The Oil Drum staff wishes Happy Holidays to all in our readership community. We are on a brief hiatus during this period, and will be back with our regular publications early in the new year. In the meantime, we present the top ten of best read Oil Drum posts in 2012. The seventh in this series is a post by JoulesBurn on the North Sea Elgin gas leak which took the news headlines in March 2012. The leak was successfully plugged May 15, 2012, and a permanent plug was put in place in September.

A crisis situation has developed at a gas and condensate production platform in the Elgin field in the North Sea. Gas is leaking out of a well near a offshore platform at a rate of approximately 2 kilograms per second (12 MMCF/day if gas), and a large sheen (assumed to be condensate) has been observed on the water. All workers on Total's Elgin PUQ (production-utilities-quarters) Platform plus those on the Rowan Viking drilling rig, which had been working next to it, have been evacuated. On Monday, workers on a platform and drilling rig at the Shell-operated Shearwater field (4 miles / 6.4 km away) were also evacuated. There is currently a two-mile vessel exclusion zone around the site and a no-fly zone. As current winds are light, the most immediate concern is the potential for explosion both at the PUQ and elsewhere. While it is possible that the leak rate will lessen over time, the Rowan Gorilla V jack-up drilling rig is being provisioned by Total for a possible relief well that could take months to drill.

There is a lot going on in the Middle East at the moment. The revolution in Syria seems to be entering some form of end game, and there are the riots in Egypt. There are some signs that these events might move into countries such as Jordan. Increasing levels of turmoil in the Middle East do not help stabilize the future flow of oil and natural gas around the world, and there are underlying tensions, brought about in part by the need to sustain sanctions against Iran.

Turkey, for example, is caught up in dealing with Syrian refugees and the adjacent civil war and is also largely dependent on Iranian fuel to get it through the winter. In October, Turkey is reported to have imported 75 kbd of Iranian oil with larger portions of the total 417 kbd import coming from Iraq (105 kbd) and Russia (103 kbd). The volumes that continue to flow are now becoming a source of friction, since US law demands that countries continue to lower their imports every six months. While Turkey continues to work to lower their need for Iranian oil (and may increase imports from Russia), in the interim the U.S. Government is not increasing pressure but instead, is apparently moving to extend the waiver of sanctions not only to Turkey, but also to a total of 21 countries, a list that includes China, India, and South Korea.

Two officials said an announcement of the six-month extensions was expected from the State Department on Friday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly preview the step.

In addition to China, India, and South Korea, the waivers will apply to Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Taiwan. All nine were originally granted six-month renewable exemptions from the sanctions in June.

The exemption means that banks and other financial institutions based in those places will not be hit with penalties under U.S. law enacted as a way of pressuring Iran to come clean about its nuclear program.

A total of 20 countries and Taiwan have been granted the waivers. The others—Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Japan—will come up for review in March.

[Editor's comment: This article is by Dr. Tad Patzek, chairman of the Department of Petroleum & Geosystems Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Patzek's research involves mathematical modeling of earth systems with emphasis on multiphase fluid flow physics and rock mechanics. He is also working on smart, process-based control of very large waterfloods in unconventional, low-permeability formations, and on the mechanics of hydrate-bearing sediments. In a broader context, Patzek works on the thermodynamics and ecology of human survival and energy supply schemes for humanity. He has participated in the global debate on energy supply schemes by giving hundreds of press interviews and appearing on the BBC, PBS, CBS, CNBC, ABC, NPR, etc., and giving invited lectures around the world. This article first appeared on Tad's blog Life Itself.]

Before I discuss the logic behind negating a peak of production of anything, let me sum up where we are in the U.S. in terms of crude oil production.  According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA):

The United States consumed 18.8 million barrels per day (MMbd) of petroleum products during 2011, making us the world's largest petroleum consumer. The United States was third in crude oil production at 5.7 MMbd. But crude oil alone does not constitute all U.S. petroleum supplies. Significant gains occur, because crude oil expands in the refining process, liquid fuel is captured in the processing of natural gas, and we have other sources of liquid fuel, including biofuels. These additional supplies totaled 4.6 MMbd in 2011.

Let me parse this quote.

There has been much talk in the current presidential debates about possible changes in US energy policy, with Governor Romney suggesting that more federal land be opened for prospecting for oil. Historically, one of the regions included in such lists is the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. And, perhaps anticipating the debate, the current administration has already recently moved toward opening those territories up for development.** However, those fields have been determined to contain more natural gas than oil, and so hopes for finding more oil reserves has shifted into moves offshore, where Shell has continued optimism as it begins to sink new wells in the Chukchi sea – although well completions have now moved into next year. However, suggestions in the past should be noted that more of the hydrocarbons under the Arctic are gas deposits than oil, and this argument has been strengthened by the recent discovery in the Barents Sea of more gas, when oil had been anticipated.

The large volumes of natural gas that are currently being developed and marketed, whether in the United States or from Turkmenistan, are making considerable change in the economies of many countries. Russia, who lost the sales battle to supply natural gas to China, can no longer justify the expense of opening the Shtockman field because alternate supplies are coming to the market at lower costs. This in turn, will cascade on to prices in Europe, where the advent of more gas in the UK is making it difficult to justify a switch into a greater reliance on renewable sources such as wind and solar.

This scenario means that it is not a good time to have a huge reserve of natural gas, or to go to the market with this resource to generate income. This is particularly true if the country in question is Iran.

Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi has announced that Iran’s exploitation of the South Pars gas field will equal Qatar’s exploitation of the gas field by the end of Iranian calendar year 1392 (ends March 20, 2014) if $54 billion is invested in gas projects.

Iran and Qatar share the largest natural gas field in the world, a reserve that is known as South Pars in Iran and as the North Field in Qatar.