Oil supplies could 'last 140 years'

[WhiteTara]

so now we just have to worry about running out of water?

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5734EA77-AE7E-4657-9FBD-A2C692530716.htm

A Saudi oil executive has challenged the idea that supplies are running out, saying that just 18 per cent of the global supply of crude has been tapped.

Abdallah Jumah, president and CEO of the state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Company, better known as Aramco, said the world has potentially 4.5 trillion barrels in reserves - enough to last 140 years at current levels of consumption.

"The world has only consumed about 18 per cent of its conventional potential," Jumah said, rejecting fears that supplies will run out in a few decades.

Experts have estimated that the Earth's recoverable oil resource is between three trillion and more than four trillion barrels. If consumption rises about two per cent a year from today's levels of about 85 million barrels a day, the low end of that range would only be enough to last until 2070.

Rex Tillerson, the chairman of Exxon Mobil, has said that world demand for oil will increase by 50 per cent in the next decade.

more

[Extend a Hand]

1. hhhmmmm

If Aramco *REALLY* wants to allay fears about oil supplies then they're going to need to cough up some evidence to go along with those claims.

[gasperc]

43. yeah, that's why gas shot up $1 over the summer

liars

[Systematic Chaos]

2. So, what'll it be? Door numbah ONE or door numbah TWO?

You want to get hauled back to the Stone Age or live on a planet that hits 110 every day in the arctic in the summer?

Some choice, eh? :eyes:

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. actual economically recoverable oil worldwide is...

about 1148 billion barrels

Most of the world's oil has already been discovered. OPEC countries have 77% and 68% is in the middle east and close to the Persian Gulf. <6> If production stays the same at 80 million barrels a day, the oil will last 40 years. (The EIA projects consumption to rise 2% per year.) Oil production must slow because it will be difficult and expensive to keep the oil flowing from depleted oil fields. Oil consumption will slow because oil will become expensive. The oil will not actually run out; it will become too expensive to be used much.
http://planetforlife.com/anwr/

[krispos42]

15. Oh, as crude prices rise, so will that number.

If it goes to $200 a barrel, there will be a LOT of economically recoverable oil.

Of course, clean-coal technology can make petroleum products as well, and we can mine all that stuff here in the states. And the carbon dioxide can be liquified and pumped into underground chambers (like empty oil fields) so it's not in the atmosphere. And clean-coal technology also makes hydrogen, a cheap and plentiful supply of which will go a long way towards pushing the development of zero-emission fuel-cell cars.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

16. that sounds like a commercial for BP ...

"clean coal" is not clean, and it's expensive.
http://money.cnn.com/2004/10/18/news/economy/coal/

[ProgressiveEconomist]

20. But it makes sense, doesn't it? Canada may have more economically

recoverable reserves than Saudi Arabia if prices remain high enough to mak squeezing tiny drops of oil from huge mounds of "tar sands" profitable.

And as prices rise, wouldn't there be more and more off-shore finds like the recent Gulf discovery, as drilling would go deeper and deeper?

Also, as oil prices skyrocketed, there would be more and more research into solar, electric batteries, and other green energy, and some of that research might pay off. Then petroleum would become obsolete, like firewood.

[plasticsundance]

34. It all depends ...

It has to do with how much and how fast can be economically produced to meet growing world demand ... even daily demand. It's not merely about how much oil can be extracted from various sources ... or even how much is in the ground. Already production is bottled up until at least 2010.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

42. Wouldn't any production bottlenecks tend to put off the day of reckoning

a little longer? I don't see how any production bottleneck would make oil run out sooner.

We all know what happens when demand exceeds supply: The price goes up, and most people cut back a little bit on demand. And the higher price may induce drillers to plan new projects, to get at oil that previously would have been considered economically unrecoverable.

[plasticsundance]

44. I'm not sure you understood ... or it could be me???

I did not say that a bottle neck in production would make oil run out sooner. Oil will not run out, but the capacity to meet world demand will put more stress on prices and the industry in general, plus a lower dollar and all the speculation of those playing the market.

