Company Touts Central Utah Oil Discovery(BILLION BARRELS!)

The Spokesman-Review.com ^ | May 4, 2005 | Paul Foy

[stylin19a]

that's already being done. can it handle the new find ?

[kellynla]

it appears so...

[nathanbedford]

Fadel Gheit ???

Actually, Gheit knows what he is talking about and is well (no pun intended) respected.

[ChicagoHebrew]

Question is: what quality of oil? It's been well-known for years that the western U.S. and Canada have gigantic oil reserves -- making Saudi Arabia look like Israel in terms of oil wealth. Problem is that it's horrifically low quality -- tar sands and oil shale. It would cost more to produce most of it than it's worth at today's prices (although some tar sands are now profitable thanks to the price hikes of the past few years).

A billion barrels of crap is still crap.

[kellynla]

All I know is what's in the article I posted.

"It’s turning out to contain high-quality oil already commanding a premium at Salt Lake refineries."

[jimboster]

[Ken H]

Anyone remember the BRE-X scam from the late 90's? This was an Indonesian gold mine whose geology report said it was one of the biggest gold finds in history. The stock got bid up to to incredible levels, something like a 50-fold increase.

Then the geologist plunged to his death from a helicopter. I'm not sure if it was murder or suicide, but it turned out the samplings in his report were "salted" with gold.

Shortly thereafter, the whole thing collapsed. I believe the shareholders lost all their money.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Vaguely. I used to know a group a "businessmen" who were always in one scam or another. Gold was one of those but it was using a new arsnic extraction method for removing the gold fines from the dirt in and around old gold mines. Fortunately, I was always smart enough to withstand the hype and promises of instant riches.

[CHARLITE]

So glad that I saw this, even if I'm a late comer. You always have such great posts, Kellynla! Thanks for this find!

Char :)

[skinkinthegrass]

We would build our campfire pits with it and the shale would ooze oil once the fire got going. Had to be careful, though--the rocks would explode if they got too hot!

...I imagine that made "Roasting Hot Dogs/Toasting Marshmallows" quite exciting...adding to the "POP" in campfire stories. :)

[OldFriend]

Slick was paying off his good friends, the Riady's of Indonesia.

Will the majority of Americans ever realize what this man did to our country?

[investigateworld]

Mark Twain always said a mine was a hole in the ground owned by a liar.
Utah penny stocks are even worse!

[DugMac]

No they won't until we develop new refineries. That’s the problem the ecoterrorist (Sierra Club et al) have blocked any attempt to build new refineries.

[hunter112]

I don't think you have to worry about refineries here in Utah, we have several of them located near urban areas, some as close as about 200 feet away from I-15, the main freeway going north and south through Utah's most populated area. If somebody wanted to build one near the location of this find, they probably wouldn't get much resistance from the Republican-controlled government. Our Governor comes from a family that owns the world's largest privately held chemical conglomerate, so he believes in industrial development.

Utahns would welcome this find, if it proves to be more than smoke and mirrors. We'll see when the leases go up for bid on May 17th, the big boys don't often get fooled as much as the ordinary folk the hucksters go after in a scam.

[Smile-n-Win]

"It's just very highly unlikely because the U.S. onshore has been picked clean, if you will," said Fadel Gheit, senior oil analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York.

This guy needs his logic chip replaced.

[Rudder]

so what's your opinion of these articles lately of oil reserves "renewing"...is that hogwash or what?

I think it may be due to seepage from extant oil pools into the well area.

[glorgau]

If it's in Utah, it's got to be a scam.

[Smokin' Joe]

With a lease sale coming up, there is a lot of money to be made by someone....

BTW, 1 billion=1000 million, which would light the east coast for about 3 years.

Good for them, but we'll keep drilling.

[jsbankston]

My understanding is that the high prices are more because of a shortage of refining capacity that of oil...

That is only part of the problem. The major problem is that Saudi Arabia in at 99% of production capacity and has no incentive whatsoever to increase capacity. The same can be said for the rest of OPEC who are either all at capacity or purposefully holding back on production in order to keep the price of oil high.

In other words: If they cannot produce it, we cannot refine it.

[Smokin' Joe]

If we added 1% to the supply right now, oil prices would tumble.

For about a week, until OPEC got its stuff together and cut production. While this might shift the trade balance a tad, I do not expect a major impact on prices.

One well is a long was from a field at peak production, complete with the transportation infrastructure to get that oil to refineries which are working at 98% now.

Besides, I have worked on a few 15-20 well programs where we drilled the last well first.