific " State of the Art" CO2-EOR to conditions in ten major US Basins State of the art precedes " Game Changer" . Added EOR recoveries are tied economically to Moderate CO2 price/ Moderate Oil Price ($30) and Low cost CO2 and higher oil price. ( $40) Each basin result is a separate field estimate that is totaled. The crux is a source of CO2 supply. Those sources are already extant in these basins and are tied by new dedicated pipeline and existing pipeline.

State of the Art would raise recoveries in the Ten Basin's by up to 47 bn bbl before application of Game Changer which would raise recoveries including recoveries from previously ignored Residual Oil Zones to a cumulative OOIP of around 60 %. Residual Oil Zones will predominate in most of the production possibilities in these basins.

http://www.adv-res.com

OOps, having some trouble. I lost half my post. There is a great power point piece on the above link covering the whole sector really.
Just hit the Enhanced Oil Recovery bar on the left. The paragraph at the top has an underlined sub link. " Maximizing Oil recovery Efficiency and Sequestration of CO2 with " Game Changer" CO@- EOR Technology"

Pemex plans on doing a different kind of EOR involving surfactants based on what I read. The variety of techniques is expanding and being improved upon. Cantarell pressure was maintained with the help of Nitrogen from a huge plant, supposedly the world's largest. It is now being run by Linde if I remember correctly.

[BigTex]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheDude', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jeromie', 'V')ery extensive reporting on these details is featured on the US Department of Energy Website.

[hillsidedigger]

On an environmental board I sometimes read a question was ask about what is the most polluted place you have ever seen.

The Canterell waters was named by more than one responder.

Why won't they let us do that to the Florida and Santa Barbara coasts?

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hillsidedigger', 'O')n an environmental board I sometimes read a question was ask about what is the most polluted place you have ever seen. The Canterell waters was named by more than one responder. Why won't they let us do that to the Florida and Santa Barbara coasts?

[jeromie]

Cantarell is presently closing in on 1,000,000 b/d production as pressure falls. cantarell is said to reach stabilization at 500,000 b/d in several years. Thereafter, it will very slowly decline absent some kind of Tertiary stimulation. For the most part, Pemex is allowing this to happen to set the stage for Tertiary stimulation. Pemex has announced their capital program for the next several years which includes Cantarell.

It is not hard to figure out the logistics quagmire that Pemex is In. Pemex could have maintained and increased Nitrogen stimulation had Pemex been able to produce the added gas or buy it. Obviously, internal problems at Pemex and it's relationship with the government precluded the funds allocation for another massive nitrogen plant to produce Pemex's marginally added Nitrogen needs. The alternate plan announced is to stimulate Cantarell with a surfactant which is available and comes out of operating funds.

So, the Cantarell decline which must have been expected is almost surely predominately a corporate/ government induced problem.

I am trying to find more public data on this . For instance, is Pemex's future stimulation the best solution or the cheapest stop gap methodology to produce revenues for a desperate government?

[jeromie]

Linde operates the Nitrogen source plant that Pemex relies on. There is a piece on their website linde.com Enhanced Oil Recovery ( EOR) with Carbon Dioxide or Nitrogen


The piece rather mysteriously is mostly about " Huff and Puff" CO2 stimulation and not Nitrogen pressure stimulation. Given the decrepit political situation and political dependence on Pemex royalties it looks like the real decision about EOR is bogged down. Huff and Puff requires a steam source and carbon dioxide to heat the oil and with surfactants the CO2 pushes freed up oil to the well. The CO2 can easily come from Linde. Does anyone know about available steam sources near Cantarell? Of course, Pemex could build a power station to supply both CO2 and steam in close proximity to the Cantarell field.


In the meantime, the State Department has approved the Alberta- Superior, Wisconsin Syncrude pipeline delivering up to 1,800,000 b/d of syncrude by 2015. On top of that several rather massive upgrader's to process that Syncrude are already under construction. The biggest is the Sturgeon County Alberta upgrader now entering Phase II construction.

In time, Mexico will lose it's market in the US to Syncrude.

[BigTex]

If peak oil is ultimately about flow rates, I suppose it doesn't really matter whether a bottleneck is political or geological, right?