High oil prices are still being propped up by a shortage of refinery capacity and there is little sign of the bottleneck easing until 2010, industry executives and officials discussing OPEC's future have warned.

That potential respite relies on the unlikely prospect all 66 refineries planned by oil companies and producers being built, as well as a total of about US$300 billion in investment by 2015, they added.


more ...

If I'm not mistaken, and I might well be, but are we not talking about production and refining capacity? You talked of the tar sands in Canada, but how efficient it is to meet demand will be the question. In other words, how fast can the oil be brought to the market for consumption and meets the size of the demand of that consumption. Realize, I'm not saying one way or the other. I'm just saying it poses a problem for consideration.

[krispos42]

36. "Some call is greenhouse gas, we call it nature"? lmao

Oh, I know it's not perfect. But, like everything else, it will get cheaper and better. I'd rather be spending $8 billion a month on researching clean coal than blowing up Iraqis.

I've posted in a number of threads my ideas on how we should progress with our energy policy. My first idea, the baby step, is to for car makers to offer selectively-supercharged engine upgrade for automobiles instead of the typical larger engine in car models. A supercharged engine produces about 40% more power at the cost of about 8% of overall fuel economy. For example, instead of offering a 4-cylinder and an optional 6-cylinder, offer a 4-cylinder and a 4-cylinder with a computer-controlled supercharger that kicks in the power boost only when you need it, like highway merging, hill climbing, etc. The overall economy of a 4-cyliner with the kick of a six. And carry that logic up through passenger vehicles, although probably not to heavy-duty trucks. Replace the Hemi V-8s on the Dodge Charger with a selectively-supercharged V-6.

Next, start making all-electric vehicles, running off of a lithium-ion battery, that are able to be charged off of a standard 115-volt, 15-amp domestic circuit or a standard domestic 230-volt, 30-amp service. In addition, install the car an air-cooled, single-cylinder, 4-stroke, high-efficiency, clean-burning 12-horsepower engine tied to a 230-volt AC generator. The generator would be wired to the same charging circuitry as the 230-volt, 30-amp domestic service.

In this fashion, when the car is used only for daily local travel, say less than 150 miles, the car/light SUV/minivan runs purely off of the batteries, charging from the house power at night. The auxillary generator would only kick in when the battery charge dropped below like 15%. A timer should be included so that the car can charge during off-peak usage times. This would probably cover 95% of the time 90% of the people who drive their cars, and it would not require any new power plants to be built, although the current plants would have to run at full capacity for more hours in the day.

When going long distances, a switch in the car would be set to "long distance", and the auxillary would kick in immediately, fighting the battery drain to extend the range of the vehicle, perhaps to 400 or more miles, before the battery is dead. The auxillary would also charge the battery when you are stopped for bathroom breaks, dinner, shopping, etc., as well as if you are staying overnight in a motel or campsite.

The auxillary might be used only a few times a year, burning only a few gallons of fuel. The auxillary could also be made to run on a variety of different fuels, such as high-octane gasoline (for maximum effiency), E-85, propane/natural gas, or diesel. If it runs on E85, it should be designed to run only on E85, because E85 as a very high octane rating, which allows the use of very high compression engines and thus a more efficient thermodynamic cycle, which in turn helps make up for the lower energy density of E85.

The flexability in charging also allows you to charge up your car while visiting Grandma. Just run an extension cord from the garage out to the car. In addition, the car's battery and auxillary could provide emergency power generation during a blackout.

Eventually, with a source of hydrogen secured, either from windmills or nuclear fusion (not fission!!!) powerplants via electralysis, or from clean-coal technology, we can move to electric cars powered by fuel cells, which only emit water vapor. And, since we can fill up the hydrogren tank as needed, we will be largely free of the internal-combustion engine.

[Strelnikov_]

23. "A LOT Of Economically Recoverable Oil"

As long as we can find an energy source to permit the harvest of this 'oil'.




IMHO, the harvest of oil having an EROEI of 3 or less, considering the environmental cost, really makes no sense from a societal standpoint (tar sands, shale oil, heavy oil, deep water, etc.).

