Venezuela to declare 1.3 trillion barrels as reserves

lorenzo · Fission Joined: Jan 01, 2005 Posts: 2174

I don't understand why nobody has picked up on this.

The Venezuelan Dept. of Energy estimates that the country's reserves of extra heavy crude in the Orinoco amount to 1.3 trillion barrels of oil. This is more than all the oil reserves in the rest of the world combined, or five times the reserves of Saoudi Arabia.

Chavez is going to try to get these reserves declared official by OPEC. When the oil price remains above US$50 a barrel, the extra heavy crude can be exploited, and so it counts as reserves.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4871938.stm

So I don't understand: doesn't this put the entire issue of Peak Oil in a different light? I mean, 1.3 trillion barrels.

venky · Intermediate Crude Joined: Mar 13, 2005 Posts: 824

This is heavy oil, I think in some respects similar to the tar sands in Alberta.

I wonder what are the projected production levels. How much of a difference would it make?

I think an URR of 3 trillion barrels or more for all liquids is reasonable but I wonder by how much it will delay the peak?
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coyote

I don't think so. Making a declaration doesn't change the geological reality. Either he's got that much oil, or he doesn't. If he's got it, then he already had it.

From what I understand, the heavy oil in Venezuela can probably never be produced at a really high rate. Kind of like the tar sands in Canada. If increased production of this goop can actually make up for world declines in the future, I'll be astounded.

But you can bet those who point to reserve growth as a denial of Peak Oil will be thrilled to use this in their arguments.
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mekrob · Expert Joined: Dec 09, 2005 Posts: 2663

The Canadians have a pretty good system over their, financially and economically. But even they have to rely on investment from Ameria, China, etc to ramp up their production from 1 mpd to 3 mpd in a decade. Does Venezuela have this capability? Not likely.

Remember. Peak Oil is not the midpoint of reserves. It is the peak in PRODUCTION. You can have all the oil in the world. But if you can't produce it and continue to have increases in production, then it doesn't matter to debunking Peak Oil.

As far as I'm concerned, this won't help us out. They knew this oil was their and they had been exploiting it, I think. Also, I don't care much for the US, its policies, or lifestyle. The more this hits the MSM, the more complacent people will be, and thus sealing their own fate.

JoeW

the reality is that 1.3T barrels is ~43 yrs global supply at current rates of consumption. that implies a theoretical delay of production peak of up to ~20 years. i think it is safe to say that any effect it would have on the timing of peak production would fall in the ballpark of somewhere between 0 and 20 years, and probably be on the low end of that scale.
i know nothing regarding the means by which they extract this stuff.

SoothSayer

If Chavez had declared a fraction of this he would have had a chance.

However if they declare such a huge volume then Venezuela will become a prime target of the US and other countries.

Even if 4 out of every 5 barrels of oil extracted have to be used to power the extraction process, they will STILL have a Saudi sized stockpile to sell!

Chavez is unlikely to die of natural causes.

If you walk around a city centre wearing a small gold chain then you have a risk of being mugged.
A chunky gold chain increases the risk.
However if you walk around with 1000 gold chains hanging off you, then you won't make it to the next corner!

Venezuela is in this position ... I bet that many Venezuelans wish the oil had never been found. The country's future will be hijacked by the discovery of this resource treasure trove.

SchroedingersCat · Intermediate Crude Joined: May 26, 2005 Posts: 527

Remember, this stuff is basically coal. It needs to be upgraded before it is syncrude. And even that is heavy and sour.

Here's some good info about it all:

WHAT FUTURE FOR EXTRA HEAVY OIL AND BITUMEN
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SoothSayer

>> WHAT FUTURE FOR EXTRA HEAVY OIL AND BITUMEN

That is a good article ... it's nice to see some hard facts!

Clearly the world will still have petroleum products for many decades, so plastics, medicines etc will still be available.

However the pollution & CO2 costs could be high.

More importantly getting this stuff processed will be difficult ... if we have a sudden decline in production we could have a 5 - 15 year gap before unconventional fuels come on stream in quantity.

The short/medium term could be very difficult.

When the smoke clears the world will still have petroleum of sorts available - but the world will be a different place by then.

The_Virginian · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Jun 19, 2004 Posts: 1528

Lorenzo,

At lot of us picked up on it...not many knew how to interpret it...(see my querrys in someones post in current events")

This tar is much better than oil sands, but worse than a
any Saudi field i know of...

nth proposed a possible maximum of 5mpd...after heavy investment and some time...at least someone is going out on a limb for us and dropping hints!

This is still a HUGE field...and nobody knows the future exactl...it APPEARS not to change the date of PO, but it sure can contribute to a long tail end of production...
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Tyler_JC

No one picked up on this because no one believes Chavez.

Venezuela might be able to slow the oil production declines of its own country by using this very heavy crude oil (if you can even call that stuff crude oil). However, the global community as a whole discounts such claims because Chavez has not outlined a plan for getting the oil out.

I mean, does anyone actually believe that Exxon would be publishing reports that said that oil production will peak by 2010 if they believed that Venezuela had 1.3 trillion barrels of oil?

I highly doubt that the trillion+ figure is based on any science at all. Canada has a technique for getting the stuff out and they don't claim to be the magic bullet. Why should we try to factor in the rantings of a leftist third wrold propagandist?

If scientists confirm Venezuela's claims and propose a detailed extraction plan, we might be able to start taking this declaration seriously. Until then, it's just as invalid as Bush's switch-grass economy. Rolling Eyes

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KingM

Read the worldenergy article. These are not just speculative reserves.

Frankly, I think that slow production from sites like this and Canada's similar reserves are a great thing for PO. They will blunt a collapse and provide resources that can be called upon to complete the painful transition to nuclear/wind/solar.

lorenzo · Fission Joined: Jan 01, 2005 Posts: 2174