Concerning gas supplies and production analysts
Posted by Heading Out on January 19, 2006 - 2:12pm
Topic: Supply/Production
He says that the study of peak oil is not a science and that those who advocate it are guilty of naiveté, ignorance and plain manipulation of the data. "There are a lot of zealots out there and a lot of claims are made which are not tested," he says. "It is true that oil is finite but since 1989 people have repeatedly predicted the peak too soon and have had to keep on increasing their estimate of reserves. Just because a country's output has peaked and gone into decline, it doesn't mean that production can't rise again."(Grin, and a nod to Powerswitch. (So Stuart and Prof take note, you are being watched ( :-) ). Incidentally Chris Skebowski is quoted as saying that he expects the peak to be in 2008, and I am presuming that he is including NGL and other non-conventional sourced liquids in this.
While the Iranian situation seems to be easing off a bit, the cold spell in Russia is now affecting supplies to a number of countries, the BBC reporting that a number of countries have seen supply drops, although Gazprom is perhaps claiming that it is still meeting its obligations. (A later BBC story says that they have cut back, despite their earlier denial). That second story also comments that:
More seriously, some of the oil wells in Siberia have frozen, and Russia is producing 200,000 barrels of oil a day less than it was last month.Over on the Eastern Siberian coast Sakhalin Island has shut down for the winter, since oil still moves from there by tanker, although there are plans to put in pipelines so that by 2008 the oil can flow, even at times like these. (Tip to Nick Rouse).
And on a couple of parenthetical notes Moldova has also now agreed to pay more for their gas. A little more, in fact, than the Ukraine. And Exxon Mobil is denying reports that they have suspended exports from Nigera, as I had noted that they had done, yesterday.
I also want to note that activity is continuing to recover gas from the Barnett Shale in Texas, as much because it will be interesting to revisit this over the next couple of years to find out how supply holds up, given
The Barnett Shale is the largest gas producing field in Texas and one of the three largest in the United States, with production expected to exceed 400 billion cubic feet this year.To put that in perspective, see here and here.
Historically there has been a bit of a lull in demand in the second quarter of the year, between the fuel needs of winter and the driving and air conditioning demands of the summer. This is the time for refinery maintenance, oil stock buildup and the like. That drop in demand is unlikely to occur, given that borrowed fuel must be repaid, and the discussions about increasing the size of the SPR. If both the US and China choose to put oil into SPR tanks, then demand may even rise, and prices with them. This was a constraint on Chinese action in this regard, last year. However, given the benefits of such action, one wonders whether they will continue to hold off much longer?
Based on the data I have seen, the answer is no.
The current key case history is Saudi Arabia--at 55% of Qt.
The "nonscientific" label is interesting. One of Lynch's cohorts, Peter Huber, asserts that our energy consumption will increase--forever. Huber, if pressed, will admit that some energy sources, like conventional oil, will eventually peak and decline, but he still asserts that aggregate energy consumption--from a group of finite energy sources--will increase forever. Let's see, infinite energy from a group of finite energy sources--yep, that makes a lot of sense.
Only if you do the linearization too early. For example
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/9/30/21818/2120
Two cycles of discovery -> Two logistic models.
The key to developing a useful model is to set reasonable geographic limits. In time, the world--a geographically limited area--will show the same type of production behavior as our geographically limited models--Lower 48; Texas and the North Sea.
Texas peaked at 54% of Qt (66 Gb), and production has steadily fallen.
The Lower 48 peaked at 48% of Qt (200 Gb), and production has steadily fallen.
The North Sea peaked at 52% of Qt (60 Gb), and production has steadily fallen. Furthermore, the North Sea P/Q intercept accurately predicted that the North Sea would have a steeper decline rate than Texas and the Lower 48.
The peaks significantly before 50% of Qt, e.g. Iran, have corresponded to political problems.
My proposed ground rules are: (1) reasonable geographic limits; (2) decades of serious production and (3) a Qt of at least 50 Gb.
Within those limits, has any region shown production increases beyond 55% of Qt?
The multi-trillion dollar question is Saudi Arabia, currently at 55% of Qt.
This is why I have urged caution in extending these principles into the environment of a worldwide peak. Once we get to the point where there are no other fields to go to, where the only possibility is to spend more to improve production from existing fields, then incentives will be different and we may well see different results.
In the near-peak and post-peak periods, oil will rapidly increase in value and oil owners will try much, much harder than we have ever seen before to improve extraction from their fields. I don't know how much success they will have, but you can't extrapolate from past failures to resurrect declining fields and assume that this will remain true once we hit a worldwide peak.
The best example of the true problem is the East Texas Field, which is now producing 1.2 million bpd of water, with a 1% oil cut (12,000 bpd). What can technology do to increase production from a field that has watered out? This is precisely the same problem facing the Saudis in the Ghawar Field.
