Good peak oil visuals

Discussion in 'Peak Oil' started by lynnie, Nov 5, 2010.


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  1. lynnie

    lynnie Monkey+

  2. melbo

    melbo Hunter Gatherer Administrator Founding Member

    Nice. I've attached it here. (we like to archive everything so it doesn't fall away to 'link rot' in a couple of years)
     

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  3. Suerto

    Suerto Monkey+

    the problem with this predictive model (which has been updated over the years, I recall oil predicted to peak in the 70's and 80's) is that it does not take into account for the increasing technology which will allow us to obtain oil from presently hard to reach locations.

    and then there's the Gold Theory, which is sort of a spin-off of an earlier theory created back in the 20's, and was scoffed at by the general scientific community..

    Sustainable oil?

    Abiogenic Oil | A Second Hand Conjecture

    Like the global warming conspiracy, this is stuff that the general public will not be told about.. You gotta dig for the answers. Just so happens I'm a thinker, in the oil industry, not just another dumb roughneck.
     
  4. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member


    Peak oil is not a conspiracy. It is a fact. every field in the history of the world has followed the same bell curve rates of production. And eventually reached it's peak and started an ever decreasing decline. To think that world production would do anything different is just not living in reality. Oil prodution in every major field in the world is in decline. And none of the newer deeper drilling or accessing hard to get sources are having any effect on that. Could some major new discovery reverse the decline? Possibly. Likely? No. The thing about digging for answers is that if you aren't digging in the right spot your not going to find what your looking for. An occasional offbeat report, such as abiotic oil, is not the end of the argument, not when faced with the mountainous evidence for PO.

    Keep diggin hand. The truth is out there. Keep her turning to the right.
     
  5. Suerto

    Suerto Monkey+

    lol.. good one minuteman..
    Let me point out that the U.S. rig count Peaked in the early 80's, and not due to depletion of fields, but due to the flood of oil on the market by OPEC. I'm sure you know this already, but just wanted to put it out there for others unaware who may be reading this.

    as far as U.S. field depletion, some of it is the depletion of known fields, but also, politics. There are many fields in "easy" places that we could be drilling, yet, we are not allowed to do so. And with todays technology, they are recovering oil from wells that were drilled in the 70's, declared "tapped out" in the 80's, yet were re-worked in the 90's and are still pumping oil today. I do not have actual numbers or figures, that would be a lengthy web search, but I do know this as fact..

    getting back to the technology, and specifically you mentioned the Pennsylvania fields, are you aware that there is a big boom going on over there right now? They are claiming it as "shale gas", but they are finding oil in the shale as well (but they arent marketing it as that.. why would they be drilling so fervently for natty gas at $4/mmbtu).. Same as the eagleford, same as the panhandle "granite wash".. They are finding and developing oil in the shale zones, which, by "conventional" thinking, there should be no oil in these formations.. Which is what I was taught/told..

    not trying to be a smart-elek, just sharing my viewpoint on it so that maybe you could better enlighten the error of my conclusions.. ;)

    I dont think that Peak oil is a conspiracy, per se, I think that the global consumption rate is superceding our find rate.. Same thing will happen (prices go up), but, I dont think we are going to "run out" of oil, but that, it will become more scarce due to the rapid industrialization and growth of 2nd world countries.. and that not all the explanations for this are 1 dimensional.. Politics plays a large part, and the price of oil can be manipulated very readily.
     
  6. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member

    Yes the rig count peaked in the early 80's, and dropped drastically after. I know I was there. And it was about the collapse of the price of oil, not anything to do with depletion. Opec declared "We will show them $4 a bbl oil". And they did, and they collapsed the world market.
    But, could they do that today? I worked in Saudi in the 90's and you couldn't drill a dry hole. They would run pipelines to the location before we even spudded. Now they have the largest water flood project in the world. Thier fields are in serious decline. Evidenced by the statements made a few years ago that they would increase production to counter rising prices. Remember $140 a bbl oil. They couldn't do it.

    As for the Marcellus and other shale gas plays. I have drilled the Eagleford and spent most of the last 2 years in the Haynesville. Yes, you get some oil with the gas production, but not anything commercial. Not nearly enough to make it worth drilling that deep, that costly, just for a few barrels of low grade oil. If they were making money on the oil produced in these fields then why did the rig count drop drasticaly in the early part of '09 when the natural gas price tanked?

