Graph disagreement: how many Discovery/Produc. Deficet Yrs?

Whitecrab

Ok, so there's the whole "Exxon-Mobil" backdating graph, the one we all know and love, the one that shows discovery backdated by year of discovery:

Now, it's labelled "discovery," but in a past topic I made, we all agreed on this forum that they have to be "resource" bar. Ergo, only about 30-40% of each bar is likely to be recovered. Because that's the only way we could be 1/2 way through the world's oil already today, right?

(Side question: is this graph authored by Exxon-Mobil, or is it ASPO backdating Exxon-Mobil's data?)

Still, if I go to http://www.geologie.tu-clausthal.de/Campbell/lecture.html then there's this little number:

But then I go find the PowerPoint out of Campbell's latest book, The Truth about Oil & The Looming Energy Crisis only 1991 is positive.

And in figure 5 (page 43) of Power Down by Richard Heinberg, I see "Discovery - Consumption" was negative every year beyond 1980. Except two: 1982 & 1991.

But how do these facts square? Why does the Exxon-Mobil data, even plotting resources and not reserves, show a pretty consistent oil deficiet after 1980? Could it be that the bars are reserves after all? Why are there 4 different stories from backdating of reserves?

I ask because I'm writing an article, and I want to say "after the 1980's, every year the world found less oil than it produced (with the exception of X)." And I can't find any agreement on X.
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Rembrandt · Tar Sands Joined: Aug 21, 2004 Posts: 59

Side question: is this graph authored by Exxon-Mobil, or is it ASPO backdating Exxon-Mobil's data?

as far as i know it is ASP backdatin exxon-mobil's data.

pup55 · Expert Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 3695

I think Campbell and Heinberg are both E-mailable to get some clarification.

But, I think part of the problem is that the classification of a discovery as "probable" or "possible" , and thus the amount of reserves that the field may or may not contain, is a matter of opinion, so not really unusual to have three different "opinions" on this issue depending on your experts, etc.

If you find "the truth" let us know.

savethehumans · Light Sweet Crude Joined: Oct 20, 2004 Posts: 1541

Not to mention those fun facts that:

1. The farther down you have to go to drill remaining oil supplies, the harder it gets to reach it and/or bring it up.

2. The more oil depletes, the less "light" oil there will be. "Heavy" oil will be the rule, and it is financially and ecologically prohibitive to process heavy oil--even if the infrastructure to do so was there, which in a lot of cases, it's not.

3. The more oil depletes, the less of it there is. (You'd be surprised how many oil/gas pundits haven't figured this one out.)

4. The harder it gets to drill out oil, the more expensive it is to do so. And the power to drill it out comes from, uh, oil. When it takes more energy to get the oil out than the amount of energy you'd get out of the oil you drill out, the whole process becomes an exercise in futility. Drilling will stop--and the rich & powerful will live off what they've got for as long as they can (which really isn't all that long).

5. The economy, and the Industrial and Technological Ages, run on oil and gas. When those deplete (never mind run out!), the world economy, industry, and technology collapses. Then the REAL fun begins! Shocked

Believe whatever you want to about graphs--which, of course, can be shaped to say whatever whoever makes them WANTS them to say. But the clock laughs at the optimistic graphs. Cuz it knows that, whatever any graph or graph user wants you to think...time's about up! Shock

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pup55 · Expert Joined: May 26, 2004 Posts: 3695

http://dieoff.com/page183.htm

In fact, to further amplify the above point, fig.3 of the attached paper is really informative. It basically says that the further deep you go, the less variable the recovery rate vs. "predicted", and in fact, when you get below 7000m the recovery rate goes to near zero, which makes sense, I guess.

Also, it points out that for the shallower deposits, reserves are about equally likely to shrink over time as they are to grow.

This analysis is based on pretty good field-by-field data, but it would be interesting to see an update. I think this was written in '97.