We're saved, we're saved;
discussions from the Oil Drum theoildrum.com as sobriety begins to set in...
The actual estimated reserves for the "Jack" discovery, about 300 million BOE, would meet total world liquids demand for less than four days. From nuclear + fossil fuel sources, the world uses the energy equivalent of the estimated "Jack" reserves about every 36 hours.
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What's proved is 300mm. Chevron statement is 'maybe 3-15 billion'. What is quoted is 15 billion, or 50x the proved.
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Correction on our oil consumption; appears MSM missed our actual consumption by almost 2 Bil barrels; they were only off by about 25%...
Ive seen that number several times in the last few days. According to BP statistical site, US consumed 7.5 billion barrels in 2005, not 5.7 billion.
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A few technical problems...
4. The wells are located in deep water and will not be served by underground GOM pipelines. The oil will be pumped directly to tankers. Pipelines are faster and more efficient, and tankers will put a higher price and limited the amount of oil pumped out.
5. The wells are most likely mainly natural gas, as they are very deep. All estimates are in barrels of oil equivalent. Oil tends to form closer to the surface, gas deeper. Therefore the discovery is likely to impact natural gas markets, not oil, if the gas exists in meaningful quantities.
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Nobody has ever produced oil or gas in this water depth. Any pipe or Christmas Tree (wellhead fittings) will have to withstand 3500 lbs. of water pressure plus whatever pressure is in the formation. This is going to take very sophisticated engineering and materials science. All of the equipment will have to be installed with robotics or waldos on submarine vehicles.
All this probably can be done, but not quickly, and its going to take a lot of new equipment technologies. I think it is just too early to figure out how they operator will achieve getting the oil and gas produced and marketed with the small information that is available. My best guess is subsea well equipment and pipelines to a platform in shallower water where the oil will either hook up with existing platforms or be produced into tankers, but I'm not an engineer and I'm not paying for it, so my guessss isn't worth much. But one thing I do know is this will be very expensive oil and gas.
==Why I mentioned hurricanes...the picture on the link has disappeared)
theoildrum.com
one interesting geographical point is the position of the jack discovery in the GOM. by eyeballing it's position on the NOAA tropical cyclone heat potential map, i get jack's position abutting the big brown blob (BBB), a daughter of the gulf stream loop current. the other discoveries such as St. Malo , Stones,Chinook and Cascade are in the BBB:
i don't know jack about meteorology, but won't GOM hurricanes intensify right over these guys heads?
[ Parent | Reply to This ]
Woilf on Tuesday September 05, 2006 at 9:29 PM EST
Oh, yeah, the location of Jack is "ideal" for being nailed by a strong hurricane (or more), say given a decade to decades time interval. That region is most vulnerable in the later season, from Aug to Oct. While still out over the GOM, there's a tendency for strong hurricanes to weaken a category or two as they move toward the Gulf States, perhaps partly due to entraining drier air off of the continent as they approach land (one exception was Camille). The location of Jack is far enough out that it wouldn't have this kind of protection--so far offshore, a Cat IV or V storm is a more likely.
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In rough numbers, today the US imports about 13 mb/d. This increases by approximately 5% per year. Assuming our demand and domestic production decline don't change much, in 2010 we will be importing around 15.8 mb/d. If in 2010 they bring on 400 kb/d, this brings our import requirement down to 15.4 mb/day. Even if they find two more of these and bring on an additional 800 kb/d by 2010 (HA!), our import requirement will still be 14.6 mb/day, or 12% more than we use today.
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Prices and Production over a complete Hubbert Cycle: the Case of the American Whale Fisheries in 19th Century
energybulletin.net
But unlike oil, whales reproduce (note date)...
Whale juicer
by Jon S.
Oregon Coast (Reuteres) – It is an unseasonably warm day, in a small town just south of Portland. A grove of beachfront orange trees planted in 2010 fill the air with their fragrant bouquet. But today a new scent is on the wind: blubber. The first whale juicing plant on the West Coast has opened, capable of producing up to 100 barrels of oil a day.
energybulletin.net |
