More proof that 'Peak Oil" hasn't quite peaked yet....
Chevron, in cooperation with it’s partners Statoil and Devon Energy, today announced one of the largest oil discoveries ever in the Gulf Of Mexico with an estimated 3-15 BILLION barells of Oil and Natural gas Equivalent. It is being likened to Pruhoe Bay in Alaska. The discovery is in 7000 ft of water in the Walker Ridge area 270 miles southeast of New Orleans. The field is expected to come online in 2010. As little as 10 years ago, such finds were not expected in such deep water because it was thought to be too hot for the oil to remain there. More proof that you should never say never.
posted by Rorschach at
9/05/2006 12:46:00 PM
2 Comments:
Hmmm..guess that'll teach me to listen to the cryers of doom...
I'm slightly behind on current events, due to real life current events taking up all my time! Tonight I'm just following links from different places, and wound up here; thought it'd be kind of fun to see what Texans are out and about in the blogosphere. Me? Well, I'm a native Texan (Amarillo area originally) that now lives in Illinois (and surprisingly enough, loves it), and am addicted to reading blogs, as well as everything and anything else. Nice to meet you, and I'm sure I'll be stopping in again..
Shelly, welcome and congratulations on the wedding.
On the issue of "Peak Oil", the big issue that the doom and gloom sayers miss is the fact that the energy markets are efficient, meaning that when the price of energy gets high enough, demand is curtailed and there is an incentive to bring both new supplies of existing energy sources online and to find new ones. "Proven Reserves" is not what everyone thinks it is. It is an accounting construct to try to place a value on the underground oil and gas a company has at it's disposal. The cost of production is weighed against the price it can be sold for, so as the current market price goes up, more and more oil and gas becomes more economically viable to produce. Not every reservoir has the same cost of production, not only are there logistic issues in getting the oil and gas to market (pipeline vs truck vs tanker ship etc.) There is the fact that some wells need a lot more technology to get them to produce than others. Also as the cost of oil, natural gas, or coal goes up, then energy consumers will both curtail usage, and start seeking new energy sources like solar or wind or nuclear energy. The market has ways of balancing it's books.
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