The Illusion Of Vast Undeveloped US Oil Resources - Roger Blanchard ASPO USA

[hatrack]

EDIT

I frequently hear calls for all federal offshore waters to be opened to development, as if that will be our salvation. The most geologically favorable areas off the Atlantic coast have been explored in the past with no significant discoveries. If Atlantic federal waters were opened for development, it’s likely that no oil or next to no oil would ultimately be extracted. The same would be the case for Pacific waters from north-central California north to the Canadian border as well as around most of Alaska.

Concerning the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), the Clinton administration opened ~4.6 million acres to oil exploration and development in the late 1990s. Lease sales occurred in 1999 and 2002 in the northeast quadrant but only ~330 million barrels of oil have been discovered in that area. That corresponds to ~15 days of U.S. liquid hydrocarbons consumption. Production from the ~4.6 million acres started last year but that hasn’t even reversed the production decline in Alaska. According to a USGS assessment, the area has 3.1 Gb of technically recoverable oil. Based upon a MMS assessment, the Beaufort and Chuchi Seas off northern Alaska have 24.9 Gb of technically recoverable oil. Presently the Northstar field, just off the coast, is the only offshore field producing oil. Since 1970, over 99,000,000 acres of the Beaufort and Chuchi Seas has been offered in oil and gas lease sales and as of 2003, there were active leases on over 140,000 acres.

Some believe that the oil industry didn’t have the capabilities to explore for oil in the Arctic Ocean until recently, but back in the early 1980s a huge structure about 65 miles northwest of the Prudhoe Bay field, in the Arctic Ocean, was drilled. In December 1983 the structure was breached only to discover it was filled with salt water, the infamous $2 billion Mukluk dry hole. The Bush administration has opened large areas of Bristol Bay (Alaska), NPR-A (Alaska), western federal lands and the central and eastern Gulf of Mexico. In the case of Bristol Bay, oil exploration occurred there some years ago without finding any significant oil. The administration is also attempting to reopen the Chuchi Sea (Alaska) to oil development. Contrary to what one hears or reads from the media, a lot of federal lands and water have been opened for oil exploration and development in recent years.

If all federal lands and waters were opened to oil development, the most probable production profile would look something like Figure 1. Opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and all federal waters would create a minor hump in the decline curve. Desperate people do desperate things. As Americans become more desperate for oil, I expect that ANWR and offshore areas will be opened for oil development. It will be like burning the furniture to keep the house warm in mid-January. It will be a desperate move that won’t result in much.

EDIT/END

http://www.aspo-usa.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=378&Itemid=91

[NickB79]

1. Kick

[Vogon_Glory]

2. Vast Undeveloped US Oil Resources A Right-Wing Article of Faith

The idea that the US still has vast undeveloped resources for cheap oil and cheap natural gas is a myth that has been nurtured for so long by shills for the oil and gas industry and right-wing talk-radio hosts that it's practically become an article of faith. Right-wing talk show hosts have been running a string of patter that if the "libruls" would just drop dead or just get out of the way and let the oilmen drill, the price of crude oil and natural gas would drop back to where it was shortly after Reagan busted the oil price bubble.

Unfortunately, the right-wing faithful believe the myth in spite of the ample evidence to the contrary. They refuse to accept that the oil first has to be found before it can be tapped (If the oil is there at all). They refuse to acknowledge that there's a lengthy lead time between oil prospecting and the drilling and the laying of pipelines to bring the oil and gas to market. The right-wing faithful refuse to accept that the eighties have been gone for twenty years, that the Middle-Eastern and Nigerian oil fields are depleting, and that the US is competing as oil consumers with buyers like India and China. The right-wing faithful refuse to believe that the price of that oil ISN'T going to be priced as a cheap-o US exclusive, and they refuse to believe that the price for that oil and gas (Assuming it exists) is going to follow world oil prices, not the fantasy-football figures touted by talk-show hosts and cynical right-wing politicians in the pockets of the energy companies.

Stupid is as stupid does, and when it comes to the economics of oil, the right-wing sheeple live up to their billing.

:argh:

[knitter4democracy]

3. I've always wondered where they think the oil is.

I know, growing up, that oil companies came around all the time trying to buy up mineral rights under the farmland or lease it or whatever in our area of rural Michigan, only to never really find all that much. They found some here and there, but the wells never lasted that long.

Don't they know that there are geologists working for the oil companies pouring over maps and doing all sorts of research to find something, anything? It's just not there anymore.

[Vogon_Glory]

4. The Wingie-Dingies Think The Oil Is Where

I've come to believe that the wingie-dingies believe that the massive reserves of undeveloped US oil and gas deposits are wherever the talk-show loudmouths SAY that they are. If some PR flack working for an oil company seeking to drill in Utah's Canyonlands tells Shammity, the Savage Weiner, Gargler, or one of the others that there's deep oil deposits there, Shammity and the rest of the crew will insist that there are North Sea and East Texas-sized oil fields at those places even before the geologists have done much more than a cursory look at the surface sans tools in their hiking boots. The wingie-dingies then believe what Shammity, the Savage Weiner, Gargler or the rest of the rogue's gallery tell them, regardless of what detailed testing proves--or disproves.

[tom_paine]

5. That is absolutely correct. I have seen it in action many times.

So many Amerikan Subjects are just that...subjects and not Free People.

It is why Bushler was a long time in coming, and, sadly, why America was probably ripe for the plucking by the first tyrant that came along for many years now.

[bhikkhu]

6. The USGS is at least part of the problem

http://www.davidstrahan.com/blog/?p=69

Hopefully when some of these numbers get straightened out the changes will be notable enough to publish, and change some misled minds.