Talk:Petroleum

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, now in the public domain.
WikiProject Energy
Energy Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Energy, which collaborates on articles related to energy.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.
Top This article is on a subject of Top importance within energy.

This article has been rated but has no comments. If appropriate, please review the article and leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.
WikiProject Environment
Portal		 This environment-related article is part of the Environment WikiProject to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the environment.
The aim is to write neutral and well-referenced articles on environment-related topics, as well as to ensure that environment articles are properly categorized.
See WikiProject Environment and Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the assessment scale.
Other languages WikiProject Echo has identified Petroleum as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the Arabic, Czech, Russian or Swedish language Wikipedias.
This article has been reviewed by the Version 1.0 Editorial Team.
Version 0.7
 This article has been selected for Version 0.7 and subsequent release versions of Wikipedia.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Petroleum article.
Article policies


Contents

[edit] Percentage of Usage as Fuel

As far as I understand the matter, not all oil it getting burned. In the environmental section the article should make a distinction in this. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find any information about the percentage of oil getting burned vs. getting processed. Such distinction would also allow assumptions how much each industry sector is dependent on oil and if such dependency can't be already easily replaced (e.g. the materials or fabrics industries).

And here is some source: [[1]]. Can anyone interpret this? --217.86.13.225 (talk) 19:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Sure. According to the source, of 20,698,000 barrels per day of oil processed in the US in 2007, 45% was refined into gasoline, 20% into diesel and fuel oil, 11% into natural gas liquids, 8% into jet fuel, 4% into heavy residual fuel oil, 3% into petrochemical feedstocks, 2% into coke, 2% into asphalt and 5% into other products. The bottom line is that nearly 90% of it was used for fuels of various types. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 21:31, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Oil and Its Future

Alibektas

, such as deep see drilling Oil has been using to produce many products which have been used by people in their daily life. For instance, people get thousands of everyday products from medicine to plastics. Oil provides some 40% of the world’s energy needs. Thence, many countries spend a lot of many to import oil. For example, in 2000, the USA paid about US$100 billion to import oil. Oil always attract major power intervention and “it has led to political corruption, militarization, and paradoxically, foreign dept” (Gerner & Schwedler 2004, 249). The oil industry is global because customers for products are located in different countries and “oil has been an engine of globalization” (Sampson, 1975). Therefore, whoever can control the land that would control oil and its power. As a result of its power, oil sometimes was used as a weapon. For example, Arab countries did not export oil to the Israel in 1967 and 1973 because of the six-day war. During the Iraq war in 2003, George W. Bush and his administrations always refused to explain the war in Iraq in terms of oil. Today, however, many people believe that oil was the main cause to attack Iraq because Iraq has the world second-largest known oil reserves. As it known, oil is an important need for every country. Thus, many states should remember oil when they determine their foreign policy. Consequently, the competition between the states may cause more conflicts. According to some researches, on the other hand, the world’s reserve of oil will run out until 2040 on the current rate of consumption however “the volume of the world’s oil consumption is an ever-growing number”[2]. As a result of this information, many states have started to find alternative energy. Furthermore, the United States has already spent nearly $10 billion to develop cleaner, cheaper and more reliable alternative energy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Alibektas (talk • contribs) 09:50, 8 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] extraction

The OPEC paragraph under extraction doesn't seem to fit with that heading, perhaps it should be moved.

[edit] Price of oil in weight of gold graph please

Looking at the graphs it does seem that no reference to Gold has been made. A graphy that shows the price of oil relative to the weigh of gold for the past 100 years would be useful. RoddyYoung 12:55, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Making Price of Oil a separate article

I noticed a suggestion to split the article, and I support the request to split it out. The price of oil since discovery in the 1800's is a huge topic, and deserves the space that it needs. Chadlupkes 21:07, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I am going to split it. --HybridBoy 08:18, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Diasters

I am trying to find information on various fires and how different fuels burn at different temperatures. This comes up as a topic whenever the World Trade Center is discussed or major tanker crashes such as the one in San Francisco this week. People say things like "fire doesn't melt steel" and other layman comments. I've looked around wikipedia to learn more, but haven't found it yet, perhaps it would be a good heading for this page? NaliniL 15:24, 1 May 2007 (UTC)nalini L

[edit] composition of crude oil

i'm a new trainee in Shell Malaysia and i just found out that we have to do mercury decontamination in our plant because crude oil contains mercury. i was just wondering does crude oil normally contain mercury? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 144.199.176.12 (talk) 03:04, 8 May 2007 (UTC).

