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Main Crude Oils listed by Grade (table)
http://www.bernd-bronowski.de/sides/crude_az.htm

World Crude Qualities (chart)
http://www.meglobaloil.com/MARPOL.pdf

Crude oil comes in more flavors than Baskin Robins. My apologies if I’m covering what you already know.

The two most common qualities measured are viscosity and sulfur.

API gravity is the measure of viscosity. Heavy oils are very thick; they have a higher percentage of long chain hydrocarbons and have more BTUs per barrel.

Light crude tends to contain more molecules directly available for gasoline and diesel.

Heavy crude needs more processing like cracking to break the long molecules into shorter, lighter ones.

Heavy is an arbitrary line drawn at 22 degrees API and below. Extra-Heavy starts at 10.

Each field is different and somewhere along this continuous scale. There is no magic grouping. Most of Venezuela’s reserves are heavy and sour but they represent a smaller portion of their daily production. Most of their fields that first went into production were lighter and easier to process, just like California and Alaska.

I’ll post a link that shows crude oil qualities from around the world. It will group them by area. If you look at it you will see more what I mean.

How is this heavy oil different from the oil in Venazuela? (sp)

If she gets te nominatn, I’ll support her, but my concern is if she doesn’t win the primary her supporters, who are so tied to her emotinally, may pull a PUMA and we might just end up with Obama for 4 more years.

(slaps forehead) Exxon Mobile, my bad. But as the only on-shore drilling this year, it represents very few jobs for a state with such high unemployment.

You got out in time.

Kind of like driving through Kilgore or Texon. Old oil fields developed around te turn of the century can be fascinating to look at some of the old equipment there.

There are big heaters to warm produced fluid to help flow back to the processing centers.

The re-injected gas and miscible injectant is warmer than most fields due to compression.

The produced water gains heat through the processes of separation and reinjection.

I don’t know of a North Slope field that generates heat on the surface for the purpose of warming the field directly. But that doesn’t mean for sure a small unit doesn’t exist. I know it isn’t normally done on the North Slope (yet).

I do know steam assisted production is common in the in-situ production of the Alberta Oil Sands and Ken River, California. I would expect the process to become more common over time and continued high prices.

one field near Bakersfield (I think there) has a big boiler that sends steam down the holes

The Kern River field. They have been doing that for just over 3 decades. I've done a little work out there. It can be an amazing place to drive through. Like going back through time of oil history.

Sean sees this as a political play to save himself in the next election. It is no coincidence his announcement of tax review comes one week after Ralph Samuels announced he is running as against Sean next year. Ralph is the ONLY legislator in Juneau who stood against ACES and AGIA. Now that exploration has come to a halt and my friends and neighbors are losing their jobs the populist elation over sticking it to the oil companies has lost its luster. Sean sees the handwriting on the wall but is still a true disciple of SP. Ralph is our next governor and Sean’s lip service to tax change is way too little too late.

Don’t they shoot hot water or steam down the holes to help warm and thin it before they bring it up also? I remember reading about some wells being looked at as a way to make it thinner and easier to pump, but it was a while ago I read it.

"Sober analysis of her positions vs. past actions and words, much less valid criticism, is just not allowed."

Thanks Bob, your comments are a breath of fresh air and reflect everything I have observed about Palinmania on FR. Actually my biggest fear is that the self defeating republican party will actually go all out for Sarah in 2012. I predict that when these and other realities about SP are revealed (and they will) the party will find itself in disarray at the last minute and we will have four more years of the osama obama caliphate. The DNC is probably privately elated about SP for these reasons. Its a nightmare scenario that we cannot afford to allow. I like your comment about liking but not loving Sarah, I think I will borrow it.

None taken.

Merry Christmas

In California, one field near Bakersfield (I think there) has a big boiler that sends steam down the holes to break up the heavy crude to make it easier to bring to te surface.

I worked in a water injection field near Westbrook TX in one summer job I had being a roustabout. Being an engineering student, I would catch the engineers and pick their brains about what and how they were doing there.

