Originally posted by mbkennel
This is factually incorrect. There are new discoveries but the rate and size of fundamentally new discoveries have been declining substantially even
as consumption increased.
Here is some of my source material.
How much oil and natural gas i left?[/url
www.energybulletin.net...
www.arabnews.com...
wyden.senate.gov...
BP's 1-billion-barrel Thunder Horse (previously "Crazy Horse") field, the largest single field ever discovered in the Gulf of Mexico, which
came online in January 2005,
www.eia.doe.gov...
www.forbes.com...
[url=http://www.energyseer.com/Monkey%20Business.pdf]The Shell Reserve Downgrading: Year of the Monkey Business?
The New Pessimism about Petroleum Resources: Debunking the Hubbert Model (and Hubbert Modelers)
www2.eluniversal.com.mx...
That's a small sampling.
There is a distinction between "reserves" and discoveries not fully appreciated.
Appreciated by who? The fools who buy oil at 70 dollars a barrel or the energy company laughing all the way to the bank?
An oil field, when discovered, is not officially booked as "reserves", at least according to accoutning standards of Western oil companies,
until sufficient drilling and characterization has been done to ensure capability for production. This is intentionally conservative for financial
reasons.
It is in fact intentional done to limit reserve growth which seems to go up whatever they do to deny the fact. The USA has used up it's known
reserve a dozen times over in the last 5 decades and yet the reserves decline very slowly indeed. How can reserves be taken to mean anything when you
use up your known reserves every five years? It in fact , quite clearly, means that 'reserves' are a meaningless number meant to frighten the
ignorant mob with.
"reserves" go up frequently because oil companies drill new wells in existing oil fields, where they knew they already had oil, enough for
near-term production so that they can officially call it "proven" or "probable" reserves in the technical standards.
Well that does nothing to explain the fact that 'known' reserves in the USA gets used up every half a decade or less and this is in a supposedly
heavily explored part of the world. Who believes this lie these days?
This is how 'reserves' appear to have been growing easily but when it is done correctly, by backdating reserve growth in existing fields to
original discovery of that field, a totally different picture comes out. True oil discovery from scratch peaked approximately in 1960's.
And i would love to see evidence for that is not based on the type of speculation those reports normally involve.
The reserves from OPEC members is a made up figure. They once doubled reserves at a stroke of their pen---this because production quotas were
determined by their reserves, so magically everybodies reserves just doubled.
Actually i would argue that they finally had a reason to admit more of the reserves they had. They are all playing the scarcity game and unless forced
no one discloses how long they can produce from what they have.
I.e. the numbers are fiction, because there has been no independent verification of actual production and especially total reservoir
quality.
The oil keeps flowing despite near yearly predictions of peak oil; who's been right so and why should i stop trusting them now? I have seen nothing
to suggest that oil discovery or production has peaked or will any decade soon.
The actual state of the oil reserves is literally a classified state secret in Saudi Arabia.
Best keep it that way as flooding the market with massive known reserves might drive down world prices severely which then would result in far less
money flowing back to the USA as that is the deal they have had for some decades now. The game is rather bigger than you seem to realise.
What is happening is that consumption of oil is resulting in declines in production in the largest fields which is not at all being offset by
new discoveries.
Where is the evidence?
North Sea oil was pumped heavily in the 80's ,
It was profitable in the early 80's
declined in the early 90's because of lower demand (recession), increased,
Demand was not lower and what actually happened is that the oil price per barrel declined to 8 dollars at which point EVERYONE in the North sea was
losing money they simple had to stop.
and is now declining again but this time, DESPITE, much higher prices. That is the result of physical depletion.
It only means that they are sick and tired of risking the reinvestment to reopen those fields when the oil market is so volatile. They KNOW there is
too much oil and before they can create conditions where it can not reach the market ( invading Iraq/Afghanistan/ firebombing Kuwait's oil fields)
they will not bother with those again. They are trying to create shortages and closing your most expensive production sites first makes good economic
sense.
Here is the graph from the U.K.
www.og.dti.gov.uk...
Over the last few years the oil price has tripled, and yet North Sea oil production is declining. Why?
Cheaper alternative production areas such as South America and Africa not even mentioning the surging Russian production.
The oil companies would love to be minting money at these prices, but they can't. Oil production is fundamentally limited by depletion and
geology everywhere on the planet.
No evidence i am aware of conclusively proves or modeled that decline accurately.
The previous post is an example of the "alternative" denial of Peak Oil----not the consumerist one that is a know nothing---but the one that
imagines there is a grand conspiracy to keep all this dirt cheap oil out of our tanks.
It's what i believe based on what i have seen in the last few years but before that i also thought what you still do. Why would all these global
treaties to limit pollution be aimed at the West while others get to pollute as much as they like? Why are all the factory and manufacturing moving to
areas not subject to these strict environmental rules? It is clear that there is a specific campaign to impoverish the American worker by taking
away their jobs ( due to 'high' labour cost and such nonsense) and moving them to those areas of the world were the same job is done for much less
on a basic almost-survival rate.
Peak oil is just a another one of the ploys they are employing to convince the 'pampered' western worker that they do not deserve their current
living standards and wont have them for very much longer. Investigate the environmental movement and Banking and you will find the very same
phenomenon happening.
There is a wealth of evidence ( American middle class buying power has been declining for 25 years ) proving all of what i just said so feel free to
ask for links if you want to talk about something vastly more important than the peak oil nonsense.
Anyways
Stellar