    Go to Rigzone or to the Baker Hughes site and compare the rig count for gas rigs vs oil rigs. You will see the dire straights that the domestic oil industry is in. The vast majority of rigs in the world today are drilling for gas. And if it weren't for the Marcellus, Haynesville, Bakken, Eagleford etc. the drilling industry in the US would be pining for the good old days of the 80's!

    And I wasn't trying to demean your response in any way. I just have heard the argument many times. Peak oil isn't about running out of oil. We will always have oil. We will always drill for oil. But how expensive will it become. The facts of worldwide depletion are inescapable. Nothing we have done. No amount of exploration, no new discoveries has done anything to stop that. And yes it is because of simple supply and demand. But that supply fuels our very way of life. Our very existence.

    The most asinine comment I have ever heard was "Why don't we just get rid of oil". People just don't realize how much of our very existence depends on it. Just as in the '70's it would take some major global crises to ever get people to seriously start consuming less.
    And it isn't just people driving gas guzzlers. That is only a drop in the bucket. It is our entire infrastructure. The only way we could ever get oil consumption down to any type of sustainable level would be to kill off half the worlds population. Shut down 75% of our industrial manufacturing, among other drastic measures. So in other words, not gonna happen folks.

    Oil won't run out. But it may well be a luxury that only the elite can afford. And may well be the impetus for the next world war.

    As far as world oil supply goes;

    We have a low Kelly, dull bit, same old driller, same old s**t!

    Stay safe out there hand!

    By the way, a "Thinking Roughneck"? That's about as rare as an engineer with common sense!!![beer]
     
  7. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Suerto -

    The Marcellus in PA is in the very early stages of prospecting and geological poking around. (Much the same as the Haynesville was 5 years ago.) The size of the field is NOT in dispute, nor is there any question about recovery of a goodly quantity of NG. Total recovery estimates vary widely depending on who you read. (Terry Engelder of Penn State Univ is perhaps the most conservative with a range of some 25 years of supply.) That said, the current prices won't support a full on effort to develop the field, in fact major production will await transport ant gathering pipelines (and storage is near full, which holds price down.) So far, the gas that has been taken up and sold is pipeline quality coming out. Yes, there has been some oil, but not in commercial quantities over most of the field. Economically, the Marcellus is pretty close to the northeast corridor and when the pipelines are in, the market price should hold fairly well.

    We saw the price drop here in 08 to the high 3+ dollars per range, and the rig count fell off the cliff. I believe most were idled, but some went away. When price was nearly 8 per thousand, you could almost hop from rig to rig from Scranton the Binghamton without touching the rocks, even tho' there was no pipe to deliver to. Obviously an exaggeration, but you get the idea. (No pipe here yet, either, but ROW negotiations are proceeding. Not much construction yet, but some ground has been broken.)

    You are correct, it is not a conspiracy any more than the sea is salty because whales fart. One of the driving factors behind price is the overseas demand in rising economies for fuels that are more advanced than camel dung. I don't mean that as any sort of criticism, but the undeveloped world has some things to do to catch up with the west. They are working on that, diligently and deliberately, and competing effectively for resources. Demand can do ought else than grow, and quite possibly exponentially, and certainly logarithmically.

    And gas will follow the same sort of curve as oil did back in Hubbard's day. Finding and developing fields do not alter the shape of the curve, they simply shift the peak to a future time that is not predictable due to economics and price. Every increment of price increase will extend the "drop dead" date; meaning essentially that price of petro products will rise to its highest and best use (might be agricultural, might be plastics, I have no idea.) As these new sources come on line, all it does is buy time to develop alternatives. We need to get used to that idea, and not a whole lot further down the time line.

    FWIW, there is prospective drilling in eastern Ohio and southern Micigan, as well as in the Marcellus in W.Va. All of these areas are also prospective for the Utica and TBR shales, but not much is known about them that I know about.

    You have also hit the nail on those that want to just do away with oil. Methinks they might be smoking something (currently) illegal. We have NIMBYs and OBBYs left right and center, the highest concentration of which are north of the NY/PA border. The PA legislature was dragging it's feet, and will continue until next year. Whether or not the election will change anything is up in the air.

    Come on up, there is a place for drillers and rig hands here.
     
