Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

[mooncliff]

In the early 2000s, geologists who independently examined Cantarell said that this would happen, and they were exactly right and on schedule. The idea was: "There is only a 300-foot layer of oil left, and you are pumping it out at 100 feet per year." Pemex said there was no problem. Result: Economic disaster for Mexico and much less oil to export (possibly going to zero net export in just a few years, and Mexico used to supply the US with 10% of its oil, so not good for the US either), and a classic example of energy drilling financing. The geologists give a range of production estimates, say 5 billion barrels to 20 billion barrels, each with low probability, with the most likely 10 billion barrels; whoever owns the field rushes to the banks and tells them the most optimistic estimate, because that means they can get bigger loans at lower interest because they "have more collateral". I-like-it-so-it-is-true again fails to alter reality.

(We may see this repeated with natural gas drilling. Too many wells drilled too fast, causing a drop in natural gas prices, followed by a crash due to financing drying up and depletion. A flying monkey wrench that could cause the natural gas drilling boom to crash even sooner is if the fracking (hydraulic fracturing) method causes intolerable levels of groundwater contamination. http://www.npr.org/ombudsman/2009/10..._series_1.html )



So what won't you see on this list? Mexico's Cantarell is nowhere to be seen. It used to be the second-biggest producer in the world, giving more than 2 million bpd; it's now in terminal decline, slipping below 400,000 bpd.
Likewise Russia's Samotlor. It was the monster field of the Soviet Union, with production peaking at 3.5 million bpd in the 1970s. Today it's doing more like 350,000 bpd.
No respect for China's biggest field Daging either; it still produces roughly 800,000 bpd but is in serious decline.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/21/big...hannelsections

[Starving Steve]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

With fracking, side-a-ways drilling, up-grading of heavy oil and tar, there is oil enough left for hundreds of years into the future. There is also oil available in deep-sea fields, also the entire frontier of synthetic oil has yet to be developed. The oil won't be cheap, but it will be readily available.

If we continue to let radical environmentalists set the agenda and set the limits of what can be developed, we will end-up short of energy and with nothing available for the future. The world's standard-of-living will decline.

I noticed that side-a-ways drilling and fracking has rejuvenated the Kern Valley Oil Field, north of Bakersfield in the Kern Desert. Chevron has re-opened the Kern Valley Field after 100 years of decline. So there is no reason why Cantarel in Mexico can't be similarly rejuvenated as well.

[jtabeb]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

With fracking, side-a-ways drilling, up-grading of heavy oil and tar, there is oil enough left for hundreds of years into the future.

What Time IS IT?

[Starving Steve]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

"What time is it?" you asked.

Yes, agreed, it is time to limit the population growth of this planet. But NO, it is not time to tell your children that they have to accept a decline in their standard-of-living.

And this is exactly why I am at odds with the radical environmental movement to-day.

Let me put this a different way: We are not going to share poverty as our goal, especially not as our goal as leftists. We are going to BOOM, and everyone is going to share in that boom.

"What time is it?" you asked. It is time to develop the Earth's energy supplies, including its nuclear power supplies. We can boom, and will boom again.

[metalman]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

With fracking, side-a-ways drilling, up-grading of heavy oil and tar, there is oil enough left for hundreds of years into the future. There is also oil available in deep-sea fields, also the entire frontier of synthetic oil has yet to be developed. The oil won't be cheap, but it will be readily available.

If we continue to let radical environmentalists set the agenda and set the limits of what can be developed, we will end-up short of energy and with nothing available for the future. The world's standard-of-living will decline.

I noticed that side-a-ways drilling and fracking has rejuvenated the Kern Valley Oil Field, north of Bakersfield in the Kern Desert. Chevron has re-opened the Kern Valley Field after 100 years of decline. So there is no reason why Cantarel in Mexico can't be similarly rejuvenated as well.

[snowman111]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

The oil won't be cheap, but it will be readily available.

That is the problem not supply. It does not matter that oil is readily available if it costs $200 a barrel.

[Rajiv]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

Nevertheless, California Oil Production continues to decline?

[Shakespear]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

Yes Rajiv, that is the best way to demonstrate what is happening. EOR in Petroleum Industry is not cheap. Those running companies are not stupid. They will not pump money to increase supply if they see that it will result in a price drop. On top of this, project take time to start and show results. With a oil price jumping as it has been in the past, it is easier to buy someones reserves than mess around with EOR. Fracking, deviational drilling etc. has its limits and is not cheap.