At Matt Simmons has documented, better technology has primarily given us faster production rates--and faster decline rates once production peaks.
I see there's another one that agrees.
See this UK graph
But Lynch doesn't realise that by looking at nations he specificaly is looking at political units while large culsters of oilfields most often do not lie in a single political unit. If you look at production curves of the North Sea in total you come to the astonishing conclusion that even when the UK's production curve might not fit a gaussian curve, the Northsea's resembles it far more closely.
Iraq is another example of a "wierd" production curve which is influenced by politics. Yet the world production curve is driven by demand, so if one poltical unit fails to deliver another will come up with the difference.
By looking at the production curves of nations political influences on the world are wildly exaggerated.
By looking at the production curves of nations political influences on the world production is wildly exaggerated.
Sorry..
Perhaps ASPO should do analyses of geological regions, rather than analyzing individual countries a second time around.
- CONVENTIONAL OIL NEAR A PEAK - DISCOVERIES ARE INADEQUATE
- TAR SANDS TOO DIRTY TO BE PRODUCED
- EROEI ON ETHANOL IS NEGATIVE
- SHALE OIL ALWAYS MORE EXPENSIVE THAN CONVENTIONAL OIL
- EASY OIL IS GONE, COSTS ARE RISING
- OIL MARKET ANALYSTS ARE YOUNG AND HANDSOME
While I find myself in agreement with the last item, the others are all dubious for reasons that have been talked about time and time again here at TOD. Discoveries are inadequate and the easy oil is gone. This is admitted by IHS Energy and other mainstream analysts. This presumption is reflected in the behaviour of the IOCs. Just the other day, Dr. D. Nathan Meehan at worldoil.com said Shale oil in commercially producible amounts is decades away. Or, perhaps it is the oil of the future and will always be so. I suppose there could come a day--2040 or so--when shale oil with its very low EROEI could be cheaper than conventional oil if say it was only $754/barrel and conventionl oil was trading somewhat higher. He actually says (slide 23) that "SHALE OIL COULD BECOME IMPORTANT BY 2015". Shell, using their in-situ methods, would surprised to hear that. They are gearing up to build a prototype by 2012 as yet another step toward seeing if obtaining liquids in commercially viable amounts is a reality. Who knows how that will turn out.And on and on. Has he been following the difficulties and rising costs in extracting liquids from Canadian tar sands? Is he aware that Canada's production (including these sands) is flat? Is he aware of what the deepwater reserves are in places like West Africa, what their anticipated production schedule is and reasonable assumptions about when this oil province will go into depeletion like the North Sea? I doubt it.
My feeling is that he's just out of touch with what's actually going on in the world.
According to above link, the 'pouring' point of oil is between -57C and 32C (-70F and 90F). Siberia probably not a good post-peak choice, unless you own the oil....;)
Uh Oh......
Combine this with Nigeria's 200K loss and 1st quarter 2006 looks like lower prduction numbers than 4th 2005.
Freddy might have to change his prediction.
Could someone tell me what exactly NGL (NatGasLiq) is? Is it a byproduct of the extraction of Oil and gas from the ground or something else? Is it considered a non-conventional liquid like oil derived from tar sands? It is obviously counted in the total of 85 million barrels and along with RPG's and "Other Liquids" make up by my calculations 13% of this total - but is it in fact GTL? Any advanced knowledge of this issue would be appreciated.
but this might answer your question.
from wikipedia
dyslexia strikes again....
for what it's worth this is what Wikipedia has to say about NGL......
here
BP explains what NGLs is here.
"Superficially, what he does seems simple enough: he ferrets out details from a variety of sources, fits them into patterns in his mind,and writes them up. But that process requires unlimited patience, sound technical knowledge, an intense determination to avoid making mistakes, and a sense for the plausible in a world full of lies."
p.100 of this month's Atlantic Monthly. I won't tell you the author or the topic of this brilliant piece of journalism, completely relevant to the most popular discussion in this very forum for the last few days. I will say that these words are describing a man named Mark Hibbs. But what struck me was how much I felt they describe so many people here. And I want to thank you all for that.
Condensate is the general term applied to the mixture of hydrocarbons coming from a gas well that are normally in the liquid phase at standard temperature and pressure. They usually arrive with natural gas from deep underground at a high pressure and temperature at the well head and when they cool down (due to the Joule-Thompson effect) upon depressurization, the heavier hydrocarbons molecules generally condense out and form liquids that run along the bottom of the gathering pipeline until they are extracted at a ... gas liquid extraction plant. There any carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, etc can be removed and the heavier components can be seperated into propanes, butanes, pentanes, hexanes, heptanes, octanes, nonanes, decanes da.. da.. da, sometimes up to as many as 18-20 components or so, but normally a good number of places just put them all in the same bottle and sell it on to a speciality refiner or a consumer under the general title "gas liquids".
Wanna' know what hydrates are?