Talk:Oil reserves

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Contents 1 US Reserves 1.1 Bakken Oil 2 Review 2.1 Lead 2.2 References 2.3 Hyperlink of STOOIP 2.4 Redistributing article via Proven Reserves in Order 2.5 Alternative fuels 3 I am challenging the material marked as "citation needed" 4 Proven versus probable versus possible 5 Is gigabarrels a commonly used term? 6 When will oil run out 7 What About Russia? 8 November 8 2007: Huge oil deposit discovered in Brazil 9 Russia's 2nd or even 1st largest oil reserves aren't mentioned at all! 10 US oil shale reserves 11 Claimed vs Established 12 New Brazilian Find

[edit] US Reserves

Should this be added to the US section? http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/pure_products_of_america/who_says_theres_4.php —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.91.235.10 (talk) 01:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Nope. It's just another case of people not taking their medication like their psychiatrists told them to. In reality, the Williston Basin has been rather thoroughly explored and drilling a bunch of new horizontal wells into the old formations, while no doubt profitable at current prices, is not going to keep all those millions of SUVs supplied with cheap gasoline. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 04:45, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bakken Oil

Okay, now that the USGS report has actually been released, can I suggest that people actually READ them before quoting what someone said they might say before anybody actually saw them. And learn to recognize when people are blowing smoke. What the USGS actually SAID, when the actual report was released, was that the Bakken formation may contain between 3.0 and 4.5 billion barrels of undiscovered oil. Not 175 to 500 billion barrels as the speculators said. Big difference - 3.0 to 4.5 billion barrels is only 5 to 7 months consumption for the US at current rates. Bottom line: sell the Hummer, buy a Toyota hybrid. And don't invest in oil stocks unless you know how to read the geological reports for yourself. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 18:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

  Leave the opinion out of wikipedia, Rocky.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.219.122.113 (talk) 02:58, 25 May 2008 (UTC) 

[edit] Review

[edit] I am challenging the material marked as "citation needed"

Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed. per Wikipedia:Verifiability I will revert to my version[5]. --Savedthat 18:06, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Repeat as necessary: ibid...ibid...ibid...ibid.... You're challenging the material on a sentence by sentence basis, which is ridiculous. Most of the sources are already cited, just not on a chapter/paragraph/sentence basis. You might have to read the the references from one end to the other to find the information.

On to details of what you're asking for: Oil reserves in Saudi Arabia - #1 in the world - are a state secret, so the only official source is the Saudi government, which doesn't supply details. Many geologists have doubts about their numbers.

In Canada - #2 in the world - you have the opposite problem, too much information. Much of it is hard to understand. Recently, Canada increased its reserves from 5 billion barrels to 180 billion barrels, but as the result of technological breakthroughs, not drilling. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has been quoted as saying that's an understatement and the number is probably closer to 310 billion barrels. But it doesn't really matter because Canada doesn't have enough manpower to produce that much oil.

And the bottom line is - this is a very arcane field and a lot of the data is flaky and subject to interpretation. Threatening to delete information just because you don't understand it or can't find the sources without reading all the references is not exactly the way to build a consensus. Of course, you can delete it but someone else can revert your deletions. RockyMtnGuy 06:12, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proven versus probable versus possible

Okay, everybody. Read the definitions of reserve categories at the top of the article before quoting some talking head on the nightly news about new oil discoveries on Mars. In particular, 1) IHS report that there may be another 100 million bbls of oil in Iraq. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. This is Possible reserves, P10 or 10% probability of being produced. Someone will have to drill some wells to find out, and nobody wants to risk drilling rigs and crews in a war zone. 2) There may be 25% of the worlds oil reserves in the Arctic Ocean. This is an Urban Legend or P0. According to the Economist, see http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9660012 this is usually attributed to the U.S. Geological Survey, but the USGS has never done a study of Arctic reserves and knows nothing about it. I personally worked for a company that ran a drilling fleet of 26 ships in the high Arctic for some years, and we spend billions but found diddly-squat squat up there. RockyMtnGuy 00:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

On the subject of proven, probable, and possible reserves, you've invoked the definitions as they were intended, not in practice for the majority of the world's 'reserves'. I realize that you discuss some countries' shortfalls further down in the article, but it is not correct to discuss them as "considered by experts in the industry" when there is no evidence for many of the political posturing. "Claim" is more valid when discussing how the practice works in real life. --Skyemoor 01:44, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't help to use the words claim and allege because that doesn't clarify anything. Exploring for oil is more akin to a crapshoot than a court case. When oil experts use the term proven, they are using it in the old English sense of tested, not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. They mean that someone has sunk a drill bit into the ground and determined that is oil at that particular point. Nobody knows with absolute certainly exactly how much there is and whether they can get out at reasonable cost. Poorer countries can afford to drill fewer wells than rich countries, but that's where most of the undiscovered oil is.