It was a good article, I was just having a little fun with the head line, no intent to belittle your efforts.

No Link?? Whoops, I screwed that up.

Annual Energy Outlook 2010 Early Release with Projections to 2035
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/index.html?featureclicked=1&;

Annual Energy Outlook 2010 Press Release (text from my post)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/press/press334.html

Why do we need to heat the oil when Algore says the center of the earth is millions of degrees hot?

In some places on the north slope warm water from very deep wells is pumped to shallower, colder formations closer to the permafrost. After time the shallower formation is capable of flowing more oil with a greater recovery ratio of the oil in place.

All this happens thousands of feet below the surface and below the permafrost.

One of my teams helped design the facility to do this for BP.

CAn you imagine the outcry among the watermelons to see a nuke on the north slope???

Let's train the polar bears to run the nuke plants.

A couple of the heavy fields on the Alaskan North Slope have been known for decades.

The Ugnu field has been drilled through for decades to reach warmer, lighter oil beneath it.

It has only been recent economic conditions and technical advances that it has been considered for production.

In the last few years a couple flow tests have been done on it.

No big deal, I didn’t even know you wrote the head line since there’s no link either.

Build a twin unit nuke plant and pump the steam down the holes to heat up and thin out the heavy crude.

CAn you imagine the outcry among the watermelons to see a nuke on the north slope???

I struggled to keep the intent of the author within the FreeRepublic 100 Character limit.

I’m glad to know my struggles were appreciated by someone.

I’d like someone to tell me why

“reducing use of ‘fossil fuels’ is inherently a ‘good thing’”.

It’s accepted as a given among those on the left.
It’s funny that they never question assumptions, or examine what their beliefs are based on (nothing, in actuality).

That’s my conclusion, too. You only get 14% growth over 27 years if you continue to de-industrialize the U.S. and shrink the commercial services sector. This forecast does not bode well for our nation at all. Energy is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy; without it, the economy is strangled and dead as a doornail.

Drill baby Drill!

LOL...just think of all the electrons saved by not transmitting those bits down the fiber and wire!! “Save the Electrons”

"It's the economy, stupid........"

It's being touted as a Greenie's dream come true, and a FANTASTIC Energy Policy by the The Messiah; but it's basically the loss of industrial, commercial, and heavy-use consumption with the depression we're in right now shutting businesses and demand for consumption down to the lowest levels in years.

With the loss of manufacturing to off-shore (thanks to taxes, regulations, and Union extortion), energy demand will take a LLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGG time, if ever, to come back.

Outlook Projects Mod Growth in Energy Cnsmptn, Greatr Use of Rnwbls, & Reducd Oil & Nat Gas Imports

Head line writer conserving vowels - admirable!

I believe it is a combination of higher efficiencies, higher energy prices, more conservation and slower growth.

Thanks

The report says "Total primary energy consumption grows by 14 percent between 2008 and 2035." That's only 0.05% per year growth in energy consumption! Historically, there's been a strong correlation between GDP growth and energy growth. Are the authors suggesting that we are going to be stuck in a three-decade long Carter-like stagflation? If there's any reasonable GDP growth (say, 2% - 3%), you cannot find enough conservation savings to drive energy consumption growth down to only 0.05% / year. The only way to get to that low level is to not grow the economy and shrink the population.

But, to all here on FR, that sounds like a perfect description of Obamunism.

Yes, it does take more energy to produce, transport and refine.

At $30/bbl it would not be considered.

At $70/bbl it is worth considering.

At $100/bbl it will be produced.

All those price assumed to be sustained for years. Short term pricing is too quick for the decade this would take for substantial production quantities.

Note that some “heavier” oil is already in production.

Also note that some of the shallower Alaskan Oil fields are very cold. Once heated, some issues go away.

Doesn’t it take a lot of energy to break that stuff down to usable fuel and driving the cost up a lot?

CP is at Pt Thompson?

????

What did I miss?