Posted on 12/01/2008 4:50:30 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
In a world running low on oil, several countries are still sitting on massive supplies. If only they could get to them.
The Ferdows, Mound, and Zageh Fields
Location: The Persian Gulf, off the coast of southern Iran
Estimated Reserves: 38 billion barrels
Details: Discovered in 2003, these three interconnected fields are among the largest oil deposits ever found. Ferdows is the largest, with 30.6 billion barrels. This figure may seem astounding, but it’s usually not possible to extract all the oil from a field due to technological and financial constraints. Plus, assessing how much oil these deposits can actually yield will take more drilling. If these fields can be largely exploited, though, they will be a huge boon to OPEC at a time when other oil producers are watching their reserves diminish.
What’s the holdup? U.S. sanctions on Iran have prevented the investment needed to develop Iran’s oil fields. Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said in April that, overall, $500 billion of investment would be needed in Iran’s oil industry during the next 15 years. Purportedly under U.S. pressure, the Japanese have been dragging their feet on an oil investment agreement that they concluded with Iran in 2004. A Malaysian company did sign a $16 billion deal with Iran last December to produce liquefied natural gas at sites including Ferdows, but it will likely be a number of years before we see crude oil flowing.
Kashagan Field
Location: The Caspian Sea, off the coast of Kazakhstan
Estimated Reserves: 38 billion barrels
Details: Kashagan field is the largest single untapped oil field in the world and the fifth largest ever discovered. Development is underway. In fact, crude was supposed to have started flowing in 2005, but repeated delays have pushed the date to 2013.
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
Ping for later
In millions of years, yes, it’s renewable.
I don’t believe oil is “renewable” but I do believe...
1.) oil collects where it does for a reason and that as we extract it oil flows in to fill the void,,may take years but oil fields abandoned and returned to often have “recharged” enough to make pumping viable.
2.) oil is abundant
3.) oil is natural and a great deal of it comes from the creation of the universe and the methane clouds that inhabit the universe... some planets have their surfaces covered in liquid hydrocarbons.
The theory is that bacteria are actively creating oil from other organics. (in a nut shell). While not renewable at current consumption rates, some theorize that it may be renewable like trees. (approx.) Interesting theory, but just that.
But, But, Chucky S. says that we NEED electric cars!
I believe oil is formed from chemical reactions deep in the Earth. The oil then fills in cracks and moves towards the surface. So, there is plentiful oil and the Earth keeps creating more.
The Athabasca Oil Sands (also known as the Athabasca Tar Sands) are large deposits of bitumen, or extremely heavy crude oil, located in northeastern Alberta, Canada. These oil sands consist of a mixture of crude bitumen (a semi-solid form of crude oil), silica sand, clay minerals, and water. The Athabasca deposit is the largest reservoir of crude bitumen in the world and the largest of three major oil sands deposits in Alberta, along with the nearby Peace River and Cold Lake deposits. Together, these oil sand deposits lie under 141,000 square kilometres (54,000 sq mi) of sparsely populated boreal forest and muskeg (peat bogs) and contain about 1.7 trillion barrels (270×109 m3) of bitumen in-place, comparable in magnitude to the world's total proven reserves of conventional petroleum.
With modern non-conventional oil production technology, at least 10% of these deposits, or about 170 billion barrels (27×109 m3) were considered to be economically recoverable at 2006 prices, making Canada's total oil reserves the second largest in the world, after Saudi Arabia's.
I.E. We're not running out any time soon.
This is an interesting topic to me. I have no background in any of the disciplines involved in oil discovery or development but I remember as a child when taught that dinosaurs and vegetation decaying millions of years ago somehow seeped into the earth and under heat and pressure created the oil reservoirs that we tap into today. Well this never made much sense to me. Everything I had seen, either plant or animal that died was consumed by something that was living and the cycle continued. If this sounds simplistic to you then maybe somebody could better educate me.
I wonder about that too. Why were the oil making conditions on earth present only once in the planet's history?
The process of making oil from compressed, dead plant life should be on going, no?
This is all silly and not even debatable. Most of the big numbers quoted are not recoverable. The Athabasca tar sands are harvested by heating water to superpressured steam with natural gas and blasting the oil off the sand. It is not 100% recoverable.
Oil’s consumption is exploding. 90% of India and China do not have cars. 90% of that 90% WANT cars. The much ballyhooed reduction in demand that generated the present price drop you can investigate yourself. It’s less than a 5% reduction in consumption. At that back end, that’s only a few weeks.
It’s not the size of the tank. It’s the size of the tap. As regions run dry, you have to drill more and more in a given field. Pretty soon you’re drilling so many wells that you can’t keep up with the exhaustion in previously drilled wells. The Production Drops.
It’s not the size of the tank. It’s the size of the tap.
Nothing good will come of this. Food gets to shelves in the store because trucks bring it there. There are zero plans for electric trucks.
Thsi may be a shock to some but ..Israel.
“Some (including many Russians) believe that oil is renewble. What are your thoughts?”
I think not. I worked for 5 years as an engineering technician, for two graduate oilmen. One MS Geology, the other MS petroleum engineering.
Together we prepared the plans for exploiting various oil strata (layers) for secondary recovery. Ours was a medium sized oilfield, about 50,000 barrels per day.
I learned a lot, and I do not believe that oil is renewable. I would not expect very many credible experts to think that way, either.
I saw a guy on tv do something once, he had this special box type apparatus with a kind of spigot coming out of it.
He took a softball sized piece of this oil-bearing rock, put it in the box, and turned it on.
A few minutes later he had about half a beaker of quite liquid oil.
It was a modified microwave oven.
“I believe oil is formed from chemical reactions deep in the Earth. The oil then fills in cracks and moves towards the surface. So, there is plentiful oil and the Earth keeps creating more.”
Have you heard of the physics law called “conservation of matter?”
RON Popeal of Ronco gotta love him
Lava continuously flows to the surface. WHy can’t oil?
Do you have any scientific publications regarding this?
The full list from the article:
1) The Ferdows, Mound, and Zageh Fields
Location: The Persian Gulf, off the coast of southern Iran
Estimated Reserves: 38 billion barrels
2) Kashagan Field
Location: The Caspian Sea, off the coast of Kazakhstan
Estimated Reserves: 38 billion barrels
3) West Qurna Field
Location: Southeastern Iraq
Estimated Reserves: 15-21 billion barrels
4) Carioca (Sugar Loaf)
Location: The Atlantic Ocean, 275 km (171 miles) off the coast of Brazil
Estimated Reserves: 33 billion barrels
5) Chicontepec Field
Location: Mexico, north of Mexico City
Estimated Reserves: 19 billion barrels
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