• Proven or P90 means that there is a 10% chance the oil doesn't really exist, so you get surprises. However, it is unnecessarily conservative for planning purposes because it means there is a 90% chance that there is more oil than you reported. Believe it or not, that's usually the case. There's really a lot more oil out there that people haven't found yet. We just don't know where it is, but we can make guesses. We can make a really good guess that it's not in the U.S. because there have been over a million oil wells drilled.
• Probable or p50 is more realistic, because there's a 50% chance that there's more oil there, and a 50% chance that there's less. If you're a gambling man, that's what you'll go with. You don't fold because you only have two aces and you don't know where the other two are. And, if you're a government planner that's what you should use (with a Plan B in case it's really a lot less than you thought). However, if you're a U.S. government planner, there is also a 90% probability that the government that owns it is not really friendly to the U.S. That isn't covered by reserve classifications.
• Possible or P90 is living on the edge. Only about 10% of these prospects will turn out to be real. Unfortunately a lot of people read about these prospects and think they are real. Some of them are, most of them will turn out to be hot air. However, oilmen like these prospects because they are gamblers and the 1 that comes in big pays for the 9 that come up dry. However, for other people it's not good to take them seriously. It's like leaving your umbrella at home because there's a 90% chance of rain - and a 10% chance it might not. Unfortunately, a lot of politicians and bureaucrats seem to be among the people who would leave their umbrella home if there was a 90% chance of rain.

