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30 comments on An update by Chris Skrebowski

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Stuart Staniford on October 20, 2005 - 11:01pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
It's definitely the case that the great bulk of non-opec supply coming on stream in the next few years is deep water.  After we're through with that, it's going to be Arctic and whatever OPEC turns out to really have (and be willing to sell).

A question I have, particularly for the insiders, is do we really know we've got at most of the deep water?  Eg consider the US offshore which hasn't been surveyed for decades.  I'm guessing seismic surveys in the sixties or seventies would not have looked for/found deep water oil.  So how do we know there isn't a bunch of deep water oil, for example, off the continental slope by the big west coast rivers (Columbia, Sacramento, Colorado, etc).  Or off the Atlantic edge of Europe?

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wkwillis on October 20, 2005 - 11:24pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The offshore sediments aren't thick enough and they don't have a possible anoxic basin history. No hope.
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Bubba on October 21, 2005 - 9:48am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Stuart,

The answer to your question is yes - we really have explored the most prospective deepwater areas, we have found most of what is expected to be found, and what is left is of substantially different quality than what has already been discovered.  That does not mean that all the deepwater discoveries have been put on production yet.  Many of these discoveries will be brought on stream in the next 5 years.  However, despite record high oil prices, new deepwater discoveries are few and far between, and the ones you may have read about, you will find as time goes by, are not up to their initial billings.

For more info I have written about this stuff here:

http://beastsbelly.blogspot.com/2005/08/deep-water-basins-will-save-us.html

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/10/7/4122/71046#50

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/10/7/4122/71046#51

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/10/7/4122/71046#64

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Stuart Staniford on October 21, 2005 - 1:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Thanks Bubba - I've seen your very helpful writings on the subject.  I guess my question is: have the oil companies been allowed to explore in this way, for example, off the west coat.  Ah, never mind, I see it's starting to be done.  Looks like only recently however.
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Bubba on October 21, 2005 - 3:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The answer to that is no, or at least not entirely.

However, the question is not whether there are potentially accumulations in these off limits areas that are attractive as investment opportunities for individual companies and investors. The answer to that is yes.  But a more important question is whether there are areas of the planet that are 1) unexplored or underexplored; 2) currently off limits for exploration and development; and 3)considered to have enough prospectivity to add several million barrels per day to the global production mix.  My personal answer to that is unequivocally no (ANWR not withstanding).

All of the areas outboard of the world's major river deltas have been explored.  (The Mississippi, the Nile, the Congo, The Niger, the Amazon, the MacKenzie etc.).  The biggest deepwater fields found to date are not much more than a billion barrels recoverable each.  Some of these are forecasted to produce at 250,000 BOPD when they are fully up and running.  So it will take 4 of the biggest ever found to fill a production hole of 1 MMBOPD.  If demand is increasing by 2 million barrels per day, we have to be finding about 8 of these every year to fill this hole ( I know, I am preaching to the choir) even without regard to depletion.   Have we as a global deepwater explorers missed this much? I doubt it.

 

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