Jim Devine wrote:
The New York Times / September 24, 2009
Oil Industry Sets a Brisk Pace of New Discoveries
By JAD MOUAWAD
The oil industry has been on a hot streak this year, thanks to a
series of major discoveries that have rekindled a sense of excitement
across the petroleum sector, despite falling prices and a tough
economy.
These discoveries, spanning five continents, are the result of hefty
investments that began earlier in the decade when oil prices rose, and
of new technologies that allow explorers to drill at greater depths
and break tougher rocks.
“That’s the wonderful thing about price signals in a free market — it
puts people in a better position to take more exploration risk,” said
James T. Hackett, chairman and chief executive of Anadarko Petroleum.
More than 200 discoveries have been reported so far this year in
dozens of countries, including northern Iraq’s Kurdish region,
Australia, Israel, Iran, Brazil, Norway, Ghana and Russia. They have
been made by international giants, like Exxon Mobil, but also by
industry minnows, like Tullow Oil.
Michael Klare:
Recently the press has been abuzz with major discoveries in the Gulf of
Mexico and far off Brazil's coast that might give the impression of
adding time to the Age of Petroleum. On Sept. 2, for example, BP
(formerly British Petroleum) announced that it had found a giant oil
field in the Gulf of Mexico about 250 miles southeast of Houston. Dubbed
Tiber, it is expected to produce hundreds of thousands of barrels per
day when production begins some years from now, giving a boost to BP's
status as a major offshore producer. "This is big," commented Chris
Ruppel, a senior energy analyst at Execution LLC, a London investment
bank. "It says we're seeing that improved technology is unlocking
resources that were before either undiscovered or too costly to exploit
because of economics."
As it happens, though, anyone who jumped to the conclusion that this
field could quickly or easily add to the nation's oil supply would be
woefully mistaken. As a start, it's located at a depth of 35,000 feet --
greater than the height of Mount Everest, as a reporter from the New
York Times noted -- and well below the Gulf's floor. To get to the oil,
BP's engineers will have to drill through miles of rock, salt and
compressed sand using costly and sophisticated equipment. To make
matters worse, Tiber is located smack in the middle of the area in the
Gulf regularly hit by massive storms in hurricane season, so any drills
operating there must be designed to withstand hurricane-strength waves
and winds, as well as sit idle for weeks at a time when operating
personnel are forced to evacuate.
A similar picture prevails in the case of Brazil's Tupi field, the other
giant discovery of recent years. Located about 200 miles east of Rio de
Janeiro in the deep waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Tupi has regularly
been described as the biggest field to be found in 40 years. Thought to
contain some 5 billion to 8 billion barrels of recoverable oil, it will
surely push Brazil into the front ranks of major oil producers once the
Brazilians have overcome their own series of staggering hurdles: the
Tupi field is located below one-and-a-half miles of ocean water and
another two-and-a-half miles of rock, sand and salt and so accessible
only to cutting edge, super-sophisticated drilling technologies. It will
cost an estimated $70 billion-$120 billion to develop the field and
require many years of dedicated effort.
full: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/09/24/oil/
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