So, based on the above you can assume that there's a 90% chance that U.S. reserves are pretty accurate, and a 50% chance that OPEC ones are. However, what are the chances that foreign governments are wildly overoptimistic? And there's always the chance that some country is sitting on the mother of all oil fields and doesn't know it. RockyMtnGuy 19:54, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I see nothing above that lends any credence to your speculation that OPEC reserve estimates have a 50% chance of being correct. There is no field by field data available and the recent Kuwaiti yoyo declarations (and Shell's announcement that they were overreporting by 20%) should clarify this point. All that is clear is protection of quota percentages. --Skyemoor 01:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, there might well may be a lot of air space in official OPEC reserve estimates, however the real question is "How much air space?" There is field-by-field data available, the question is, "Is it credible?" There is an internal document floating around that indicated that Kuwaiti reserves were actually half what they stated, but I don't think it would meet Wikipedia's standards for citing sources. Shell's announcement basically said that 20% of their proven (P90) reserves were actually just possible (P50) reserves. On the other hand, Shell bought its way into some Canadian oil sands property that potentially could be huge. Ultimately, though, reserves don't mean anything if you can't get them out of the ground. It's difficult to produce oil in a war zone. RockyMtnGuy 01:56, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Where is the 3rd party audited field by field data for Middle Eastern OPEC nations, especially Saudia Arabia? --Skyemoor 18:48, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course, Saudi Arabia and the other big OPEC producers don't let anybody audit their data, which is unfortunate because OPEC is sitting on most of the world's conventional oil. The closest you can come is Mathew Simmons' book Twilight in the Desert, in which he reviewed a hundred or so published papers on Saudi Arabia's top 12 oil fields, and came to the conclusion that things don't look so good out there in the desert. However, it is a sweeping generalization to think that this applies to all oil producers. If you take the country with the second largest reserves, Canada, for a fist full of dollars you can order a CD-ROM with detailed data from most of the wells in the country and, if that isn't convincing, if you resemble a geologist you can go to a government core lab and look at samples from the wells. So, the data integrity and auditability varies drastically from country to country. Not all of it is bad data. It's not reasonable to apply equivocal language to all the reserve estimates, just some of them. RockyMtnGuy 04:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I've read Twilight in the Desert, which is why I asked the question about reliable data for oil reserves in the first place. Canada's oil well data is a small percentage of their reserves, the vast majority of which are tar sands that are difficult to extract and process. I repeat, I see nothing that lends credence to your speculation that OPEC reserve estimates have a 50% chance of being correct. --Skyemoor 10:44, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The Canadian oil sands reserve estimates are based on 19,000 wells, if I recall correctly, which have been drilled through the sands and into the underlying formations. You can get the data on a CD-ROM for $500 in case you want to start mining. As for the other, oh 200,000 wells or so, you can get the data on them too, although it will cost you more money. The oil sands are indeed difficult to extract and process, but at $70+ per barrel, having an oil sands plant is like having a license to print money, which is why there is a $150 billion oil sands stampede in progress. Now, the 50% confidence factor for Saudi Arabia is a bit more problematic. They may be fudging the numbers and have only half the oil they claim, which is a problem, but that's still a lot of oil. And they also have oil sands, they just don't know how to get it out of the ground. I mean, there's a lot more oil around than reserve numbers indicate, it's just that people don't know how to produce it. The Alberta government spend about $1 billion in research money to add about $13 trillion in reserves. That takes confidence and smarts. Are the Arabs up to that kind of thing? RockyMtnGuy 16:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I mean, there's a lot more oil around than reserve numbers indicate, it's just that people don't know how to produce it. I'm not sure where you are getting your information from; is this intended to be material for the article or are you simply expressing your opinion. If the latter, a forum would be a better place. If the former, then you would need to provide verifiable sources to contradict the obvious inflation of oil reserve estimates. --Skyemoor 01:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, first of all we are still finding about 10 billion barrels of new oil a year, although that's much lower than the 60 billion barrels a year we used to find in the 60's, and much less than the 30 billion barrels/year we consume. Secondly, reserve numbers only include 30-35% of the oil in place, if prices are high we can go back, redrill the old fields, and use exotic chemicals and heat to get more out. Thirdly, they don't include the marginal fringes of the oil sands, some rubbly stuff holding huge amounts of oil that nobody knows how to produce but I'm sure we could figure out if someone gave us enough money. And fourthly they don't include oil shales. This is all based on stuff I've done research on in the past, I'm sure people will keep doing research in the future. (And by research I don't mean what Wikipedia calls "original research" which appears to mean independent thinking). RockyMtnGuy 17:16, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is gigabarrels a commonly used term?

I've never heard of one billion barrels being referred to as a gigabarrel. Sure it sounds cool, but we're not talking about megaton nuclear bombs or terabyte hard drives here.

See the archived discussion here Cheers Geologyguy 23:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard anyone use gigabarrels before, either, and I have 35 years experience in the industry. The standard industry term would be "billions of barrels", with the understanding that it would be American billions (10⁹) of American oil barrels (approx. 159 litres), and not British billions (10¹²) of British Imperial barrels (approx. 164 litres). Apparently some computer geeks have been editing Wikipedia articles about oil and gas without understanding what standard industry terminology means. The classic case was when someone converted Mcf to "millions of cubic feet" on the assumption that M stood for the Greek "mega". Bad guess. It stands for the Latin "mille" which means thousand. The abbreviation for "millions of cubic feet" is MMcf. RockyMtnGuy 16:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree: Gigabarrels and Billion barrels is the same number why make this confusing to readers? —Preceding unsigned comment added by OxAO (talk • contribs) 18:59, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Billion is not not confusing since it has two meanings but if gigabarrel isn't used then get rid of it ... like I've been doing. JIMp _talk·cont 17:22, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] When will oil run out

Just wanted to know. ? Muntuwandi 04:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

No one can say for sure; many experts say that we are at or near peak production, after which oil will become increasingly scarce and expensive. --Skyemoor 01:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Oil will never run out because, as I am fond of pointing out to people, you can convert anything to oil given enough time and enough money. However, you might run out of money if you aren't careful. As for the peak of production, someone else pointed out that it's something you'll see in your rear-view mirror. If it peaks in 2007, you'll know by 2017, or 2027 at the latest. RockyMtnGuy 16:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

It will never run out even if you don't convert anything to it. The problem is not running out per se but getting extremely expensive to be useful in modern economies. i.e. demand being so high compared to supply that it's pointless using it after a point (especially for energy) other than essential uses, such as plastics for high technology. To say it in more scientific terms, it's a lot related to energy. Since at the current point it's mainly used for energy, the energy used to extract it, process it and use it must never be higher or even equal to the one getting back if you want to use it as a primary energy source. etc. etc. --Leladax (talk) 22:56, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What About Russia?