So even if Mexico COULD increase its flow rate with the proper model of flux capacitor, if it doesn't do so because the flux capacitor rep didn't come by this month, or Mexico's credit application was turned down, the result is the same.

It sounds like Mexico is basically making "the dog ate my homework" excuse.

[jeromie]

I would think there is a first question. How much of any type is recoverable at a working price over all time?. Flow rates determine how long the recovery period is.
The next question is on whose turf is the oil flowing? The state of origin supplies itself first, a political question. After that it is geopolitics of who compels allocation.

I am working on a narrow project for starters. Just what are the possible/ working recoveries of all types of oils by any methodology in North America not considering Mexico for the moment . The next set of questions are the same applied primarily to unconventional gas. After that CTL.

How much is possible from what our understandings of oil pools and production techniques are for all sources of fossil energy in North America and from any point of workable recovery. Naturally, allowing for expansion of current understandings. As an example. TV was first demonstrated in 1928. I would equate conventional CO2 EOR with B&W TV. State of the Art CO2 EOR would be Color TV. Game changer would be HDTV.

My objective is to see just how far North America could provide it's own fossil energies and for how long with a view to including forced reductions to be self sufficient. I realize there is a geopolitical aspect because in order for foreign savings to finance the military without increased taxes on the rich oil must be imported. At least selectively.

In short, a first step is how much fossil energy for how long in North America from all sources and for how long assuming a long flat production curve characteristic of EOR production. Unconventional gas will fill in for a very long time.

Add. It seems obvious that players buying Mexican crude would look elsewhere before allowing themselves to be shorted. Syncrude is working right into position as the replacement.

[DantesPeak]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BigTex', 'I')f peak oil is ultimately about flow rates, I suppose it doesn't really matter whether a bottleneck is political or geological, right?

So even if Mexico COULD increase its flow rate with the proper model of flux capacitor, if it doesn't do so because the flux capacitor rep didn't come by this month, or Mexico's credit application was turned down, the result is the same.

It sounds like Mexico is basically making "the dog ate my homework" excuse.

[jeromie]

They surely have botched it all at Pemex. I read a similar piece. I wonder what rectification might be available to Pemex other than flaring? Pemex produced to ruination which means that a lot of oil is still there.

In any event, the masters of big oil refining must cover their needs and seem to be doing so via Syncrude. Mexico might simply be left out. Mexico is ripe for implosion at any time and on that basis alone different supply sources should be invested in and forced through to implementation.

Pemex looks to be in the classic lose all ways conundrum unless they find a breakout expert who can make the breakout stick.

[jeromie]

Avoiding loss of oil supples by US refiners due to Cantarell and Mexico generally seems to be well underway. Their are a number of US refining expansions going on and they all say the same thing. Process Syncrude and other heavy oils. Either/ or. For example, EnCana / ConocoPhillips are greatly expanding production at Wood River in Roxanna, Il on the Mississippi. They are upping capacity 50,000b/d but doubling heavy oil capacity to 130,000 b/d. This is specifically for oil sands. Thus they can get Orinoco heavy crude or EnCana's heavy crude at will. This is a $3.6 bn expansion. Harvest is also set to expand their North Atlantic Refining facility to do the same thing . Just waiting for a price signal according to the Harvest Annual Report.

[Maddog78]

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=80241

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')exico's Fading Oil Output Squeezes Exports, Spending
by David Luhnow|Dow Jones Newswires|Friday, September 11, 2009


Mexico's oil output is falling faster than expected, increasing the chance that the country will lose its status as a major oil exporter in coming years and face a worsening budget shortfall.

Output at state-owned oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos's offshore field Cantarell, once the world's second-largest oil field, has plunged to 500,000 barrels a day from its peak of 2.1 million in 2005.

"I don't recall seeing anything in the industry as dramatic as Cantarell," says Mark Thurber, assistant director for research at the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University.


snip..............


For the U.S., the decline in Mexican output means less oil from a politically stable and friendly nation; in the medium term, that will increase dependence on Mideast oil, though Canada and Brazil are ramping up production.

"Some of Mexico's top leadership has some urgency, but it doesn't seem to have permeated the rest of the political class or the general consciousness," says Stanford's Mr. Thurber. "Mexico's political class is busy rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic."

