Michael Klare is a populizer of peak oil and doesn't know much about
the oil biz.
Gene Coyle
On Sep 24, 2009, at 7:14 AM, Louis Proyect wrote:
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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