Oil Reserves in the U.S. Upped

Buffalo Roam said:
Bakken Formation 100 billion barrels of oil = 3 years, and there are 79 new major discoveries since 2000,
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Nothing like cheating!!! :)

The Bakken formation was discovered and described back in 1953!!!! But you count it as a new discovery, so let's throw it out of the last decades discoveries list.

The U.S. uses 5.7 billion barrels a year? That provide's 17 1/2 years of oil for the U.S. no imports.
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Theoretically yes, but when we realize the capacity issue, (you know, burnig house next to the lake) you understand that it is only a little help and not the solution.

I appreciate your trying hard, but you can not argue against facts...
 
Buffalo Roam said:
Yes lets crunch the numbers, shall we? Syzygys , Huh.
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Sure. What is Bakken's production today? Wait, I will look it up for you later on...

Again, it doesn't really matter if a reservoir is huge if you can get to the material in small amounts...

Watch the movie 300. Because there was a bottleneck between the sea and the mountans, Spartans were able to withhold a much larger army, because the Persians weren't able to put large enough number of soldiers AT ONCE. Capacity problem you know....

But you know what? Let's say you are right. Let's celebrate and withdraw the troops from Iraq! Our national nightmare is over!!

But for some strange reasons oil won't be cheaper....
 
Explanation of the Bakken shale:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3868#more


"The Pittman/Price/LeFever study estimates the volume of oil generated at 200 to 400 billion barrels, which we can more or less equate to an estimate of oil in place.
The next step is to estimate how much oil could be recovered (produced). For a reservoir such as this, the range of recovery can very widely. Good reservoirs with "water drive" can have recoveries of more than 30% of oil in place. As reservoir quality decreases, so does recovery factor. In very tight reservoirs, recovery would probably be in the range of less than 1% to around 10%, depending on many factors like porosity, permeability, presence of fractures, well spacing, etc.

In the good areas of the Bakken, with higher porosity and lots of fracture permeability, the recovery might range as high as 5% to possibly 15%. Typically only a few areas, or "sweet spots," will have recovery this high. Outside the sweet spots, recoveries are likely to be much lower; the reservoir quality will deteriorate, with lower porosity, lower permeability, and fewer fractures, and/or thinner beds of reservoir rock. In these areas, recovery will probably be less than 5% of the oil in place, and in some areas less than 1%. Estimating recovery factor in shale reservoirs is more an art than a science;only after several years of production, and with very good data, can a reliable range of recovery be estimated.

In the less favorable and thinner areas of the reservoir, even though it might be technically possible to recover 1% or 2% of the oil in place, the risk may be too high to for an operator to be willing to spend $3 to $5 million or more, with no assurance that the well will pay out. In this case the "technically recoverable" reserves might be 1% of oil in place, but the economically recoverable reserves are 0% if an operator is not persuaded to risk capital to drill a well."
 
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"Using the mean value as a representative number for the distribution, the USGS estimate that there are 3,649 million barrels of technically recoverable oil in the entire US Bakken accumulation. Associated with the oil production are 1,850 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 148 million barrels of NGL's. On an equivalent energy basis, about 90% of the energy value is in the oil, with the remaining percentage in the gas and NGL's.

Will Bakken ever produce as much as 4.1 billion barrels (= 3,649+500 million barrels), the amount suggested by the USGS estimate? It seems very unlikely. Production so far has been 111 million barrels. If the industry is able to discover several more prolific areas such as the Elm Coulee field in Montana (43 million barrels, or 38% of the Bakken oil recovered to date), it might be possible to increase this recovery to 500 million barrels, or 4.5 times the current production. Is total production of 500 million barrels likely? It's difficult to say. The USGS estimate is vastly higher than this, so much less likely."

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And here comes the bottomline:

"If we could actually produce 3.6 billion barrels of undiscovered oil forecast at the P50 level by USGS, how much would this equate to? The US uses about 7.6 billion barrels of oil products a year, according to EIA data. This is equivalent to just under six month's US oil use, spread over a very long period, probably 20 years or more. If total production amounts to only 500 million barrels, as I have suggested, this would equate to about 23 days worth of United States oil usage, spread over many, many years."

