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96 comments on 2005 Exploration Round-Up

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Agric on March 1, 2006 - 1:34pm

There was a mild disagreement a few weeks back here at TOD about such terminology: apparently the use of "USGS" in conjunction with "forecasts" or "predictions" might be incorrect and misinterpretation ;)

I'm sure that reserve "revisions" will easily fill the shortfall in discoveries, on paper at least, for a couple more years anyhow. After all, there are still perhaps 1,000 Gb, maybe more, of reserves still in the ground, it would only take an annual 2.5% upwards "revision" to solve the discovery shortfall. Of course, revisions can cut both ways - might be troubling when we come to the days of downwards revisions. But I don't expect those days to arrive before peak oil is recognised, in fact I suggest that may be a sign of admission that peak oil has arrived.

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Bubba on March 1, 2006 - 1:50pm

You will be seeing some downward revisions in some companies reserves coming out that have nothing to do with how much oil is in the ground. They have to do with the structure of the production-sharing contracts that they have with foreign governments. As the price of oil goes up, these companies pay off their investments earlier and their share of both "cost oil" and "profit oil" goes down. The companies make more money overall, but their "reserve base" has to be re-adjusted downward to reflect the higher value for the oil.

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