<No, really? The Oil Drum Fantasy Writers Weigh In>

75 comments on Technology to the rescue - er, only perhaps.

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Prof. Goose on October 5, 2005 - 12:48am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
and, notice that they moved the peak of "all liquids" from 2007 to 2010...
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Heading Out on October 5, 2005 - 1:01am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The problem with deepwater operations is that it tends to concentrate production in a smaller number of platforms.  This makes them (and overall production) more vulnerable to events such as Katrina.  Note that just the loss of two platforms (Mars and Thunder Horse) has taken 400,000 bd of production out of the end of this year.  The Typhoon platform also went and so the vulnerability of supply with this concentration is evident.

In addition there have been a number of delays in getting some of these platforms into place and producing - some of these delays  were noted in the posts on the CERA list.  Thus deepwater may end up being more spread out than the current models anticipate, further flattening the peak zone.  

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Ricko on October 5, 2005 - 9:12am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
As a new poster I have a question. What are the "all Liquids" That are referred to in the ASPO and CERA report? I have a general understanding of propane etc. as it relates to ng. production but do not understand fully the "all liquids" references. Perhaps you could direct me to a link or if there is not a good explanation somewhere one of the posters here could explain it. Thanks in advance.
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Freddy Hutter on October 5, 2005 - 1:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
ASPO's Regular Oil excludes oil from coal, shale, bitumen, heavy, deepwater, polar, gasfield NGL, non-conventional gas & processing gains.  The ASPO graph conveniently breaks out their totals into these components.
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Halfin on October 5, 2005 - 3:41pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Analysis of ASPO moving the peak out three years:

http://peakoildebunked.blogspot.com/2005/10/122-colin-campbell-wrong-again.html

According to this, the reason is neglect of the West African offshore oil fields. For some reason ASPO's previous analysis did not count deepwater fields!

Now that ASPO, one of the most pessimistic Peak Oil groups, has pushed the peak out to 2010, can we drop the assumption that this is an "optimistic" date? At this point I would suggest that the pessimists are saying 2010, optimists 2020-2030, and others are somewhere in between.

Of course these dates don't work as well to scare people and keep revenue coming into Peak Oil sites.

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Donal on October 5, 2005 - 3:42pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Oh yeah, I forgot to send my check!
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Dave Cohen on October 5, 2005 - 4:16pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Sorry, Halfin, this "West Africa" allusion is total bullshit. Your peak oil debunked source quotes the ASPO newsletter statement (references re-evaluation of deepwater sources) and then quotes Big Gav talking about the Gulf of Guinea. Your source then decides with no justification that the ASPO change is due to new discoveries in West Africa.

Let's not be so sloppy, OK? As far as I can see, the reasons for the ASPO re-evaluation remain obscure since I don't know what specific changes were made in their database. West Africa is certainly a plausible candidate if we're talking about deepwater since that region leads the world in offshore discoveries. I follow that region (look at posts I made here just yesterday, for example). As far as reserves in West Africa, no one knows what they are though they are growing. If you look at HO's series of posts on CERA projections, you will see that West Africa figures prominently in them.

But there is a bigger issue, which is: "What are the database ASPO updates?" I'd like to know because the ASPO re-evaluation of deepwater sources at this point is kind of fishy (no pun intended). Why now? And what's new?
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Liz on October 5, 2005 - 8:14pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
As a non-technical newbie I find this puzzling because, to the extent deepwater oil is in the GOM, I would think the hurricanes (and prospect of more intense ones) would tend to make this resource cost prohibitive to expand access to.
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Dave Cohen on October 5, 2005 - 10:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Welcome aboard, Liz. I think many would agree with you here that there is far more financial risk in investing in GOM deepwater drilling than previously thought.

best,
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flankp on October 5, 2005 - 10:01pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I had a short email conversation with a Dr. Richard M., Information Manager with BP Exploration UK and he said he and a gentalman named Francis H. beleive the peak will be between 2010 and 2015... pending a depressing which causes demand destruction. Note, he's currently employeed with BP and is a Dr. of hard rock mine geology and Isotope Crystogrophy. I removed the last names because I didn't think i should share their entire names. But, he was very honest with me, which surprised me.

BP has an employee Magizine called Horizon which is actually going to feature a letter i wrote in. The editor said that 'bp experts dismiss peak oil' and Richard cc'd me on the email he wrote to the editor saying the editor was wrong. If felt good.

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flankp on October 5, 2005 - 11:07pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Sorry, I need to clarify.

He beleived that peak non-opec would be between 2010 and 2015. He said that there was not enuf info to make a prediction about opec.

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75 comments on Technology to the rescue - er, only perhaps.

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