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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: thames_sider who wrote (25295)	7/26/2006 5:45:05 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 541789

Lots of people had to restate their reserves. The biggest ones are the OPEC nations. Back in the days when they decided to base quotas on reserves, their reserves all doubled. Overnight. Funny thing about that.

To: thames_sider who wrote (25295)	7/27/2006 10:49:14 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 541789

Assumption # 4. The proven reserves claimed by OPEC actually exist. It is unlikely the proven reserves claimed by OPEC actually exist. Many believe they are a fabrication of the quota justifications that occurred in the 1980s. Furthermore, the claim that "Proven" reserves are increasing needs to be examined because in a sense we are merely talking about definitions. Words. As the price of oil increases, it becomes economically feasible to spend more money on production. Make sense? So the reserves that could not be classified as "Proven" at $26.00 per barrel become damn attractive if the price for a barrel goes to $55.00. There isn't any more oil. It's just that "Probable" oil reserves become "Proven" oil reserves as the price of oil increases because we can afford to spend more money on recovery. All we did was reclassify the definition of the oil we already have in the ground. No one found any more oil. Not a drop. theoildrum.com

To: thames_sider who wrote (25295)	7/29/2006 5:10:00 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 541789

Shell Shocked Christopher Helman 07.27.06, 3:00 PM ET forbes.com Excerpt: In physical terms Shell is weak. Over the past three years it has replaced only 38% of the oil it has pumped. It is desperately searching for new pools of crude while trying to make up for their scarcity by shifting its focus toward natural gas. Gas is plentiful but hard to move--hence, in most cases, much less valuable as it comes out of the ground. Shell has suffered disarray in giant projects in Nigeria and on Russia's Sakhalin Island, and pricey delays in developing several prospects, including South Mars. All oil companies confront the fact that petroleum is getting hard to find in politically stable parts of the globe. But Shell is in more of a crisis than the others because of a problem of its own doing: For years it exaggerated the size of its reserves. In January 2004 it confessed to the problem, eventually slicing 4.5 billion barrels of oil-and-gas equivalents off proved reserves, which now stand at 11.5 billion barrels. Counting only crude oil, reserves are down from 6.6 billion barrels in January 2003 to 4.6 billion now. This is more than a bookkeeping matter. Shell's production of oil has been dwindling at a rate of 7% a year. Estimating reserves is as much art--or politics--as science. Shell has been in Nigeria for 50 years, and there's a lot of oil there. But how much can it get its hands on? Some of its Nigerian fields had leases set to expire before the company could possibly recover the oil it claimed as proved reserves. And relations with the host government are not good. The company's enemies in that country accuse it of destroying the environment, bribing officials, arming security forces and working behind the scenes to silence anti-Shell protesters. The company says it is a responsible corporate citizen and respects human rights. theoildrum.com