Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on January 21, 2013
Iraq Claims Billion Barrel Oil Discovery
Iraq said Sunday it has discovered deposits of crude, equivalent to one billion barrels of oil after the first exploration work by state-owned firms in almost 30 years.
The deposits were found after exploration in Maysan province, in southern Iraq near the border with Iran, and could potentially make a significant addition to Baghdad’s already substantial reserves.
“Exploration began in Maysan, south of (provincial capital) Amara” last year, oil ministry spokesman Assem Jihad told AFP.
“Today, it completed 100% and achieved a big success.
“The initial assessment from this discovery is about one billion barrels of oil,” he said, adding: “It will increase production capacity for (state-owned) Maysan Oil Company.”
Jihad said the state-owned oil exploration firm had been carrying out its first exploration work within Iraq in nearly three decades.
Iraq, which is highly dependent on oil sales for government revenue, has sought in recent years to dramatically ramp up production and exploration in order to help rebuild its conflict-battered economy and infrastructure.
The country has proven reserves of 143.1 billion barrels of oil and 3.2 trillion cubic metres (111.9 trillion cubic feet) of gas, both of which are among the largest in the world.
8 Comments on "Iraq Claims Billion Barrel Oil Discovery"
BillT on Mon, 21st Jan 2013 3:31 pm
You mean that country embroiled in a civil war that will tear it apart soon? A billion barrels…WOW! That’s 12 days worth for the world. And it will be years before it is even running, if it ever does.
More petro porn…RIGZONE.
GregT on Mon, 21st Jan 2013 3:38 pm
Wow, one billion barrels is big news. What should be even bigger news is that a billion barrels would supply the world with oil for about 11 days.
143 billion barrels is among the largest oil reserves in the world? At present rates of consumption this would keep the planet supplied for just over 4 years.
Anyone else notice that we might have a small problem here?
SOS on Mon, 21st Jan 2013 4:42 pm
Even if you are right in your arithmitic, your reasoning is wrong. That’s a billion on top of the billions and billions already on the books. As the Iraquis open these new reserves they will certainly grow far beyond these original estimates.. The secretary of the interior, in 1949, said the US oil supplies were depleted. Where has all the extra come from? How often do end of the world doom and gloomers get to be wrong anyway? Every time? Sure seems like it. LOL
rollin on Mon, 21st Jan 2013 7:52 pm
When I see the price of gasoline below $2 a gallon, I will know they discovered enough oil to stop depletion. Until then, all these small discoveries are just drops in the bucket.
The fact is to keep supplying the world with 30 billion barrels of crude per year, there has to be about 90 billion barrels discovered per year. We are discovering less than 10 billion. The oil production system is being propped up by high prices and tech advances and efficiency increases- and is barely holding level. Once those band aids stop coming it’s demand destruction time. In fact demand destruction is happening now.
ian807 on Mon, 21st Jan 2013 8:55 pm
SOS,
Apparently you think oil is a finite resource. Sorry about your reasoning problems and your interesting assumptions about oil estimates.
Perhaps you could be helped with facts. You might even buy the book referenced at this site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil), assuming you can read an entire book.
GregT on Mon, 21st Jan 2013 10:12 pm
SOS,
A lot has happened on the planet since 1949. I would like to think that with all of the technology that we derived from 80 plus extra years of oil, we might have a better understanding now than we did back then.
DC on Tue, 22nd Jan 2013 4:02 am
You could ask SoS for his source, even if it were relevant to….anything(which its not).
No one said US oil supplies were ‘depleted’ in 1949. SoS is just blowing car exhaust…..again. And no one is saying we are out of oil now. What they are saying, is the cheap easy oil is fast disappearing and being replaced with even dirtier and ever more expensive oil and not-quite-oil.
Nor will there being any more ‘growth’ to enable the worlds economies to absorb these higher energy costs. Expensive energy is here to stay. Now there will still be periodic ‘gluts’, with temporary price drops as demand destruction kicks in, then the price rises will resume. thats how its going to be. The only reason prices are not higher than they are now, is further ‘growth’ on a large scale, is basically impossible. This is helping restrain prices somewhat. But increased demand even in the face of stagnant economies is pushing the other way. Right now the 2 are in an un-easy equilibrium. Billion barrel fields that take 10 years to provide less than 2 weeks of global demand are…helpful if you want the drive-shop-consume economy to avoid total collapse. But there just arent enough of them being found any more to stop that implosion from happening someday.
BillT on Tue, 22nd Jan 2013 4:59 am
To SOS and Econ … oil is a religion built on ‘belief’, not fact. To accept facts, their beliefs would be shattered and they would feel that their lives were a waste. Typical of ALL religions. But then, reality has a way of destroying beliefs built on sand, even tar sand.