Scientists Discover (Biggest Ever) Oil field off U.S. coast

Scientists from the University of Cornell have discovered a massive amount of Oil off the coast of Louisiana.The find is some 60 billion barrels or 3 Times more than current US recoverable Oil of 20 Billion barrels, and would bring US total reserves to 80 billion barrels which is on par with Venezuela. In comparison to other finds around the world, this is twice the size of all Oil ever found in the North Sea and 6 times larger than the estimates of the Alaskan ANWR oil deposits.

www.newtechspy.com...

“This is enough Oil to make the US self sufficient and make
foreign Oil supply disruption a thing of the past”

Or so this site claims...I just wonder why it's not all over the news as this would be like an answer to every American's prayer. I know nothing about the site this was posted from so I don't know if it's credible or not but found and thought I'd post it here for others to comment on.

Since when is Louisiana off the East Coast?

Ummm....Who said anything about the East Coast?

~~

it should be interesting to follow this for the next few months.

i'm wondering why its taking a Cornell University team to make this find
when there are a slew of petroleum professionals specializing in finding
these undiscovered oil fields...
and almost right under their noses !!

perhaps this 'new' process is presenting a 'false-positive' and the Cornell
Survey team is drawing some wrong conclusions from their data.??
...you know, like calibrating the equipment or misplacing a decimal point...

the small map in the right column of your link,
shows the resevior in the shallow water adjacent to the Delta area,
or maybe 10-15 miles off land. which makes me scratch my head in wonder.

ciao

Not much on a news search but I did find this correlating article from Larry Cathles from 3 years ago:

Raining hydrocarbons in the Gulf

Below the Gulf of Mexico, hydrocarbons flow upward through an intricate network of conduits and reservoirs. They start in thin layers of source rock and, from there, buoyantly rise to the surface. On their way up, the hydrocarbons collect in little rivulets, and create temporary pockets like rain filling a pond. Eventually most escape to the ocean. And, this is all happening now, not millions and millions of years ago, says Larry Cathles, a chemical geologist at Cornell University.

"We're dealing with this giant flow-through system where the hydrocarbons are generating now, moving through the overlying strata now, building the reservoirs now and spilling out into the ocean now," Cathles says.

He's bringing this new view of an active hydrocarbon cycle to industry, hoping it will lead to larger oil and gas discoveries. By matching the chemical signatures of the oil and gas with geologic models for the structures below the seafloor, petroleum geologists could tap into reserves larger than the North Sea, says Cathles, who presented his findings at the meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans on March 27.

This canvas image of the study area shows the top of salt surface (salt domes are spikes) in the Gas Research Institute study area and four areas of detailed study (stratigraphic layers). The oil fields seen here are Tiger Shoals, South Marsh Island 9 (SMI 9), the South Eugene Island Block 330 area (SEI 330), and Green Canyon 184 area (Jolliet reservoirs). In this area, 125 kilometers by 200 kilometers, Larry Cathles of Cornell University and his team estimate hydrocarbon reserves larger than those of the North Sea. Image by Larry Cathles.

Cathles and his team estimate that in a study area of about 9,600 square miles off the coast of Louisiana, source rocks a dozen kilometers down have generated as much as 184 billion tons of oil and gas — about 1,000 billion barrels of oil and gas equivalent. "That's 30 percent more than we humans have consumed over the entire petroleum era," Cathles says. "And that's just this one little postage stamp area; if this is going on worldwide, then there's a lot of hydrocarbons venting out."

I'm crossing my fingers.

Thinking about it though, this news would probably bring down the price of gas and that wouldn't be a very good thing for the oil companies short term. Also who is probably the only ones who truly know how much oil is down there, probably the oil execs.

They will probably hold out on this news as long as they think they can get more money out of Americans for a gallon of gas. With gas over 3 bucks in many parts of the country maybe it is finally time to let everyone have the good news(Oil off of Louisiana)

My question, if this story eventually pans out, when did whoever know about this find out about it and how did that person go about releasing that info?

I wouldn't be surprised if we have known about this for over a few years.

Just a drop in the bucket compared to the 2/3 trillion barrels discovered in Colorado and Utah.

Test drilling has already started, after President Bush ordered it to be extracted last august.

Utah sites on Huge Oil reserve

The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that recoverable oil shale in the western United States exceeds one trillion barrels and is the richest and most geographically concentrated oil shale and tar sands resource in the world.

More info found here

Oil Rush

[edit on 5/1/2006 by shots]

good point Shots, but that oil is less refined than the oil in the middle east or below the gulf of mexico. Supposedly it will cost us 40 bucks a barrel to extract what is below Utah. I believe it costs about half as much to extract a more refined oil.

It didn't take long for the people over at The Oil Drum to call foul on this story today: link

If you Google Cathles, Gulf, Oil you will find pretty much the same statements made in 2003.
...

