[gt1370a]

A couple of years ago, I told a friend about peak oil, and his immediate reply was "Ah, my brother-in-law used to work for Chevron, and he says they have this huge elephant oil field in the Gulf of Mexico, but they're not going to start producing it until prices get high enough." I wonder if this was it?

[DantesPeak]

I still haven't seen one report that addresses how the Jack area rigs are going to stand up to some of the strongest hurricane winds in the world.

Here's another similar Simmons quote on the subject:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')It's phenomenal, if it's there," said Matthew Simmons, who heads Simmons & Co., a Houston investment bank that specializes in energy. "But until you get a field on production, you don't really know what's there.... It's a roll of the dice."

Simmons said the gulf had yielded several highly touted oil finds over the years that fell short of expectations.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mekrob', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ChicknLittle', 'T')he cynical progressive in me guesses that this "news" was re-released in advance of the November elections to help the mood of the Voters. Don't worry, Be Happy, Vote Republican.

[gnm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gt1370a', 'A') couple of years ago, I told a friend about peak oil, and his immediate reply was "Ah, my brother-in-law used to work for Chevron, and he says they have this huge elephant oil field in the Gulf of Mexico, but they're not going to start producing it until prices get high enough." I wonder if this was it?

[nth]

Just because they drilled so deep does not mean the oil is so deep.
These are exploration wells and not production wells. When they are drilling production wells, they will not be drilling so deep.

[mekrob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')immons said the gulf had yielded several highly touted oil finds over the years that fell short of expectations.

[Heineken]

I don't know about the Gulf, mekrob, but the Caspian is an example of a "monstrous find" that ultimately disappointed. There's oil and NG there, just not nearly as much as they thought at first.

[DantesPeak]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mekrob', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')immons said the gulf had yielded several highly touted oil finds over the years that fell short of expectations.

[WebHubbleTelescope]

Nothing you can do in predicting when a single field will come on-line. However, using stochastic modeling, you can predict probabilistically when a region or group of fields starts producing.

You start with estimates of 4 parameters, consisting of the fallow period, the construction period, the maturation period, and finally the extraction rate. Each one of these operates on a stimulus based on estimates of discoveries. In the end, the production curve ends up looking like the classic Hubbert peak.

http://mobjectivist.blogspot.com/2006/0 ... d-gas.html -- Oil Shock Model


The rate parameters work together to provide the well known (but little undersood) lag factor between peak discoveries and peak production.

[Fergus]

If the production does not start for a few years, will they be able to afford it in 2010 or 2012? Does there come a point when even the oil in the ground (or gas) is just too expensive to get out? Could the cost of transportation, manufacturing, drilling become prohibitive to the production of the resource targeted?

[Revi]

I love going on Peak Oil. I was thinking that it was a bit strange that they had found all this oil now, or a wonderful thing had transpired. Now that I have read all the posts I'm not so sure. Have they gotten a single drop out of the lower tertiary so far? Do they really know how much is down there? Is this going to keep us in an easy motoring lifestyle? Stay tuned.

[frankthetank]

This was the headline story in our local newspaper, although the article wasn't overly optomistic.

[DigitalCubano]

Long tail, people! This is but one, albeit pretty substantial, addition. I'm curious if any of the legit, trained rock hounds on here care to comment on what the prospects are of applying this technology/production technique to other deep water reserves that haven't made it to "proven" status yet.

Meh, I'd prefer we get on with the alternatives than continue with the black gold. So be it.

[Aaron]

The upside here is that this find implies that more fields which were considered unrecoverable may now be recoverable.

The downside is it's a drop in the bucket & that drop will only help our world maintain the illusion a few months more.

As discussed many times here, the only thing worse than PO may be delaying Peak by finding new oil supplies.

Kinda like dropping a 5 course gourmet meal into a starving population.

People stuff themselves on the yummy goodness, then wake up in the morning & scan the sky for today's meal...

[mekrob]

It just occurred to me: the 3-15 bln barrel figure, whose figure is that: Chevron's, or oil 'analysts'? In the press releases, Chevron only mentions the well being drilled and in Sept 04, that the field was discovered. They never make any mention as to the size of the field or the potential it could hold. The news articles always mention the 3-15 bln figure and says that that number is from Chevron and company, but it never says who in the company reported that, thus making it seem as though it's from a press release. So where did that figure originate?

[shortonoil]

.

It looks to me like this announcement, whether it is 3 or 15 billion barrels, smacks of complete desperation on the part of the oil producers. To laud a find, 28,000 feet down, can be nothing more then an attempt to paper over a much, much bigger problem. The ERoEI on this field must be getting very close to 1:1 on finished product produced. At a well cost of $150 million per well, it would require a time period of 3 to 6 months of production, just to get a return on the energy invested that was used to drill the well. This is not great news, it is very, very bad news!

.

[nth]

At $150m per well head, how you come up with 3-6months for ROI?

Just using my head, it seems to take over 2 years to recoup that cost at 6kbpd per well head. I be mighty surprised to see 6kbpd per well head.

[shortonoil]

.

nth said:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')t $150m per well head, how you come up with 3-6months for ROI?

Just using my head, it seems to take over 2 years to recoup that cost at 6kbpd per well head. I be mighty surprised to see 6kbpd per well head.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonoil', '.')

nth said:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')t $150m per well head, how you come up with 3-6months for ROI?

Just using my head, it seems to take over 2 years to recoup that cost at 6kbpd per well head. I be mighty surprised to see 6kbpd per well head.

[grabby]

I can produce a dollar with 1/100th of a BTU/

example:
You call alawyer and ask him if he will help you write a contract. Y says SURE and sends you a bill for 350 dollars (How much oil did it take to make the phone call for a minute?

yet he made 350 dollars.

now if you want to sell hand-collected poppy seeds, incuding the flight to Turkey to go pick them, you are going to spend most of your profit collecting the poppy seeds.


get it?

in other words, some charges are rip offs.

like a check cashing joint.
you cash your pay check there and they take 10 % for signing the check and giving you cash. how much oil did it take to make the effort to count out some dollars?

or worse yet MICROSOFT!
they sell you a software program you download on the internet and you pay 120 bucks.
how much oil did it take to do a fiber optic download for 2 seconds?
zilch

and how about hollywood?
they sell you a CD that costs them 10 cents to make for 18 dollars.


in other words LOW EROI incomes are ripoffs and should be prosecuted for dishonest work.