"According to published reports, the Gulf of Mexico's lower-Tertiary formations could hold up to 15 billion barrels' worth of oil and gas reserves. By comparison, Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, the largest U.S. oil field, has produced 13 billion barrels of oil since 1977, with an estimated 3 billion recoverable barrels remaining."
Let's put this in perspective, at current rates of consumption this field (if there were 15 billion barrels recoverable..) would supply the globe for half a year. The North Sea, the Cantarell field in Mexico, Daqing in China, Burgan in Kuwait are declining in production:
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
Also:
"Of the three largest oil fields in the world, two have peaked. Mexico announced that its giant Cantarell Field entered depletion in March, 2006, as did the huge Burgan field in Kuwait in November, 2005. Due to past overproduction, Cantarell is now declining rapidly, at a rate of -13% year over year. [19] In April, 2006, a Saudi Aramco spokesman admitted that its mature fields are now declining at a rate of 8% per year, and its composite decline rate of producing fields is about 2%[20], thus implying that Ghawar, the largest oil field in the world may have peaked."
"Chevron states that "oil production is in decline in 33 of the 48 largest oil producing countries". [14] Other countries have also passed their individual oil production peaks."
en.wikipedia.org
From some other threads:
Message 22782146
Message 22781162
siliconinvestor.com
This field is a great find but it may only serve to slow worldwide depletion. I excpect to offshore California and Florida to be opened up for exploration if the prioce of gasoline becomes more dear. Perhaps in 3 to 5 years. |
