Maybe its the same thing that has caused that flooding of the entire gulf state region Al Gore was talking about a few years ago.
I graduated with a degree in Petroleum Engineering 42 years ago, and I recall someone telling me I would have to change jobs as there would be no more oil in 10 years.
And yet...my local gas prices went up 10 cents/gallon yesterday!
Simple, the price of oil tripled.
When Bush took office the price of oil was around $30 per barrel, which meant there wasn't a lot of profit to be made producing oil from shale formations or from the Alberta Tar Sands.
But the price oil kept rising, meaning the profit margins kept rising, meaning more oil would be produced.
Now that the price of oil has collapsed, the profit margins are shrinking, so less oil will be produced.
Blame it on Obama. He relaxed the sanctions on Iran, allowing Iran to put more of their oil onto the world market, driving the price down.
The reserves have been known for many, many years.
America actually began developing those reserves 30 + years ago only to have the Arabs tank the market to $10/bbl shut down our domestic competition to their inexpensive ($7 bbl) to produce oil.
This shut down much of the domestic land based oil production for decades, even after the prices reached a point that domestic production was profitable.
They are doing the same thing right now.
We’re starting to see it here in West TX the purchaser are getting backed up. I now have 14 loads of oil sitting on the ranch waiting to be hauled, 8 were called in at the first of last week. I’m fixing to shut in some wells on the front of the ranch due to lack of storage. Whats really going to hurt is those are all gas lift’s which means no gas sales also.
Proved reserves are far different than estimated total oil in place.
Proved reserves require drilling and flow testing. We don’t spend money proving reserves that are too expensive to produce, until the prices rises to the point they become economic.
< snip >
But starting in 2008, domestic oil production exploded. By 2014, the U.S. produced 894 million more barrels of oil than in 2008. The trend is expected to continue. In fact, the Energy Department says that by 2028, net oil imports will fall to zero for the first time since the 1950s.
And yet, over these same years, proved oil reserves have been climbing — they’re up 78% from 2008 to 2013.
How can this possibly be the case?
It turns out that most people don’t know what “proved oil reserves” means. And green-energy advocates like Obama are happy to keep it that way.
Proved oil reserves count only the oil that companies are currently drilling for in existing fields. So it makes sense that reserves and production move in lockstep.
Fracking technology has placed vast supplies of oil within reach, expanding both production and reserves. And even more will be available once better technology makes producing them economically viable.
None of this has anything to do with Obama’s energy policies. These gains took place mostly on private lands, while Obama thwarted drilling on public lands and pumped subsidies into wind and solar power.
When it comes to oil, the only thing in short supply these days is honesty from green-energy boosters.
We have a lot of oil , but it is hard to get and costs more, if God would have put it all in a big lake on the surface we would have squandered it a long time ago.
It is NOT mysterious to those who understand the various categories of “reserves” and how they are estimated.
Did I say “estimated?” That is right.