[bhikkhu]

53. an interesting opinion, considering ethanol

has an EROI of perhaps 2.5, optimistically given the best of present technology. From a societal standpoint is one perspective, but from a political (multinational-corporate controlled political, that is) other factors may be involved.

[Strelnikov_]

56. 'Interesting' That It Is Implied That There Is No Difference Between

a renewable, potentially carbon neutral, minimally polluting energy source and a non-renewable, highly polluting, GHG producing energy source.

I am willing to accept an EROEI of 1 for ethanol produced with wind energy (essentially conversion of wind energy to a liquid fuel). I am unwilling to accept petroleum produced with an EROEI of 3 or less. Below this energy yield, IMHO, the eternal costs of petroleum use far outweigh any societal benefit.

[amandabeech]

52. As crude prices rise, so will the price of all the fuel and petroleum

products used in making drilling equipment (think how much energy is used in giant offshore platforms) and in drilling itself. On top of that increases in petroleum prices make everything more expensive.

I agree with you that at $200 a barrel will bring out oil from small fields, remote fields, offshore fields and unconventional sources like tar sands and extra-heavy crude.

However, I don't think that there will be nearly as much $200 oil recovered if there weren't so much petroleum used in the process.

[EVDebs]

54. Simple arithmetic

One trillion barrels of oil; 85 million barrels consumed per day now; expected 120 million barrels per day by 2020; so we've got about 25 years left.

Put more simply, the book Plan B 2.0 by Lester Brown says we've got until 2031 if China and India wish to emulate an American style auto-centered consumption lifestyle.

[jwirr]

4. 140 years is not all that long. Several generations. My great-

grandchildren. Furthermore it is not just about oil running out - it is about global warming and self sufficiency of each nation so we do not have to fight any more wars to steal someone else's resources.

[anotherdrew]

28. not even 140, "at current consumption" that rate is going up fast

even if this guy is right, we've got a couple decades at best before we do pass the peak and by then china, india, etc. ramping up their consumption, the problem will be terrible. we stll have no one alternative to oil.

[Maven]

5. Phew.

I for one welcome this good news, and from a TOTALLY unbiased source.

[Dead_Parrot]

12. what you said... nt

[LeftHander]

27. So will we be ready to live without oil?

Or will it be that MOST of us will live without oil and the wealthy and US military will have what remains...

[stepnw1f]

31. DING, DING, Ding

You nailed it.

[GliderGuider]

32. I think that's a good first approximation

As oil gets more expensive, the less wealthy will lose out in the marketplace. National militaries (not just the Americans, but all of them) will ensure they get what they need.

Look for civilian air travel to fade away, but the MiGs, F-16s and Tornados will keep flying.

[rman]

45. And then to realize that the military is an instrument;

supposed to be an instrument of the people (via representative (self-)governance), but once you find it protecting increasingly scarce resources and cooperating with an increasingly authoritarian and oppressive government, you can bet it is someone else's instrument, along with the secret agencies.
They have their own ideas of dealing with peak oil.

[radfringe]

57. YEAAAAA!!!!

<sarcasm on> **WHOOPPIEEEE! gas up them HUMVEES and hit the road, in 140 years it'll be somebody else's problem....<sarcasm off>

[yurbud]

6. No need to develop those alternative fuels! Just keep buying gas....

move along, move along (otherwise we can't gouge you till the last drop).

[lapfog_1]

7. And yet, over the last five years, when one of the Kingdoms

closest Allies, who counts among his family members one "Bandar Bush", has called upon the Saudis
to increase production to bring stability to the oil markets when one or another crises occurs...

They have utterly failed to raise production even 1 or 2 percent.

With so much oil still in the ground (3 or 4 trillion barrels).... you'd think this would be easy
for them to do.

Since Aramco took over from the foreign oil companies, I don't think anyone trusts them on their
estimates of reserves. There isn't any reason to start now.

[bhikkhu]

8. I believe they intend to, but the timescale is long

and the realities of geology may intervene - they have plans and wells and projects underway, but it is very possible the depletion of existing production may result in little more than treading water. That is, rather than an increase we may see a plateau or a very gradual decline. In any case, I doubt that many still count on the long-touted Saudi capacity to "turn on the spigots" for another mbd or so.

