I will believe the Saudis don't see any upcoming problems with Ghawar when they cancel one of their projects due to low oil prices. If they continue to be full steam ahead with increasing their capacity then I think they are aware that Ghawar may not be as robust in 5 years time as they would like us to believe.
Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 7:37 pm Post subject: Re: Alaska North Slope may hold 36 bln bbl oil - US DOE
from the article:
Quote:
Through 2050, the North Slope COULD yield up to 36 billion barrels of oil and 137 trillion cubic feet of natural gas UNDER OPTIMISTIC ASSUMPTIONS, the Energy Department said.
emphases mine.
yauwn.... _________________ "By the time individuals discover that remaining resources will not be adequate for the next generation, the next generation has already been born. " David Price
Joined: Oct 27, 2006 Posts: 824 Location: Soviet Canada
Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:17 am Post subject: Re: Alaska North Slope may hold 36 bln bbl oil - US DOE
Well, perhaps the US can start destroying some of it's own territory to pay for their population's oil consumption, instead of destroying other countries' environment. Seems fair.
I guess when northern Alberta is maxed out, and and Mexico gives up the ghost, the environmental lobby will not have as much leverage.
What kind of oil does the north slope have? Good stuff? Light crude?
Or a mix of light and heavy?
Are the oil companies thinking of investing up there right away? Or are they too heavily invested in Alberta, Iraq, Nigeria?
Waiting for the right climate to lobby their puppets in D.C.?
I dunno, I don't see the big deal about drilling for oil up there. It's not as if they are going to scraping off the boreal forest, and making lakes of poisonous sludge like they do in Canada.
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3864 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:31 am Post subject: Re: Alaska North Slope may hold 36 bln bbl oil - US DOE
MD wrote:
It won't be long before it will be political suicide to oppose exploiting that resource.
I dunno, I have been saying that for four years as I watched prices climb and it hasn't happened yet. I know at some point the consumers will start screaming and Congress will open everything in sight, but when? _________________ Always appeal to a man's enlightened self interest, you can trust him to look out for himself honestly, It's when you appeal to his Honor or the Common Good that he stops paying attention.
Joined: Apr 06, 2006 Posts: 3614 Location: 3 miles NW of Champoeg, Republic of Cascadia
Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 8:21 pm Post subject: Re: Alaska North Slope may hold 36 bln bbl oil - US DOE
Quote:
If all assumptions were to occur, an additional 36 billion barrels of oil and 137 trillion cubic feet of natural gas would be added over current reserve estimates. This result would help limit oil imports and increase America's energy security.
That's 68 years at current US NG consumption. They talk of 35 Tcf recoverable though - think that's just Prudhoe Bay, or they're pinning their hopes on further exploration. Lotza gas - oil finds are predicated on revenues from the gas it seems.
Found an activist website that wants to keep the pipeline within Alaska. God knows how long they could use it.
Alaskans have a great deal at stake; our Anchorage, Mat-su and Peninsula supplies of natural gas are in decline. Without the natural gas pipeline from the North Slope, we may face a serious shortage by 2010. New supplies are needed to continue to produce electricity, for industry and for heating. If the pipeline route to Cook Inlet is chosen, we will continue to enjoy plentiful natural gas. In addition, the Cook Inlet route will provide natural gas to new areas.
If the pipeline branches off to Canada without an instate pipeline or goes to Valdez, South Central utility consumers will have to foot the bill for a Multi-Million Dollar spur line. Alaskan natural gas should fuel Alaskan business and warm Alaskan homes.
The Canadian pipeline proposals head south through Yukon/BC. Don't know why they don't hook up with the proposed MacKenzie River Delta line - too rugged terrain? ANWR? The Delta has a piddling 6 tcf but they're ready to spend 8 billion on the line anyway.
_________________ Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
The Dude Is Not In: Leave A Message After The Beep.
Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 8:32 pm Post subject: Re: Alaska North Slope may hold 36 bln bbl oil - US DOE
TheDude wrote:
Quote:
If all assumptions were to occur, an additional 36 billion barrels of oil and 137 trillion cubic feet of natural gas would be added over current reserve estimates. This result would help limit oil imports and increase America's energy security.
That's 68 years at current US NG consumption.
According to the EIA, US natural gas consumption in 2006 was 21.6 trillion cubic feet. So that would only represent about 6.3 years. Unless you meant something else.
Joined: Sep 25, 2004 Posts: 4667 Location: Boston, MA
Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:33 pm Post subject: Re: Alaska North Slope may hold 36 bln bbl oil - US DOE
Oil-Finder wrote:
Tyler_JC wrote:
Why does everyone always turn each discovery into a reserve/consumption ratio?
Dunno. Must be the fashionable thing to do.
You and I know exactly why they do it.
They do it to dismiss the value of any individual reserve.
Just like they dismiss every single alternative energy source because it doesn't fix 100% of the problem and how they dismiss every single action any individual takes because it doesn't solve every single one of society's problem.
And yet all of these small steps added together somehow don't matter.
Apparently in order for the optimists to be right, we have to produce a cornucopia. And if we do, we get called Cornucopians.
This forum is a joke... _________________ "www.peakoil.com is the Myspace of the Apocalypse."
Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:42 pm Post subject: Re: Alaska North Slope may hold 36 bln bbl oil - US DOE
Quote:
Through 2050, the North Slope could yield up to 36 billion barrels of oil and 137 trillion cubic feet of natural gas under optimistic assumptions, the Energy Department said.
That would be enough to meet current U.S. oil demand for about five years and natural gas for a year and a half, but some major obstacles stand in the way of hitting those goals.
Per the Reuters article above.
The following is from the actual report, cited by the article:
Quote:
In the short term, 2005 to 2015, exploration efforts are forecast to result in the addition of about 2.9 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil and 12 trillion cubic feet of economically recoverable gas.
(snip)
In summary the potential for additional reserves growth from currently producing fields is 5.0 to 6.0 BBO (3.0 to 4.0 BBO from the viscous, heavy oil fields and 2.0 BBO from the conventional oil fields) with the great bulk of this production post-2015.
2-151
Quote:
In the long term, 2015 to 2050, exploration success and development is expected to involve activities in all five sub-provinces under the optimistic assumptions and is estimated to total 28 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil and 125 trillion cubic feet of economically recoverable gas.
Quote:
At the $50/bbl and $60/bbl price tracks all projects at 10%, 15%, 20%, and 30% discount rates are economic.
section 3-127
Quote:
Development of these fields should provide production rates of about 900,000 BOPD until about 2015.
3-154
Quote:
The investment required by industry to achieve the forecast production is estimated to be over $15 billion dollars (then current dollars). This does not include the cost for construction of the AGP system. The operating expenses are estimated to be about $90 billion (then current dollars).
3-155
Quote:
The largest potential reserves growth will probably occur in the viscous, heavy oil fields. The current estimate of economically recoverable reserves is between 1.155 and1.630 BBO (Table 2.7).
This is actually a pretty interesting report. The report was "issued" last August, no telling why it was "announced" Jan 29, which is the dateline on the Reuters article. Part of the project is to rework existing holes, some new development contingent on the construction of the new pipeline, and most is outside of ANWR.
They give pool-by-pool production estimates and decline curves, for those who wish to see what a real decline curve looks like. A lot of this work is to slow the decline of current projects.
There is some detailed financial analysis on a lot of the individual projects, and at current pricing, most are viable at current discount/interest rates. This suggests a fundamental assumption that hyperinflation will not hit, which makes me feel a lot better.
Some of the volume is derived from the famed "reserves growth" assumptions, based on previous experience in the area, and are also contingent on certain economic conditions. There is some conversation to this effect on page 2-150 which says the original Prudhoe URR was about 12 gb, and it grew to 19 or so through the life of the project.
Anyhow, the impression that there is some huge, previously unknown oilfield out there, and that there is an immense flood of new oil imminently ready to be pumped is not supported by the actual report. A lot of the volume in the short term is arrived at the hard way, by smaller fields and slowing the decline of current fields, and amounts to less than 1 mbpd if, and it's a big if, the operators choose to do the projects, versus some other more interesting investments that they may have elsewhere.
Joined: May 13, 2005 Posts: 3020 Location: The Urban Village
Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 9:43 pm Post subject: Re: Alaska North Slope may hold 36 bln bbl oil - US DOE
Tyler_JC wrote:
Oil-Finder wrote:
Tyler_JC wrote:
Why does everyone always turn each discovery into a reserve/consumption ratio?
Dunno. Must be the fashionable thing to do.
You and I know exactly why they do it.
They do it to dismiss the value of any individual reserve.
That's silly. It is a useful way to express the quantity in temporal terms. The problem is in either what is not considered or in assumptions made for the calculation- often related to the growth rate in reserves v consumption. For example, when they say there are 300 years of coal left in the US. The assumption of that being at some constant year's production is not insignificant. When a particular project's output expressed temporally and it only totals 6 or so years, that is interesting to know but needs to be looked at in the context of overall possible future production predictions.
Shell Is High Bidder to Drill for Oil and Gas Off Alaska
By BLOOMBERG NEWS
Published: February 7, 2008
ANCHORAGE (Bloomberg News) — Royal Dutch Shell, the oil company, offered to pay $2.1 billion in an oil and natural gas lease sale, becoming the biggest bidder for the rights in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska.
The Interior Department’s Mineral Management Service received $2.7 billion in winning bids for 488 tracts. The sale, a record for Alaska, generated 667 bids totaling $3.4 billion for the tracts on 2.7 million acres. The previous record was $2 billion in a 1982 sale in the Beaufort Sea.
The highest single bid was also from Shell, which offered $105.3 million on one tract.
“We see this as a proven, prolific hydrocarbon basin,” said Annell Bay, Shell’s vice president for exploration for the Americas.
ConocoPhillips had the second-highest accepted bids, totaling $506 million.
The gas pipeline will cost something like $42 billion and take 10 years - lotsa royalties for Alaska and Canada. Just in time for US NG reserves to peter out. Maybe if they drag their feet long enough my notion of heading due east will be considered - or they'll decide to LNG it all? Inneresting, had no idea so much stranded gas was up there. _________________ Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
The Dude Is Not In: Leave A Message After The Beep.
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