[mcgowanjm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')It looks like the Mexican middle class is paying for those bonds with their pensions. They will likely lose everything when Mexico is forced to default on that debt...again...

[lonewolf]

FROM numerous sources

Cantarell Field Production (more or less 'official' stats)
Year MBPD YOY
2001 2.200 NA
2002 1.900 -13.64%
2003 2.100 10.53%
2004 2.000 -4.76%
2005 1.900 -5.00%
2006 1.632 -14.11%
2007 1.402 -14.09%
2008 1.195 -14.76%
2009(avg) 0.700 -41.42%
end 09 0.550 -72.50% (25% of peak output)
(various citations for producrion rate at end of 2009 range between 500 and 580 Kbpd)

The Pemex estimate for Cantarell in 2017 is 255 Kbpd (their forecasts are consistently 'rosey' (aka bogus, BS). They had projected on the order of a -20% decline rate for 2009 and got greater than -40% (year average) and more than -70% YoY decline rate by years end.

On the current trajectory of -41% YoY, by the end of 2010, Cantarell output would be 332 Kbpd
If the decline continues to accelerate in 2010 as it did in 09, they'll be sucking on mostly dry holes before this year is out and producing 176 Kbpd at best.

How do you measure your crash velocity?

Adious Amigos
Hello giant sucking sound.

[dissident]

The 2009 collapse is an important pattern to be expected from other fields around the world. The downslope of the global production curve may be steeper than what is typically predicted.

[Rod_Cloutier]

Got to agree with that. I read 'Twilight in the desert' a couple of years ago, and so far Simmons' timing has been off for the beginning of Saudi oil decline.

I would expect that once Saudi Arabia's oil does start to decline, the decline rates will be similar to what we are seeing in Mexico. Well planned, well managed fields, declining exponentially - as Simmons put it 'the superstraw effect'.

Here in Canada, I saw a newspaper editiorial a few months ago, it said that if the US could have spent even half what they have so far spent on developing Iraq's oil fields instead on oil sands development, then they could have added up to 5 million barrels per day in Canadian capacity. Canada is still one of the world's very few oil producing areas still experiencing export growth.

If all the world is like Mexico, watch out!

[sicophiliac]

If I know anything about bell curves and oil depletion.. which I don't admittedly, don't the steepest declines happen early past peak and then production kind of levels off into a slow slow decline from then on out?

[lonewolf]

TMK Hypothetical symmetric bell curves are fairy tales - especially for any given field with ever increasing levels of 'technology' aka effort aka panic thrown at it. Cantarell only once saw the productions levels it did due to massive N injection (since late 90's if I recall correctly) to 'maintain' pressure. Diminishing returns on accelerated effort - sound familiar?. I'll take documented reality over fanciful conjecture and overt speculation any day, month or year. The fact(s) here speak for themselves. We are now all officially trapped in the gravity well of a giant sucking vortex of despair (and always have been, actually).

[TheDude]

Here are the production percent changes YOY for Forties:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '1976 92.66%
1977 57.51%
1978 17.57%
1979 0.24%
1980 0.33%
1981 -7.32%
1982 -2.73%
1983 -2.02%
1984 -6.78%
1985 -9.02%
1986 -10.54%
1987 -3.54%
1988 -10.89%
1989 -27.76%
1990 -8.77%
1991 -12.32%
1992 -7.96%
1993 -22.20%
1994 3.41%
1995 -12.73%
1996 -0.93%
1997 -20.44%
1998 -2.83%
1999 -19.42%
2000 -15.70%
2001 3.57%
2002 -7.49%
2003 -22.60%
2004 23.67%
2005 18.86%
2006 -10.60%
2007 -9.94%
2008 11.78%
2009 -31.23%
')

Of course later in the game the field isn't producing anything like it did at peak:



Mostly it was a controlled decline with a predictable outcome for the trend; Pemex are really crashing and burning. UK Field production Data.

[Tanada]

The only real question I have is, if they start doing the right things will Cantarell recover at all and if so how much? We know they have been going for fastest possible extraction vs longest sustainable extraction. How badly have they damaged the reservoir? Is it too late to make an effort, or is there still some hope left?