[Dogmudgeon]

9. Most of the oil will stay where it is

All oil below a certain depth is too expensive to recover.

What determines that depth? Well, part of it is the price people are willing to pay. But another part of that equation is gravity itself. When more energy is required to overcome gravity than is present in the oil itself, taking it out of the ground will become a limited proposition, and petroleum-based fuels will only be used in niche applications.

And we're uncomfortably close to that point right now.

--p!

[daleo]

29. Similarly for tar sands and the like

Once the energy required to mine the sands,"cook" the liquid oil out, and transport it to market equals the amount of energy locked in that oil, tar sands become pointless. I believe with current technology about 40% of the energy content of a barrel of tar sands oil is lost in the extraction process itself.

[GliderGuider]

33. Between the energy costs and the environmental costs

Oil sands are looking to be a very shaky proposition. Canada currently produces about 1 million barrels per day from the oil sands. The USA wants us to up this to 5 million by 2015. This will never happen. We're busting at the seams trying to make 1 million, and the local citizens are getting fed up with the colour of the rivers and the smell of the air.

[daleo]

38. Apparently, the tailing ponds will have to be enormous

If the oil sands are exploited to the extent that is planned.

[SoCalDemGrrl]

10. Yeah!! A Hummer in every Driveway!!!

[bhikkhu]

11. And global warming, if we burn another 3 or 4 trillion barrels...

as difficult as pessimistic views of peak oil may place the predicament of humanity, how much worse it might be if oil reserve optimists are correct.

[zonkers]

13. If smart folks dont get together to un-greed and un-oil-junkie the world,

my kids kids kids are super fucked.

[truthisfreedom]

14. whatever. i'm buying solar.

f*ck the oil companies.

[mom cat]

17. The earth will be too hot foe humans if we burn that much!

[robbibaba]

18. No Really!

If the world population declines by say, 70 to 90 percent in the next thirty years, there'll be plenty of oil for the lucky survivors. Some folks think this might actually be planned and in the works, by our lizard men overlords. I don't know.

[rman]

19. Confirms that the era of cheap oil is over.

140 years may be fairly accurate if you include all estimated reserves (as opposed to proven reserves) including low yield deposits such as tar sand and oil shale, heavy crude and yet to be discovered deep water fields.

It is misleading in that it leaves out the fact that production capacity does decline as sources become depleted, not just for oil but for any resource.

Even if it would last another 140 years, that would mean peak oil will be in about 35 years from now.

Also you can make any amount of oil last as long as you want by restricting access to it...

[humbled_opinion]

21. Wow so lets wait until year 139 to do anything about it. n/t

[Odin2005]

22. What they won't tell you is that production will start dropping.

Peak Oil is not the end of oil, it is the peak of production. they are using sophistry to fool people.

[struggle4progress]

24. 2% annual growth is only about 22% a decade

[ProgressiveEconomist]

47. But it means doubling every 36 years, so that in 144 years, demand

will have increased sixteenfold from today's levels. Economic projections get a little silly when you try to go out more than about 20 or 30 years into the future.

[struggle4progress]

58. With OilCo est (50% per decade), supplies wd run out much sooner.

My point is that growth estimate behind the 140 year figure may not be supported by current evidence.

The OilCo next-decade estimate is probably based on some real experience in predicting short-term demand and suggests current economies are still assuming unlimited oil into the foreseeable future.

I have no faith in the power of smooth functions to predict long term economic realities, and of course NO real world phenomena are governed for any extensive time period by laws involving positive exponential growth.

The real issue is not how many years of oil we have assuming a given growth rate, because the assumption will necessarily break down and the calculation will ultimately be meaningless: the real issue is finitude of a resource that is likely to become unavailable to most of the world in a relatively short period of time ...

[alfredo]

25. Undercutting competing technologies and suppressing

conservation efforts could be the goal of this PR release.

[rman]

26. World production flat since 2004

Demand growth has been some 2 to 3% average per year since we started exploiting oil some 70 years ago.