So will there be oil in the future. YES !!! Butttttt, we will not be using it the way we have been up to now. How that will look will have to wait and see for the picture to develop. For sure the gas guzzles of today will be used sparingly if at all, and the useless trips to get milk and ice cream will be done by the kids either walking or riding a bike

[mooncliff]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

It is also interesting to see where the major fields fields will be, and just how tiny they are. If you didn't click through this, it is worth a look.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/20/big...s_slide_2.html

I think US dependence on imported energy is clearly dangerous and is leading to way more trouble than if we had invested in conservation and alternatives. I have been doing everything possible to cut energy use, regardless of the price of the fuels.

My house (Hawaii) uses 93% less energy than the average US house (Yes, I know we don't need heating, but we do need air conditioning, and the need for air conditioning has been reduced to near zero by installing an elastomeric heat-reflecting roof, which was half the cost of a traditional reroof).
My dad's house (Hawaii) is now net zero energy after installing photovoltaics. His annual electric bill used to be $3,000 per year, but now it is $150 per year (basic grid connection charge). If you look at the photovoltaics as an investment, it is paying about 10% per year.
Getting our energy use this low was actually free because we installed solar water heaters a long time ago, and then we plowed the savings into elastomeric heat-reflecting roofs and photovoltaics, so we did not have the financing issue discussed elsewhere, which I can see makes trying to figure out payback times very complicated.
This means we have to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars less over the rest of our lives with no change in standard of living, and we hope it will mean fewer problems whatever energy prices do in the future and that we will not contribute to the country's dependence on imported energy.

The next project is to get ready to switch over to electric cars that will be charged by the photovoltaics. You can't drive very far on our tiny islands, so a range of even 100 miles would be fine for almost everyone.

Growing more of our own food will further reduce our energy use.
My dad has 1,000 square feet under 30% shade Aluminet (worth every penny, reflects excess heat from hitting plants and makes the light diffuse, prevents frost damage by reflecting heat back toward the ground at night, http://www.igcusa.com/greenhouse-sha...-aluminet.html , I have no commercial interest in this product). Dad sells a lot of produce at cost at the market as a hobby.


By the way, did everyone see this?

An initiative launched today by Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs aims to develop technologies within five years that can reduce communications networks' energy consumption by a factor of 1,000.

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/01...-de-65566.html

Negawatts (reducing energy use without a change in standard of living) is really the way to go. The LEDs are about to get really good and cheap.


I have found that the most effective things are low tech and involve modest investment in googling time and money.

[MulaMan]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

Perfect, Fox News retards "unable to understand the exponentional function" "the arithmetic is not very difficult" - since when do the christano-fascist GOP idiots use arithmetic?

God tells them what to do, arithemitc is a tool OF THE DEVIL! As is science, invented BY SATAN! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH. LOL!

[Shakespear]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

reducing energy use without a change in standard of living

After the Arab Oil Embargo (1973 - 1974) US was on its way to get off of oil. This however was slowly was killed off. WHAT A MISTAKE THAT WAS !!!!!!

Had the work (which did start at many universities) continued we would have had a much much more relaxed world and a happier country :rolleyes:

[audrey_girl]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

It is also interesting to see where the major fields fields will be, and just how tiny they are. If you didn't click through this, it is worth a look.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/20/big...s_slide_2.html

I think US dependence on imported energy is clearly dangerous and is leading to way more trouble than if we had invested in conservation and alternatives. I have been doing everything possible to cut energy use, regardless of the price of the fuels.

My house (Hawaii) uses 93% less energy than the average US house (Yes, I know we don't need heating, but we do need air conditioning, and the need for air conditioning has been reduced to near zero by installing an elastomeric heat-reflecting roof, which was half the cost of a traditional reroof).
My dad's house (Hawaii) is now net zero energy after installing photovoltaics. His annual electric bill used to be $3,000 per year, but now it is $150 per year (basic grid connection charge). If you look at the photovoltaics as an investment, it is paying about 10% per year.
Getting our energy use this low was actually free because we installed solar water heaters a long time ago, and then we plowed the savings into elastomeric heat-reflecting roofs and photovoltaics, so we did not have the financing issue discussed elsewhere, which I can see makes trying to figure out payback times very complicated.
This means we have to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars less over the rest of our lives with no change in standard of living, and we hope it will mean fewer problems whatever energy prices do in the future and that we will not contribute to the country's dependence on imported energy.

The next project is to get ready to switch over to electric cars that will be charged by the photovoltaics. You can't drive very far on our tiny islands, so a range of even 100 miles would be fine for almost everyone.

