Posted on 05/03/2005 7:20:50 AM PDT by StoneGiant
Oil Reserves Are Increasing
by George Crispin
Eugene Island is an underwater mountain located about 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1973 oil was struck and off-shore platform Eugene 330 erected. The field began production at 15,000 barrels a day, then gradually fell off, as is normal, to 4,000 barrels a day in 1989, Then came the surprise; it reversed itself and increased production to 13,000 barrels a day. Probable reserves have been increased to 400 million barrels from 60 million. The field appears to be filling from below and the crude coming up today is from a geological age different from the original crude, which leads to the speculation that the world has limitless supplies of petroleum.
This really interested some scientists. Thomas Gold, astronomer and professor emeritus of Cornell held for years that oil is actually renewable primordial syrup continually manufactured by the earth under ultra hot conditions and tremendous pressures. This substance migrates upward picking up bacteria that attack it making it appear to have an organic origin, i.e., come from dinosaurs and vegetation. As best I have found so far Russian scientists support his position, at least that petroleum is of primordial origin. There is now plenty of evidence around proving the presence of methane in our universe. It is easy to see it as a part of the formation of the earth. Under the right conditions of temperature and pressure, it converts to more complex hydrocarbons.
Roger Andersen, an oceanographer and executive director of Columbia’s Energy Research Center proposed studying the behavior of this reservoir. The underwater landscape around Eugene Island is weird, cut with faults and fissures that belch gas and oil. The field is operated by PennzEnergy Co. Andersen proposed to study the action of the sea bottom around the mountain and the field at its top and persuaded the U S Dept of Energy to ante up ten million which was matched by a consortium of oil giants including Chevron, Exxon, and Tex Corp. This work began about the time 3-D seismic technology was introduced to oil exploration. Anderson was able to stack 3D images resulting in a 4D image that showed the reservoir in 3 spatial dimensions and enabled researchers to track the movement of oil. Their most stunning find was a deep fault at a bottom corner of the computer scan that showed oil literally gushing in. "We could see the stream," says Andersen. "It wasn’t even debated that it was happening."
Work continued for five years until funds ran out and they were unable to continue. With the world having 40 years of proven reserves in hand it is difficult to interest the major oil producers in much exploration, let alone something done merely for research, and so far from the current accepted theory of a fossil origin for oil.
Similar occurrences have been seen at other Gulf Of Mexico fields, at the Cook Inlet oil field, at oil fields in Uzbekistan, and it is possible this accounts for the longevity of the Saudi Arabian fields where few new finds have been made, yet reserves have doubled while the fields have been exploited mercilessly for 50 years.
Not only can the doom and gloomers not show us running out of the natural resources we recycle, but now there appears to be good odds of a limitless supply of petroleum working its way up to where we can capture it.
A caveat: Gold’s theory is not yet accepted by all scientists, probably all the more reason to trust it.
April 6, 2005
It is too bad that we don't have the refinery capacity to process all the oil. Thanks to the socialist enviromentalist.
there was a thread 3-4 days ago discussing the biggest Saudi field......gist was that they were pumping a million barrels of water into it daily and that the returns are STILL diminishing.
Possibly the dynamic explained in the above piece is limited to a few places? Who knows what to believe any more?
About 10 years ago I came across this theory in an article about some Texas oil wells that were getting refilled from someplace and have been arguing it ever since with people that think I am crazy. I am a believer in this theory.
So let me see if I understand this correctly. One oil field off the coast of Louisiana is doing something odd and that debunks "peak oil"? Almost every other oil field in America is being stripped via secondary and tertiary recovery methods and is experiencing both declining reserves and declining production. Why are these fields not recharging too? There is still lots of oil left but it is being found in smaller and deeper and more expensive pockets. Eventually we get to the point where it takes a barrel of oil to find, drill for and produce a barrel of oil. At that point, it does not matter how much is still in the ground because if the net energy equation is zero it does not make sense.
I'm no doom and gloomer though. Let's build safe, clean nukes.
The problem with this theory is that all the components are not known. Say it takes three things for the earth to continue to produce crude. We do not know what all three are or how the work or when one of them will suddenly disappear. We have no way or predicting when this process will stop or how suddenly it can stop. Betting the future of our world on unknown factors is STUPID!!!!!
Perhaps we need more refineres!
Things don't quite work that way. Sometimes scientists are right, sometimes they are wrong. However, that does not therefore indicate that, because most scientists do not adhere to this theory, that is a good indication that the theory is true.
Funny how all this primordial oil only seems to be found in sedimentary source rock.
Tens of thousands of other fields, in fact, all but a handful, have gone dry just as originally predicted.
Every attempt to drill for the "primordial soup" has been a failure.
And following geological theory of where Oil & Gas should be if they are of organic origin is still the best way to find it.
So9
If the theory is true, that doe not mean that the Earth will produce petroleum as fast as we are pumping it.
Also, production may be higher in some areas than others.
I don't know how many Marxist, enivronmentalist lemmings think that all conservatives want to destroy the Earth at any cost, so long as we get to do what we want, but I am a Republican/Libertarian that thinks that renewable, less-poluting energy sources are important, and I can't wait to see more of it.
I also believe that if the world discovered that oil was unlimited, that it would reduce the speed at which we bring alternative energies to the forefront.
BTTT
wouldn't it be funny if they were inadvertently pumping their reserves over to the one in the Gulf of Mexico
I'd like to but I don't think I can fit one in my car.
This kinda counters that "We're going to lose our standard of living cuz there's no more oil pretty soon" article.
I guess the sky is not falling after all........
For decades I have wondered how on earth the oil fields we have been drawing down ever made it thru millions of years of geologic plate movements, earthquakes, fissures, and pressures, etc., especially since the period of formation under current theory was over more millions of years ago.
Please explain to me how these oil fields survived all this tumultous geologic activity for eons unless SOME of them are being replenished from subterranean forces through cracks and fissures.
I read about this a couple of months ago but have heard nothing since. The gougers at the oil companies will be jumping off ledges if the myth of declining supply proves a lie. That's the scam they've been using to rob us for half a century now.
There may be something to Gold's theory, but a few examples of wells being larger than previously thought doesn't prove anything. All it really means is that the geologists didn't have the full picture of the reserves to begin with. It totally reasonable to assume that geologists miss a reserve just below the one that they are drilling, and that the below one bubbles up as they drill the upper one.
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