* Cantarell is reported to be in decline by 15% per year.
* An unnamed Mexican official has leaked an internal prediction of a 70% decline in Cantarell by the end of 2008.
* This month's North Sea production is reported to have declined by 18% year over year.
* Kuwait has cut its reserve estimates in half (and remember that Shell also did the downgrade tango).
* World production according to EIA and IEA figures has been flat to within the limits of the data noise since mid 2004.
* Reading the Saudi tea-leaves gives one a sense of desperation in their drilling plans. They have offically said their mature fields are in an 8% decline, "But this will be reduced to 2% by infill drilling and new projects."
* Chris Skrebowski's global Megaprojects analysis says we'll get a net addition of 1 Mbpd this year and 1.3 Mbpd in 2007 from new projects. I don't believe his report included the possibility of the North Sea losing 750,000 bpd since January, or Cantarell losing 300,000 bpd this year.

[GliderGuider]

30. Here are some updates to those bullet points

The news on Cantarell is getting worse.

The oil column of about 825' at Cantarell is thinning at the rate of about 300' per year, and is sandwiched between an expanding water layer below and an expanding gas cap above. This indicates that they are on track for the worst-case decline estimate of about 40% per year that was leaked to the WSJ. We could see Cantarell's output decline by 75% by the end of 2008. This would represent a drop in Cantarell's output of 1.5 million bpd, roughly equivalent to what Mexico exports to the USA. If Mexico cut shipments to the USA in order to satisfy their domestic demand, US imports would suffer a 15% shortfall. That is a recipe for a major spike in the world oil price, as the US bids up the price to outbid other consumers and cover their shortfall.

There are also increasing concerns that Ghawar in Saudi Arabia is already crashing. Observers point out that Ghawar is in the same geology and uses the same extraction technology as the Yibal field in Oman, a field that has crashed by 25% per year from 1999 to 2005. Ghawar is already well past the production point at which the technical Peak Oilers expect it to start letting go. Saudi oil exports have fallen by over 4% from February to June, for an annualized decline of over 10%.

As production in oil exporting nations starts to fall, it's reasonable to expect that their exports will fall at a faster rate than the overall production decline. This is due to continuing growth in domestic demand that they will try to satisfy first, for political if not economic reasons. If this starts to happen simultaneously in several major oil exporting nations (Mexico, KSA, and Russia for instance), importing nations will be in a world of hurt.

We all need to keep in mind that it is oil production rates, not reserves, that bottleneck global industrial and economic growth. We could have a brazillion barrels of oil in the ground, but if we can only extract 80 million barrels a day this year and 70 million next year and 65 million the year after that, industrial civilization is in heap big doodoo. We need a certain flow rate to maintain industrial activity. If we can't get that flow rate, things will slow down - no matter how manny barrels of bitumen are left in the sand at Fort McMurray.

And no, that new ultra-deep find in the Gulf of Mexico won't help. In global terms, it don't mean Jack.

[rman]

39. Thanks for that

Was that list originally posted by you, by any chance?

[GliderGuider]

41. Yup, that was me.

Don't worry, you're welcome to use anything I write, especially on Peak Oil. I was pleased with that list when I compiled it, and I'm very happy you found it useful. It fits right in on this thread.

I get most of my info over at The Oil Drum, which is the best Peak Oil discussion board on the web. They have attracted a lot of very thoughtful, knowledgeble people, and also have one of the best news miners in the business ferreting out oil-related stories.

[Javaman]

35. Simple question then: if there is so much left...

why are the oil companies raping the Canadian oil sands for oil that costs a fortune to extract? Hmmmm?

Oh sure there is plenty of oil left, what this fucking liar fails to say is, the oil that is left isn't sweet crude but crappy crude that is deeper, heavier and harder to extract.

Oh sure, go on fill up, gas has dropped at the pump. That has nothing to do with a U.S. election coming in november, not at all. :sarcasm:

But be prepared that come november 8th, if that gas doesn't start creeping back up, I will be very impressed.

