Shell exec says world not running out of oil

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | March 20, 2008 | Jerome R. Corsi

[Man50D]

John Hofmeister, the Houston-based president of Shell Oil's U.S. operations, expressed doubt about the validity of peak oil theory in an appearance on CNBC's Squawk Box show.

"The peak oil theory has really swamped the world. God bless Matt Simmons," Hofmeister told CNBC anchor Carl Quintanilla, according to a transcript provided to WND by CNBC. "His assumptions are correct based on his hypotheses, but his hypotheses are too narrow."

Matt Simmons, a Houston-based investment banker who specializes in the energy industry, is widely known for his 2005 book, "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy," in which he analyzed oil depletion data from Saudi Arabian wells.

The peak oil theory argues the world's oil resources are finite and will be completely exhausted at a future date.

Simmons, one of the most vocal and visible of the peak oil advocates in the industry today, has also been a frequent television guest arguing that the world is running out of oil.

[Flavius]

you mean you mean its a scam?

maybe a bubble like a house bubble?

oh no that could not be it, could it

[Billg64]

I remember a post on here about a month and a half ago, stating NASA had found oil and natural gas on one of the moons of either Neptune or Jupiter, I believe Jupiter. The theory being espoused is oil and natural gas may be a by product of natural occurrences at the interior of the planet, not the result of “rotting dinosaurs”, therefor the supply could quite possibly be replenishing itself.

[bmwcyle]

I don’t think they know any more.

[Cap Huff]

“His assumptions are correct based on his hypotheses, but his hypotheses are too narrow.”

I think this should be the other way around. That is, “his hypotheses are correct based on his assumptions, but his assumptions are too narrow.”

[Gorzaloon]

Matt Simmons, a Houston-based investment banker who specializes in the energy industry

Oh WELL, then.

I was afraid he was a Petroleum Geologist, or something.

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

Peak oil Predictions + GloBull Warming Hysteria + EnviroNuts Controlling the Debate + UN-lead Fraudulent Prognostications + Delusional Pols + Uninformed Public = A recipe for disaster and reverting back to the 18th Century.

[CTSeditor]

You got the cash, we got the gas.

[Brilliant]

Of course not. It’s just that all the oil is in the control of the Russians, Arabs, and Venezuelans.

[aruanan]

I remember a post on here about a month and a half ago, stating NASA had found oil and natural gas on one of the moons of either Neptune or Jupiter, I believe Jupiter. The theory being espoused is oil and natural gas may be a by product of natural occurrences at the interior of the planet, not the result of “rotting dinosaurs”, therefor the supply could quite possibly be replenishing itself.

That is, from primordial methane trapped in the mantle under great heat and pressure. As it escapes and percolates up through miles of crust, changing pressures and porosities result in the formation of longer chained hydrocarbons, aka petroleum. The only real things the biogenic theory has going for it now is the slender reed on which it was originally posited: that petroleum slightly rotates light to the left and there are some molecules in it that appear to be of biologic origin. At the time the biogenic theory was posited, people had no idea that the deep earth could be full of bacteria that can thrive at high temperature, pressure, and live off methane or petroleum. In the absence of this knowledge is wasn't unreasonable for them to posit petroleum's levorotatory nature to a biologic origin; however, the rotation of light is only very slightly to the left. That, together with the presence of helium, heavy metals, and the geologically rapid refilling of some oil reservoirs point to an active ongoing process inconsistent with the buried kerogenized plankton from vast shallow seas theory.

[Riflema]

Agreed, however the very term primordial tells us that these methane deposits were trapped there as the Earth formed, right? Therefore, they're not creating any new ones? Given that, yes, we have be looking at an enormous reservoir, but still a limited one.

Don't get me wrong -proving another 200 years' reserves would be a very fine thing - but let's not kid ourselves the supply is infinite.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

Except that we can make the stuff, from almost anything. Carbon and Hydrogen chains after all.

[ryan71]

Earth is constantly making new oil.

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38645

[onedoug]

Then why do we find deposits in sediments but not in igneous and metamorphic rocks?

[onedoug]

More energy in than out.

[aruanan]

Therefore, they're not creating any new ones? Given that, yes, we have be looking at an enormous reservoir, but still a limited one.

Apparently other types of hydrocarbons can be generated from various types of non-sedimentary rocks under great heat and pressure.

Of course it's not infinite, but that doesn't warrant the artificial government-imposed approach of spending craploads of tax money trying to come up with an alternative. Scarcity, the market, and unrestrained ingenuity have always done a better job of solving problems than government fiat.

[Billg64]

I have seen on National Geographic, vast reserves of methane at the bottom of the deep seas. The problem being extraction.

[ryan71]

Apparently, you know more about rocks than I do, but can you explain why wells that were once nearly dry are now producing as much as when they were first tapped? And it’s happening all over the world.

And jazz it up, I don’t want to fall asleep reading it.

[aruanan]

Here's something I was referring to about the production of methane from, well, rocks at high temperature and pressure. This is from an article by Freeman Dyson called HERETICAL THOUGHTS ABOUT SCIENCE AND SOCIETY:

Later in his life, Tommy Gold promoted another heretical idea, that the oil and natural gas in the ground come up from deep in the mantle of the earth and have nothing to do with biology. Again the experts are sure that he is wrong, and he did not live long enough to change their minds. Just a few weeks before he died, some chemists at the Carnegie Institution in Washington did a beautiful experiment in a diamond anvil cell, [Scott et al., 2004]. They mixed together tiny quantities of three things that we know exist in the mantle of the earth, and observed them at the pressure and temperature appropriate to the mantle about two hundred kilometers down. The three things were calcium carbonate which is sedimentary rock, iron oxide which is a component of igneous rock, and water. These three things are certainly present when a slab of subducted ocean floor descends from a deep ocean trench into the mantle. The experiment showed that they react quickly to produce lots of methane, which is natural gas. Knowing the result of the experiment, we can be sure that big quantities of natural gas exist in the mantle two hundred kilometers down. We do not know how much of this natural gas pushes its way up through cracks and channels in the overlying rock to form the shallow reservoirs of natural gas that we are now burning. If the gas moves up rapidly enough, it will arrive intact in the cooler regions where the reservoirs are found. If it moves too slowly through the hot region, the methane may be reconverted to carbonate rock and water. The Carnegie Institute experiment shows that there is at least a possibility that Tommy Gold was right and the natural gas reservoirs are fed from deep below. The chemists sent an E-mail to Tommy Gold to tell him their result, and got back a message that he had died three days earlier. Now that he is dead, we need more heretics to take his place.

[onedoug]

One of the worlds largest well enhancement services, Schlumberger has a lot on their site regarding reservoir enhancement, including chemical stimulation. There are bunch of wells in urban Los Angeles first tapped in the sixties, subsequently left for dead, then picked up by a bunch of smaller firms that are still pulling oil out of them because of some of these methods.

Then there's directional drilling, by which the drill head can turn in any direction, aided by actual video aids at depth.

We just need to be able to expand the potential for these technologies. In this country alone we could make ourselves hydrocarbon independent for the two hundred years at least if the politicians would allow it. But fools like McCain don't want to drill ANWR. He admires the park like surroundings.

If you ever get a chance to sail out from Long Beach, get a load at the fancy hotel you'd see on one of the inlet islands. But take another look. It's a drilling rig platform.

And, oh yeah, sorry.... All in sediments.