I read in "International Business" 10ed. Daniels, John Et.Al. 2004, that Russia´s Oil Reserves are, as of 2001, bigger than Saudi Arabia's. --Crio de la Paz 03:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Not likely - three different, reputable estimators here indicate 74, 60, or 74 billion barrels for Russia vs. 264, 262, or 264 billion barrels for Saudi Arabia. Of course, there are problems inherent in making reserve estimates, but... cheers Geologyguy 03:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

So sorry: I misread: it´s Russias Oil Production that was, at least in 2001, according to that book, bigger that Saudi Arabia´s and I also just checked that they seem to be overproducing?, Thanks!--Crio de la Paz 03:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah. As to production, Russia (or, sometimes reported as all Former Soviet Union, which would also include Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, etc - but about 93% is from Russia) -- anyway, Russia routinely produces more than Saudi Arabia, though not every month. In the 1980s the Soviet Union produced on the order of 12 million barrels per day, when Saudi Arabia was doing 8 or 9. The EIA, here indicates that Russia has been producing less than Saudi on an annual basis for the past several years, at least. But not hugely less. Cheers Geologyguy 03:38, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Russian production peaked at over 12 million bbl/d in 1988, then fell to 6 million bpd in 1999 after the Soviet Union collapsed, and had risen back to 9.7 in 2006. This compares to 10.7 in 2006 for Saudi Arabia, which has been generally ahead for around a decade but has been varying production up and down trying to manipulate the market. Both are trying to increase production at the moment, but I think both are having technical problems doing so (Russia has damaged its fields by overproducing them during the Communist era, Saudi Arabia's appear to be suffering from natural decline and water invasion problems). Russia's production standards are not of the highest quality, so I think they are probably still damaging their oil fields. RockyMtnGuy 21:38, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] November 8 2007: Huge oil deposit discovered in Brazil

Brazil is not included in this list yet, but with this discovery I think it would have to join the list, even im not sure its reservers oversize Russias. Im not certain yet, but it has been announced that this discovery sums 50% of all what had been ever discovered in Brazil; Brazil became autosuficient in 2006/7 so it now should start as a rising oil exporting country. José Sérgio Gabrielli, president of Petrobras, said in an interview that this put Br, which was in 24th place in world oil reserves ranking, in the 8th or 9th place - with the add of 5 to 8 gigabarrels to the previous 14,4 gigabarrels. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.33.172.80 (talk) 01:14, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) Although Brazil produces more than 2 million barrels per day, making it #13 on the list of petroleum producing countries, its proved reserves are only 12 billion barrels, ranking 16th [6]. Brazil's net exporter status is significantly impacted by its leading role in ethanol production, not so much by its oil reserves. There is no particular reason Brazil is not discussed here, though the list is pretty much limited to the leading reserve holders. It is not clear what discovery you refer to, but even if Brazil's reserves were to increase by 50%, that would still only be 18 billion barrels - not that much, comparatively. Cheers Geologyguy 01:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Despite what I said above, after reading the reports it does look like a very important discovery for Brazil. It will take years to produce, and the ultimate recovery remains to be confirmed, but it does sound like at least 5 million billion barrels - but one takes such press announcements with several grains of salt. Cheers Geologyguy 01:42, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

did you mean 5 million barrels or 5 billion barrels? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vexorg (talk • contribs) 01:28, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The discoveries that are mentioned are related on many news websites, related to the Tupi oil camp. Here goes some links:

Oil discovery rocks Brazil Underwater oil discovery to transform Brazil into a major exporter —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.20.227.123 (talk) 02:06, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Like all these reports of vast new oil discoveries, this one must be taken with a grain of salt. Brazil has no real idea how much oil is in this field, and won't know until it does considerably more drilling. Estimates range from 33 billion barrels on the high end to 600 million barrels on the low end, which shows the degree of uncertainty. What is not uncertain is that it is hundreds of kilometres offshore under thousands of metres of water and thousands more metres of rock - which means that it will cost in the $100 billion range to develop and it will take nearly a decade before it will produce any oil. And while finding it is very good news for Brazil, it is not big enough to offset expected production declines in the North Sea, Mexico, Russia and elsewhere over the next decade. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 05:00, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Some one just asked this at Talk:Peak oil as well. Just remember, at the top estimate of 30 billion barrels, that's less than one year of oil for the world (at the current world consumption rate of 87 million b/day). NJGW (talk) 14:14, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Russia's 2nd or even 1st largest oil reserves aren't mentioned at all!

Russia is marked on the map as a country with largest oil reserves. But...that's all - there's not only a section, but even a single word "Russia" can't be found in this long article. Is this intentional, or it is believed here, that e.g. oil that received by Europe via Druzhba pipeline from Russia in fact has its origins in the outer space? Av0id3r (talk) 22:04, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Please feel free to add information on Russia's oil reserves. --Skyemoor (talk) 12:01, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I added a section on Russia to placate those who feel it should be mentioned. The Russians are possibly kidding themselves. Although it has by far the largest natural gas reserves, Russia has only the 8th largest oil reserves, ranking between Venezuela and the US. Unlike the top 7 resource holders, their reserves to production ratio is not very good. Russia is a very old oil producing area, and they have already produced most of their oil. At current rates they have only 17 years of production left out of their existing reserves, so they should be exploring enthusiastically to prevent a production decline. In communist era, they did severe damage to their oil fields by overproducing them, and at current rates they may be continuing to do damage to them. Possibly a little more restraint and planning for an oil-free future would be advisable (given their enormous gas reserves.) RockyMtnGuy (talk) 20:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] US oil shale reserves

The verbiage on oil shale was exceeding the size of the rest of the United States article, so I truncated it and linked to the oil shale reserves article, which is where it properly should go. Americans seem to be getting delusional on the subject of petroleum as their oil reserves fall closer to the empty mark, so here's the facts: Nothing is happening on the oil shale front. To qualify as proven reserves, oil shale needs to have commercial scale mines and processing facilities, not just a few teakettle research operations, so it doesn't properly belong in the oil reserves article. Almost all research on oil shale was shut down during the Ronald Reagan era, and it has never recovered. From a standing start it would take decades to develop a full-scale commercial operation, so don't buy a new V10 pickup truck in anticipation of fueling it up on gasoline from oil shale.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 16:56, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that oil shale in the U.S. should be classified as deposits and not as reserves. It will take a long before commercial scale shale oil production starts in the U.S. Right now only China, Brazil and Estonia have commercial production of shale oil.Beagel (talk) 17:54, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Claimed vs Established

We can't blanket list oil reserves as being reasonably certain if 1/2 the world's reserves are state secrets. What will be fine for those companies having to report via SEC regulations does not translate into the rest of the world, so uncertainty and doubt must be elevated to all portions of the summary and definitions. 198.151.13.8 (talk) 16:35, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

SEC regulations are far too conservative for this type of article. The SEC doesn't even consider the Canadian oil sands to be "oil reserves", even though Canada is producing a million barrels per day out of them. So, are companies there only "claiming" to be producing oil out of these nonexistent oil reserves and selling this vaporous product to the US for incredible amounts of money, or are they doing it for real? Yes they are doing it for real, and Americans can't believe the price even though they are paying it. These reserves are reservoir engineering estimates based on the best possible data. If the data is pretty bad, you factor that into your calculations, giving an accurate assessment of an inaccurate number. What oil reserves are is what people in the industry refer to as a SWAG (or Scientific Wild Ass Guess). It's all one big crap shoot. If you don't know how to play craps, you don't understand it and you'll never make money in the oil business. For more information, see game theory. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 18:34, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New Brazilian Find

I heard recently that an oil deposit had been discovered in Brazil that would potentially make Brazil holder of the largest oil reserve in the world. Has anyone else heard anything on this issue? 216.191.213.114 (talk) 18:26, 15 May 2008 (UTC) Never mind, just saw the previous thread. 216.191.213.114 (talk) 18:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)