Growing more of our own food will further reduce our energy use.
My dad has 1,000 square feet under 30% shade Aluminet (worth every penny, reflects excess heat from hitting plants and makes the light diffuse, prevents frost damage by reflecting heat back toward the ground at night, http://www.igcusa.com/greenhouse-sha...-aluminet.html , I have no commercial interest in this product). Dad sells a lot of produce at cost at the market as a hobby.


By the way, did everyone see this?

An initiative launched today by Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs aims to develop technologies within five years that can reduce communications networks' energy consumption by a factor of 1,000.

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/01...-de-65566.html

Negawatts (reducing energy use without a change in standard of living) is really the way to go. The LEDs are about to get really good and cheap.


I have found that the most effective things are low tech and involve modest investment in googling time and money.

very interesting links - thanks for posting

[GRG55]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

Nevertheless, California Oil Production continues to decline?

A few more charts that may help put things in context.

Cantarell, which was started on a nitrogen injection enhanced oil recovery [EOR] program at the beginning of this decade, is showing the classic signs of breakthrough. As the oil column thins through depletion, the overlying gas cap expands [downward] until it starts to invade the uppermost producing well perforations. The usual solutions to this outcome are to reduce pressure drawdown by reducing well production rates, or by drilling new horizontal wells through the thinner, remaining oil column. Pemex has been doing both. [note: this description is a deliberately simplified version of a fascinatingly complex reservoir that continues to get a lot of technical attention from the engineers].




Note that after the collapse in price in 1986 it took the better part of one and a half decades for OPEC supply management efforts to work off the surplus global production capability that had been built up from overinvestment during the 1970s commodity boom. Despite massive investment so far this decade, OPEC production just barely returned to its 1970s levels.

Most OPEC members are today unable to produce at their 1970s peak rates and one, Indonesia, went from exporter to importer and dropped out of OPEC entirely.




What should be of major concern is that virtually all of the recent increase in OPEC production capability is concentrated in one country and one company...Saudi Aramco [new OPEC member Angola is also worth noting].



And through what was one of the fastest rates of global GDP growth in history coupled with the highest nominal crude oil prices ever, a quick look back at global crude oil production rates shows [imo] that CERA's upcoming "undulating plateau" already started five years ago...



A couple of links to some very readable articles for anybody who wants more:

http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/6146#more

[flintlock]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

That is the problem not supply. It does not matter that oil is readily available if it costs $200 a barrel.

Exactly. The Germans were producing synthetic fuels during WWII. If they were economically feasible we'd still be using them vs fighting over the Middle East.

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...aug/becker.htm

The magnitude of the problem facing this country has another dimension that should not be underestimated. At the peak of their synthetic fuel production in 1943, when half of their economy and their armed forces ran on synthetic fuel, the Germans produced 36,212,400 barrels of fuel a year. At current rates of imported fuel alone, that quantity in this country would last all of four and one-half days!

[Starving Steve]

Re: Top 10 oil fields (Cantarell kaput)

We have offshore of Southern California one of the largest light-oil fields in California, and this oil field has been untapped since WWII. Don't even speculate as to the reason why this was undeveloped, but suffice to say that on the West Coast, nothing proceeds logically.

We also have not built a nuclear reactor in California in decades. We also have not built any new hydro-electric dams. To this day, the entire Eel River is simply dumped into the sea for salmon habitat. Radical environmentalists still dictate their no-growth (anti-people) agenda in the state's politics.

Oil is just dripping out of the sand, waiting to be pumped, on the beaches of Southern California, and yet the state's oil production is in decline..... It boggles my mind!

A water-shortage, and a river the size of the Mississippi at Minneapolis is simply allowed to flow-freely into the sea in north-west California. No-one dares to speak-up against this collossal waste of water.

Similarly, the San Joaquin and the Sacramento Rivers are dumped into the Delta of San Francisco Bay to preserve smelt-habitat, and thousands of acres of farmland now go-without freshwater supply for irrigation. Food production in California is in decline..... Again, few dare speak-out against the radical- environmental lobby.

If Obama had any balls, he would be signing executive orders from the White House putting a stop to lawsuits by the radical environmentalists in America. The EPA would be reigned-in, and the Energy Department in Washington would be much more supportive of developing nuclear, hydro-electric, and conventional-energy reserves. Rivers like the Sacramento, San Joaquin, and the Eel River would be diverted away from the sea and used for other purposes aside from habitat preservation.