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In plain English, first the US is using 7.6 billion barrels of oil and not 5.7 as you said, second, the realistic amount what we can recover from Bakken is only 4 billion barrels or less. So if we used only Bakken oil, we couldn't even run the country for a year! And what about current production?:

"Looking at future production another way, the recent peak in production has been 75,000 barrels of oil per day (discussed in more detail below). Even if operators are able to triple this amount, the resulting production of 225,000 barrels a day (which would be a considerable challenge), will amount to only about 1.1% of US oil consumption, assuming the US uses about 20.7 barrels of oil a day, based on EIA data."

As I said, a drop in the ocean, even after TRIPLING today's production it would count only for 1 % of US usage!!!!

So Bakken my ass, my friend... :)
 
Syzygys said:
Nothing like cheating!!! :)

The Bakken formation was discovered and described back in 1953!!!! But you count it as a new discovery, so let's throw it out of the last decades discoveries list.
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Yes but the technology to efficently recover that oil just happened in the 10 years.

So it's a whole new ball game, the oil is just now avalable, nice try, oil is oil.

Besides how abpot all the other Elephant I listed from the latest report on oil exploration, with site co-ordnates.


Syzygys said:
Theoretically yes, but when we realize the capacity issue, (you know, burnig house next to the lake) you understand that it is only a little help and not the solution.[/QUOTE}

Again you agree it is a capasity issue, not a shortage issue, bad energy policy is like the owner of the burning failing to put a water system in to provide water to put the fire out.

Syzygys said:
I appreciate your trying hard, but you can not argue against facts...
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No, you are the one ignoring the facts, again I gave information from the latest survey of oil leases, and they show Elephants at a regular pace.

I find it funny that , me, a old fart not brought up on computers, can through research on the computer find the reports, from the surveys that supports that there is no shortage of oil, while you a supposedly computer savy wet behind the ears youngster, fail to be able to find the same information, and completely deny those same reports.
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Explanation of the Bakken shale:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3868#more

Having read your site, they only address the recovery by the old technology, they do not take into account the new drilling technology, or the future drilling technology.

You want to live and die by what future technology can do for the bio-fuel, and sustainable energy, yet you want to dismiss the present, and new technology, and future technology that is and will be developed for the future.

Your site already starts out with a preconceived agenda, that the oil is running out, so they have a stake in advancing the idea that the recovery of oil from new finds is going to be minimal.

Your cite is not valid for the fact that, there is a lot of information that is still not know by them they are making their estimates on a 2 page report.

So far, only a two-page summary of findings was released. We do not have access yet to the detailed report
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And the report by your site is in their own words a;

a number of inferences from the information provided.
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What they want to see not what is.

Besides, Bakken is not the only Elephant in the game, if it is taken alone, you might be right, but it isn't the lone Elephant, there is a herd out there.

I cited the latest 5 new finds, and there have been 79 others since the year 2000, you want to go find by find and say that they don't make a difference, but it don't work that way, the amount is accumulative, each site adding to the last, and to the present fields.

We are talking about 79+5 new field, not one.
 
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This is from Wiki, not my site and cites the LATEST estimates:

"The flurry of drilling activity in the Bakken, coupled with the wide range of estimates of in-place and recoverable oil, led North Dakota senator Byron Dorgan to ask the USGS to conduct a study of the Bakken's potentially recoverable oil. In April 2008 the USGS released this report, which estimated the amount of technically recoverable, undiscovered oil in the Bakken Formation at 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels, with a mean of 3.65 billion."

Let's repeat technoclogically recoverable oil is less than 4 billion barrels according to the USGS (government), and current daily production is only 75K barrels, which is 0.4%.

Even if you rocket it up to 10 times of the current production, you get 4% of the American usage. A drop in the ocean...

As about your numbers, you like to quote highly inflated, oil in place numbers instead of recoverable...It looks like only 1-2% of oil in place can be recovered from Bakken...
 
