T or E

Thanks MAF! I'd also like to know what your take is on "peak oil." I'm not talking about the peak oil fanatics, mind you, who are predicting armageddon, but simply your estimate on when you think world production might start declining. My research has convinced me that production is clearly levelling off (meaning rate increases are slowing down), and that new oil discoveries are only a small percentage of what they were a decade ago. Saudi Arabia has for years now been saying they are going to start pumping 12.5Mbpd, but haven't yet done it, causing some to speculate they are already in decline. Here's a new article that Russia's oil/gas export growth rates are in decline:

en.rian.ru/russia/20060607/49162696.html

And here's one saying Central Africa is in decline:

tinyurl.com/e5dp5

I can't believe this is all Oil Company lies to increase prices. It isn't good for the world economy, and especially the powerful investment banking industry, for oil prices to be so high. Investment banking is more powerful than oil.

What's your take on this?

Emanuel

What's your take on this?

Emanuel

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Keep in mind that the environmentalist movement in the USA has prohibited drilling in many areas, including our continental shelf except for the Western part of the Gulf of Mexico. In addition, most oil well production has been "primary" where oil flow depends on reservior pressure and/or pumping. Secondary recovery involves putting steam/hot water down injection wells. Primary recovery usually involves taking out 30% to 40% of oil in place. (In the fields in Kuwait, primary recovery is less than 10% of oil in place!) Secondary recovery can, and does, exceed recovery of 90% of oil in place. It is, of course, more expensive - and it requires energy which equates to a modest portion of the oil recovered.

I have a personal speculation that the core of a planet is simply a monstrous nucleus. Standard radioactive decay continuously creates more "normal" matter. If true, the process is slow. That would give you more oil, if you live long enough.


Gregg Wilson

Yes Gregg, I hear all you are saying, but the bottom line isn't how much oil is left, but how quickly and steadily it can be recovered. Old fields that require water injection simply can't produce as fast as new fields. This causes a decrease in the field's production rate. From what I understand, production decline begins when a well is about 50% depleted. So take Ghwar, for example (Saudi's monster field). While it is nowhere near empty, if it has reached it's peak then it won't be able to spit out it's oil as fast as it did previously, and each year it will produce less than the previous year. It will be on a downward production slope then for the rest of it's life, unless some miracle technology comes along that can pump it out faster.

This principle can be applied to the entire world supply of oil, just as it can to an individual well. After all, world oil supply simply comes from a bunch of wells. So the question to me is when will world oil production as a whole "peak", meaning when will we be pulling out of the ground less oil each year than the year before. It is my understanding that when we start to go down this slope, our industrial and financial system will be in trouble (globally, that is), because it requires an ever increasing amount of energy/capital. Growth can't happen when energy input declines. Loans can't be paid back. Etc.

Some people say that demand increase may precipitate this trouble even before production starts to decline. But when we have demand increasing *PLUS* production decreasing, we will certainly be in trouble.

It is also pointed out that when the US peaked in the early seventies, it took a few years before that conclusion was reached. So some are saying we may be at the world peak already. I doubt it, but I'm trying to assess when it will happen in the future, and I'm wondering if replenishment is a significant factor being overlooked by most geologists concerned with this question.

Emanuel

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by emanuel</i>
<br />Yes Gregg, I hear all you are saying, but the bottom line isn't how much oil is left, but how quickly and steadily it can be recovered.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Oil production is determined by the market. As oil price rises, new methods are used. Primary oil production in Kuwait took out only about 5% of oil in place. Steam inject will remove more than 90% of oil in place. I know. I'm working on the process design to produce boiler quality water out of the produced water from the wells. Nasty water.(I don't do this alone, god knows. There are many other engineers.)

We might run out of oil after several centuries. Anyway, a new energy source will be found from cold fusion, or more accurately, cold fission. (My personal crusade)

Gregg Wilson

Hi Gregg,

It seems to me like you may be missing an essential point. First, I agree. We're never going to run out of oil. There will always be oil in the ground, extractable oil even. That's not the issue. The problem is that the oil gets harder and harder to get out of the ground as the wells deplete, and this slows down the rate of extraction. So while most experts think we have now extracted only about half the recoverable oil on the planet, the remaining half will not come out nearly so easily, and thus each year after "peak" there will be a drop in the rate. Some say 3% a year. This is the problem. The current global economy is based on growth, and oil is the fuel of economic growth. Up until now not only has extraction been able to meet demand, but extraction rates have increased year after year. This is going to come to an end beause of the basic physics of extracting oil out of depleting wells.

To put this another way, it is wrong to think that the rate of global oil production is determined purely by market demand. Oil is not a normal commodity like other commodities in this way. It is the very energy that creates most other commodities, and the production rate is determined by the physics of well extraction. Water-injection can eventually get out 90% of the oil, but not at the same *rate* as young wells. The problem is not how much will we eventually be able to get out, but whether we can keep it up at the same rate, and everyone in the business acknowledges this simply cannot happen without some new, miracle extraction technology that we currently don't know about.

The world economy is not like a car. A car keeps going at full speed right up until the last drop of gas. The economy, however, begins to slow down when oil extraction has reached the half-way point, because at this point the *RATE* of extraction slows down. Unless you know some new technology I don't know about, I am not willing to put my faith in market forces to find one. The market forces have already been at work, and the oil companies have been desperate to discover/create such a technology. It just ain't happening.

Emanuel

To put this another way, it is wrong to think that the rate of global oil production is determined purely by market demand. Oil is not a normal commodity like other commodities in this way. Emanuel
[/quote]

The world economy is not an open market economy. There is massive government intervention, even in the USA. So you are not observing a market economy.

You may be unaware of the countless thousands of oil wells that are idled or turned on, depending on price. Oil is a normal commodity, but it has been highly politicized.

Obviously, in the future a new energy source has to be found. But Science has been taken over by governments and large institutions. In reality, science has been petrified by these institutions. There is Grand Theory and God help you if you challenge it. Look at what happened to Pons and Fleischman. They were crucified because their experimental results challenged Established Nuclear Fusion Theory. I think they achieved Cold Fission at a level that was practical and useful. A tremendous achievement that sidesteps the problem of nuclear bombs. But never mind that, they violated Holy Scripture.

Consider how technical progress is <b>actually</b> achieved. No better example exists than the Wright Brothers versus the Smithsonian. Need I say more?

Metaresearch is filling this void.



Gregg Wilson