  8. Suerto

    Suerto Monkey+

    Yes, I've looked at the "declared" rig counts gas/oil.. But thats what gets me.. In 09' the rigs didnt drop off in the marcellus or Haynesville, or woodford.. And they are drilling it like its $7/mmbtu right now. I've drilled the eaglford couple years ago when it was first being played, it sucks, haynesville too.. But, they are getting oil out of them, low grade or not, its oil.. and something is propelling them to drill the hell out of it..

    Yeah, I guess your right about the saudi's, I remember hearing stories about thier fields beginning to dry up back in early 01', but I thought it was more a fight between them and the rest of OPEC (the rest of OPEC not wanting to produce more and lower the price of oil).. Canterella is the same way, but, I believe thats got to do with the 40 yr old drilling practices they are using down there.. They dont even use trip tanks..

    I'm converting my jeep to run on natural gas/propane, just in case.. ;)

    thinking roughneck/engineer with common sense.. lol its even worse, I'm a DD..

    Ghrit -
    appreciate the invite, I got plenty of friends who have migrated up that way, but uh, I prefer to stay south of the mason/dixon line.. lol
    Actually, me and the wife have already discussed it, and, for the right price, we would be willing to roll on up that way, just for a little while to plunder your resources and then move on, I hear they arent too fond of oilfield hands up there, bout like california.. We got a pretty good setup here in OK..

    Actually, when the bottom fell out in 08, there were 2 places hurtin for people (in my "career" field, in the western hemisphere), Pennsylvania and Mexico.. I went to Mexico... What an adventure that was.
     
  9. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member

    LOL! Yep, that explains a lot. The average DD has way more common sense than your avg engineer and is better at thinkin than the avg roughneck! Of course you realize that the all-knowing, all-powerful master of the universe on a drilling rig is the Co. Man!! ;)

    We have to be careful with the engineer bashing tho. Ghrit is one, and he has an admins BAN button! But I've known him for a long time and he's definitely in the rare, common sense category!!!
     
  10. ghrit

    ghrit Bad company Administrator Founding Member

    Har, har. (Where's my Big Red Button? Disused since melbo added the spammer traps.)

    Company men have been known, ah, to make, ah, odd calls now and then (and some are mods with a Little Red ban Button. I've always wondered if I could ban myself ---)

    Suerto, I think you've fallen in with evil men, you should fit right in. What we as "experts" in the things we are expert in have to watch for is preaching to the choir. I'd rather drink beer (or your fave beverage) with you than talk about what to us is obvious.

    BTW, I'm an Mech Eng not petro or geology. Living in the Marcellus fairway, I've had to learn a bit, and I've drilled in an extremely minor way. (Meaning I know what a kelly is, and watched dull bits get changed too late. Not so sure you've seen raise boring, but that is a thrill when the driller manages to drop the bit into a tunnel. Raises cain with production, it does.)

    Lynnie, good find.
     
  11. Suerto

    Suerto Monkey+

    Very familiar with engineer's, but, thats for another thread.. lol
    Yeah, I've met plenty of universe masters who could barely handle their receptionist duties, let alone know what to do with a well taking a kick.. lol.. I've also run across a few DD's who didnt know how to get north either, fortunately they got weeded out in the slowdown, they were giving us a bad rap..
     
  12. Minuteman

    Minuteman Chaplain Moderator Founding Member

    That is one good side to slow downs. All the wannabes and shouldntbes get thinned out. I ran off a doper DD a few years ago in S. Texas and 3 months later he turned up as a Co. Man in the Barnett Shale.
    I'm back in the sandbox now and you should see the quality of Co. men over here. It's scary.
     
  13. Suerto

    Suerto Monkey+

    I was offered overseas stuff.. my response,
    Although I'm cajun and got webbed feet, if TSHTF, I dont think I can swim across the atlantic.. From mexico, colombia, brazil, canada, I can always walk home..

    and thats all I got to say about thaaat.. lol
    I've heard and seen pics of stuff over there, guess somebody's gotta do it. If all I got left is to go overseas, I imagine its time for me to start a new career.
    Although a buddy of mine has been doing some good duty in Italy for the past year..
     
  14. Collapsenik

    Collapsenik On Hiatus Banned

    That particular piece of work really is...a piece of work, isn't it? I don't suppose folks would like to discuss individual slides, upon review there are the normal number of logical fallacies, censored and edited information, projections since discredited, I mean it is like a snapshot in time as to why TOD couldn't survive reality.
     
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    [media]
    Thread by: melbo, Aug 4, 2012, 0 replies, in forum: Peak Oil
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