Oh and one more thing, let's hope that ultradeep oil found in the gulf comes on line soon huh? yeah, because if it took 5 to 10 years for it to be extracted, it would really only amount to about 35 days of oil, if world growth continues at the rate that it's going. But we all know that the mega oil companies wouldn't be yanking our chain about that. Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, that will never happen...
:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[GliderGuider]

37. Here's a presentation on oil depletion that I gave to the Club of Rome

I gave this last week to the Ottawa chapter of the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome. It speaks to a number of the issues raised in this thread. It has some interesting components, including two scenarios of what happens to the world at different decline rates and a set of mitigation proposals. Teaser - I don't believe there is a technical solution to the problem posed by oil depletion.

http://www.paulchefurka.com/peakoil/PO-CACOR.html

[JohnyCanuck]

40. This is obfuscation because oil consumption rates

have to increase over time to fuel economic growth. Barring some sudden breakthrough in cheap and efficient alternative energy production our reliance on oil to fuel economic growth can not be ignored.

"Oil supplies could 'last 140 years"- at current rates of consumption."

The point is that current economic theories require economies to grow continuously and continuous economic growth has been fueled to date by the availability of cheap and easily obtainable supplies of energy. Increased economic growth requires ever increasing consumption of energy and that includes energy derived from oil.

Increase in oil consumption over the last few years has been running around two to three percent per year (IIRC). To find the doubling time in consumption you divide the percentage increase per year into the number 70 (a constant). Taking a 3% per year growth in world consumption, then consumption would double in 70/3 = 23.3 years. Therefore by approximately 2029 we'd be using twice as much oil as we are using today (assuming we had a steady 3% growth per year). If the 3% growth rate continued, by 2052, consumption would double again and we'd be using 4 times as much oil as we are using today in 2006 and twice as much as we used in 2029. The claim that we have enough oil to last 140 years at current rates of consumption tells us nothing about how long supplies will last when we have to figure in continuous growth in consumption (as per our current economic models), and even quite small but constant increases in consumption can have dramatic effects on how quickly resources get consumed.

Professor Albert Bartlett from the University of Colorado explains it better than I can in his presentation on growth and resource consumption at http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/lectures/461 .

The retired Professor of Physics from the University of Colorado in Boulder examines the arithmetic of steady growth, continued over modest periods of time, in a finite environment. These concepts are applied to populations and to fossil fuels such as petroleum and coal.

Real Player is required to view the video of Prof Bartlett's presentation. However MP3's and transcripts are also available at the above link. It is a lecture geared to the layman and is not heavy on math or science.

[Megahurtz]

46. That's not good news,

all it means is that it sounds like we will never go Solar,
or to any other better alternative power source.

And we'll have to keep breathing this shit,
and watch the World die from Global Warming.

And even better yet, the Wars will never stop!

I'm so comforted now! :sarcasm:

[Thor_MN]

48. Wood fired steam locomotives will be making a comeback...

[lildreamer316]

49. THIS IS WHY BUSH

gave the visas to the Saudis.

Remember, they have not wanted to tell anyone how much they have in reserve. Now, here they did not tell us exactly how much they have in reserve, but they told us what percent is left and how long it would last.=how much they have in reserve (at least part of it.)

[NeoGreen]

50. There will always be more oil below the surface...

of the Earth, then we will ever have used. The problem is and will always be the required Engery Input vs Energy Returned (EI vs ER).

If, as in the case of Canadian tar sands it takes 9 units of energy to recover 10, then you have a net of 1, regardless of the absolute size of the reservoir.

In the case of the Canadian tar sands, the choice will be do we (Canadians actually) want to trade natural gas to get liquid oil.

All economic considarations in regards to the price of oil will be incidental, ultimately, to geophysics.

[XemaSab]

51. Today I was talking about business development with the dude

in charge of oil and gas contracts at our office and he said he's expecting to see that portion of our work phased out over the next 5 years, not because he wants to, but because the work will no longer be there.

[politicat]

55. Also known as "poker face".

The Saudi opinion on how much oil is in the ground is about as valuable as the fox's opinion on the security of the henhouse.

And even if there is that much oil, extraction has bottomed out. Getting it out of the ground is the hard part.