The Oil Drum

This post, in a way, is in homage to Connections, which I have just started to watch. I noted today that Leanan had posted that Matt Simmons is giving a talk at UCSB tonight, and I suggested to the Engineer that he might go downstairs and listen. (His report – among other things that the room was too small, but also that Matt did say that we at TOD do “an excellent job” – why thank you, kind sir).

And then I got a bit more curious about the program and found that there is a Conference coming up there on February 9-10 dealing with the need to transition from carbon fuels to renewables. While the current program looks fairly interesting, it is the second in the series. And so I went back to see what they had on the program last year. And there I found a paper on Natural Gas by Chris McGill, from which I took the following graph.

This is the first time that I have seen a comparison of relative production rates between horizontal and vertical wells that were relatively close, so I thought I would pass it on. More under the fold.

We have been a little fixated over the recent CERA report on the myth of an imminent peak oil problem, and, in the process, have not given enough recognition to another report that has just been released. Wood MacKenzie is also a company that provides information on the energy industry and, is the often more conservative evaluator of reserves that Jean Laherrere has used in some of his studies. On November 1 Leanan noted their press release, which can be seen on video in which they noted that while the Arctic Regions do, in fact, contain significant amounts of oil

The US can no longer consider the Arctic as a long-term strategic energy supply source, according to a new joint study by Wood Mackenzie and Fugro Robertson, "Future of the Arctic." The study found the Arctic potential is significantly less than previous estimations had suggested, and the mix of resources have been found to contain much less oil and more gas.
"These findings are disappointing from a world oil resource base perspective," said lead study author, Andrew Latham, Vice President, Energy Consulting at Wood Mackenzie.
The study shows only approximately one quarter of the oil volumes previously assessed in key North American and Greenland basins.