He's one of the abiotic oil crowd.
www.agiweb.org...
...

Apparently Larry Cathles is a Cornell colleague of Thomas Gold...

In following up on the story one of the editors of The Oil Drum (Stuart Staniford) contacted Larry Cathles directly who himself claimed the story was a complete fabrication. link

I called and talked to Larry Cathles and he said it was a bogus fabrication. There is a large amount of source rock down there, and his group studied where it was migrating to, but in no sense did they find significant amounts of recoverable oil.

Sorry folks, nothing to see here.
.



[edit on 5/1/2006 by Gools]

Originally posted by Low Orbit
good point Shots, but that oil is less refined than the oil in the middle east or below the gulf of mexico. Supposedly it will cost us 40 bucks a barrel to extract what is below Utah. I believe it costs about half as much to extract a more refined oil.

I realize that it will cost more, but that is not the point. This is still roughly 2-3 trillion barrels and if estimates are correct that would make it the largest oil reserve in the world. With Oil costs going up daily it makes the extraction well worth it.

Another thing I would like to point out is they are now working on more modern methods that may bring the extraction costs down even more.

Imagine what would happen if the rest of the world had to depend on oil from the US????

[edit on 5/1/2006 by shots]

Well we might have less wars to worry about now, but global warming to worry about instead.

[edit on 1-5-2006 by Xeros]

chevron website doesn't mention anything about it yet. of course that doesn't mean it's not true

one other thing. it's Cornell University not University of Cornell

so this may be fake news or a really late april fools day joke

[edit on 2-5-2006 by bigx01]

point taken shots. I agree even if it costs us 40 bucks a barrel to pull out of the ground that cost would be worth it. Our administration should be pursueing this policy as vigourously as the war on terror since the two go hand in hand!

posted by whadayawant: “Ummm....Who said anything about the East Coast?

So the "problem" is how do the ExxonMobil boys STEAL this oil field? What with "their" boy in the Oval Office until 2009 and another on standby - VP Cheney - I wonder how long it will be before Geo W gives the field to the Oil Industry? Hmm?

I don't think the boys at Exxon are stealing anything! What they are doing is performing a service, extracting oil out of the ground.

We do need to stop Oil's windfall profits though!

THERE IS NO REASON ELECTRICITY SHOULD BE REGULATED BY OUR GOVERNMENT BUT OIL IS NOT, ALL SOURCES OF ENERGY SHOULD BE REGULATED SO AS TO AVOID COMPANY'S LIKE EXXON CLAIMING REDICULOUS SIZED PROFITS.

O and a Dieshi Mesh to Xeros!

[edit on 2-5-2006 by Low Orbit]

[edit on 2-5-2006 by Low Orbit]

posted by Low Orbit: “I don't think the boys at Exxon are stealing anything! What they are doing is performing a service . . We do need to stop Oil's windfall profits though! THERE IS NO REASON ELECTRICITY SHOULD BE REGULATED BY OUR GOVERNMENT BUT OIL IS NOT, [Edited by Don W]

I am unaware of any regulation of the retail price of electrify in the Good Ole U S of A. Once upon a time it was true, that energy in “interstate” commerce was regulated by the FPC. That is history now. Thanks to always unending opposition by Red state types and constant picking away around the edges. They won.

ALL SOURCES OF ENERGY SHOULD BE REGULATED SO AS TO AVOID COMPANY'S LIKE EXXON CLAIMING RIDICULOUS SIZED PROFITS. [Edited by Don W]

We’ve been there, and done that. There was an excess profits tax on corporations during WW2, 50%. While it did not end profiteering altogether, it did discourage it. Red state types have made such socially valuable regulating by tax policy anathema nowadays. It’s all “free markets” but my big issue with that is there are NO “free” markets. Where we once had 100s of companies actually competing, we have a half dozen or less, setting prices, and etc. And calling this a “free” market to bumfuzzle the un-illuminated.

is there a solution you can see blue?

Ok, guys. I researched this a little and the guy does work for Cornell University. Here is a website showing this: www.eas.cornell.edu... It also lists his email address. I wonder should we contact him and ask him to discuss this with us? Why should we conjecture when we can get it staight from the horses mouth?

I also found this link:
www.agiweb.org...
It appears that this guy is for real.

[edit on 2-5-2006 by arius]

all of the field seems to center around ei330 and it's unusual way refilling.

now maybe what they have found is the source of where it's replenishment comes from. but we have yet to see a second source for this find. everything else is several yeares old

Originally posted by bigx01
all of the field seems to center around ei330 and it's unusual way refilling.

now maybe what they have found is the source of where it's replenishment comes from. but we have yet to see a second source for this find. everything else is several yeares old

good find Arius, I'll write him tomorrow.