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Syzygys said:
This is from Wiki, not my site and cites the LATEST estimates:

"The flurry of drilling activity in the Bakken, coupled with the wide range of estimates of in-place and recoverable oil, led North Dakota senator Byron Dorgan to ask the USGS to conduct a study of the Bakken's potentially recoverable oil. In April 2008 the USGS released this report, which estimated the amount of technically recoverable, undiscovered oil in the Bakken Formation at 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels, with a mean of 3.65 billion."

Let's repeat technoclogically recoverable oil is less than 4 billion barrels according to the USGS (government), and current daily production is only 75K barrels, which is 0.4%.

Even if you rocket it up to 10 times of the current production, you get 4% of the American usage. A drop in the ocean...

As about your numbers, you like to quote highly inflated, oil in place numbers instead of recoverable...It looks like only 1-2% of oil in place can be recovered from Bakken...
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And as I said, it isn't only Bakken, you pin your whole argument on Bakken, and that technology is going to stand still, I also referenced 5 of the latest sites and locations, as reported by E&P, and you ignore them to pin your doom and gloom scenario on Bakken, do some real research as to the newest discoveries, not just research the doom and gloom support for your personnel agenda of trying to be the smartest kid on the block.

Ten years from now Global warming is going to be recognized for the hoax it is because of the next decade of lower than normal temperature, and oil will still be a major source of energy for the world, and we will find the Peak Oil Theory just as big of a Hoax.
 
Buffalo Roam said:
Ten years .... and oil will still be a major source of energy for the world, and we will find the Peak Oil Theory just as big of a Hoax.
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AMEN!!! Of course we will still be using oil 10 years from now. You know why? Because there is no good alternative!! Not to mention, hopefully production is still going to be above 70 mbpd. (crossing fingers) We can hope for a nice, long plateau...It could be even 20 years, but don't hope for anything abopve 80 mbpd...

You still haven't explained why you don't believe in facts. You know, the "continuos consumption of a limited source" thingy. :)

In the maintime, let's throw in some real science:

"Why I Am an Oil Shale Skeptic"

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3969#more

Green%20River%20Shale.jpg
 
We will be using oil for decade to come, but something is going to need to happen not demand, as oil will not match demand for decades to come unless civilization collapses.
 
Oh snap, what has just happened to the biggest discovery in the last 3 decades?:

"Eni, Italy's largest oil company, and partners developing the Kashagan oil field in the Caspian Sea may delay production by as much as two years, the fourth postponement at the 7 billion- to 9 billion-barrel Kazakhstan discovery.

The start of commercial output may not occur until 2012 or 2013, said Dinara Shaimardanova, an aide to Energy Minister Sauat Mynbayev, confirming his remarks earlier in the capital, Astana. Eni in January said the field, which was the world's biggest discovery in three decades, was expected to start in 2011."
 
Last night I was watching an interview on Four Corners and I was pretty amazed with the guest. He was talking a bit about oil. But what was interesting was how frank he was. Point blank, IF KSA were ever to withhold oil from the USA they will be conquered by the USA. His supposition was if the ruling family were overthrown and the new government canceled oil sales to the USA.

Given that the USA burned it's hands "nation building" I'd hate to imagine the hell that would come from such an adventure.

This, more than anything, is why I want us to start seriously working to get off oil. Maybe we can go for another 20 30 80 100 years. So what? We will still be indebted to the whack-jobs in the ME until we can completely become energy independent. Let the Chinese and Indians get their oil from the ME. Nothing will make me laugh more than the day when Indians from SAMs city erect a huge statue of Shiva next to the venerable General Mao above what used to be a square rock.


Another reason why I'm so pissed off we wasted soooo much money on that hole Iraq. We could have dropped 10 MOAB on bin ladens head and been out of Afghanistan in a matter of weeks.


So? in case I missed it. Of know proven reserves how long can the world continue at the present rate of usage?
 
Also, nothing would make me more happy than to see KSA return back to goat herding date farmers the way Allah intended them to be.
 
somewhere between 12 weeks and 40 years?

HmmmmI'd have thunk it a bit more predictable... go figure.
 
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