Oil And Gas “Rust”: An Evil Worse Than Depletion

Ache · Heavy Crude Joined: Apr 23, 2005 Posts: 263

http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/OTC%202008.pdf

Fredrik

If physical infrastructure decays as quickly and as massively as Simmons says, it will probably make the initial drop in supply quite steep, but preserve a little more oil reserves for later years. Whether it will be financially possible or energetically sensible to build huge new rigs and drilling equipment to get the remaining harder-to-extract oil, is another matter.
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ZombieMalthus · Tar Sands Joined: May 14, 2008 Posts: 23

Geez, aliens blowing up the Whitehouse, the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, ... Simmons is getting really alarmist.

Fun read, though.

TheDude

Sounds like Matt's a Neil Young fan, too. Maybe his next PPT will state that Cantarell's decline is Cortez the Killer... Laughing

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mididoctors

He does appear to be freaking out....

well he always described himself as a energy worrier.

energy Czars .. not very adam smith.

Boris
London

pstarr

MacG · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jun 04, 2005 Posts: 1178

Relevant. And scary. He's been touching the infrastructure questions for a couple of years, but now he focus on them.

ZombieMalthus · Tar Sands Joined: May 14, 2008 Posts: 23

RedStateGreen

Well, something Fredrik touched on is the feedback loop Aaron (?) talked about in another thread. When oil gets pricey enough that it makes sense to redo the infrastructure, it will be too expensive because of all the oil needed to build the infrastructure.

I really think we've messed things up this time.
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alokin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 24, 2007 Posts: 883

It makes no sense redoing all the infrastructure while reserves are dwindling. The money would be better invested in renewables and energy saving technology.
It's quite scary, not only of the delivery disruptures but for the environmental damage of each leak, the damaging of soils, drinking water and habitat. I reckon oil companies do not pay for this sort af damage...

pstarr

TheDude

Twilight · Expert Joined: Mar 02, 2007 Posts: 3076 Location: UK

That was a good presentation.
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GASMON

As a UK gas engineer involved in gas pipeline renewal, I have to say that is a good report.

Yes, steel rusts, but ALL steel pipelines of any importance have several built in ways to combat corrosion.

Outer coating - usually plastic sleeve over bitumastic base, or better still powder or polymer / epoxy coatings

Inside wall - similar to above or other (many types) of internal coatings.

Ongoing protection - Either sacraficial anode or impressed current cathodic protection.

ALL the above work & work well. I plan replacement gas mains for my living - I cant ever remember replacing any modern (1960's or later) steel gas on-land pipeline due to corrosion.

Not to say we dont have the occasional pipeline corrosion problem, which causes a localised repair or short replacement section. This is usually caused by external interference damage to the coating, allowing corrosion. On UK high pressure pipelines this is picked up by the "intelligent pig" as mentioned in the report, and developed by British Gas. Cathodic protection monitoring also VERY important.

Undersea a different matter - I'm not qualified or experienced to comment.

Simple reply to a complex subject, but I would not lose sleep worrying about corrosion of overland steel pipelines. Not in the UK anyway.

Gasmon
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