It's not particularly uncommon for crude oil to contain variable amounts of metals, including mercury. This PDF indicates that mercury concentrations typically range from 0.1 parts per billion to 3.0 parts per million. Fairly recently, the US recovered a significant (I think about a third, but not sure) of its vanadium production from imported Venezuelan crude oil. Cheers Geologyguy 03:18, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Because oil comes from depths (earth's mantle) natural hydrocarbons contain metals such as Ni, V, Cr, Co, As, Zn, Pb, ecc and also mercury, mainly in gas and condensates. Coal like oil and gas also contain mercury, because methane upwelling methyl- or dimethyl-mercury comes from together. 201.17.61.110 (talk) 23:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Crude oil sometimes contains trace amounts of heavy metals. Of course, so do tuna and other fish which are at the top of the food chain. Sometimes biological or other processes concentrate heavy metals (usually they don't). If they occur in the particular type of crude oil you are processing, then you have to take them out. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 18:54, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] text in bottom 3 charts way too small

The text in the bottom three charts dealing with oil is illegibly small and needs increased between 2 & 3X. Thanks. Jon 21:20, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Derivation of word

STOP! BOOM! YEAH! BOOM! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.72.1.50 (talk) 17:31, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

'Petroleum' comes from the ancient Greek 'πετρολιον' — it's not a made-up word from banging together several Latin or Greek roots; it actually occurs in real classical texts such as Herodotus. Refer to Liddell and Scott's lexicon for details. m.e. 08:28, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] future use of coal/refilling of oil wells

The sentence that stated coal might increase in use was removed for two reasons. First, while possibly true it is certainly speculative. Second, it only indirectly impacts the topic of this article, which is petroleum.

A paragraph regarding "refilling of oil traps" was removed. While some traps in active petroleum systems could in theory "refill", refilling from original source rock requires that the migration path from the source rock still exists and that the source is still in the oil window. This is not true for all oil fields (for example, Saudi Arabia oil was primarily generated in the Cretaceous from Silurian shales which are now at shallow depths. The North Slope is another example where the Shublik source has now been uplifted). [Fox and Albrandt, Petroleum Geology and Total Petroleum Systems of the Widyan Basin and Interior Platform of Saudi Arabia and Iraq, USGS Bulletin 2202]. I don't know of any case where rates of refilling from source (as opposed to movement between reservoirs, e.g. Eugene Island) has been clearly documented and measured. Sophisticated computers models have been developed to mimic migration but I don't know what typical generation rates are, but almost certainly far less than consumption (It only takes 100 barrels per year for 10 million years to create a billion (US) barrel field)

Added lakes to the sentence about oil from algae - ancient fresh water lakes have created rich (and low-sulfur) source rocks (e.g. Green River, Indonesia, China, Brazil)

Speaking for myself, I thought your removals were totally appropriate and correct. - thanks Geologyguy 18:17, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Links

I have added a section specifically for suggestions/comments on links. I have one addition/alteration to suggest. Peak Oil now has a seperate article from Hubberts Peak, and therefore should have a link on this page, or "Peak Oil Theory" link should be changed to Peak Oil. As a subpar programmer, and new poster on this page, I will not do this myself unless the addition is delinquent. 68.251.249.145 06:04, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

hi there, i am looking to find the correct proceedures for petrol tankers to be filled. i need to know all that goes on in the proceedures to be followed with the safety aspects also.

johann.kohler

[edit] VANDALISM!

The page linking to the 'Main article: Hubbert Peak Theory' hyperlink has been vandalised -- there's a huge no. '[37]' pasted onto the page and, anwhere you click,you are directed to a page which tries to get u to install something that may be a virus -- i'm afraid i wasn't able to post this on that page itself - i'm not sure if that was due to the vandalism or not. 59.96.41.15 11:39, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Formula correction?

2C_8 H_{18(l)} + 25O_{2(g)} \rightarrow \; 16CO_{2(g)} + 18H_2 O_{(l)} + heat

should it not read "+ energy"? or does the reaction not produce any light or force whatsoever? Sahuagin 17:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

c'mon someone say whether they believe +heat is correct or +energy is. i would change it but im not 100% confident im right. Sahuagin 14:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's energy, some of which may be radiated at specific quantum wavelengths characteristic of the reaction products, but most of which will decay into heat. We should be able to say how much energy it is (Joules per mol or eV per molecule of reactants) in general, but the heat/light split is dependent on the combustion conditions (e.g. inside a vacuum flask or open space are different). LeadSongDog 15:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Per octane, it's Std enthalpy of combustion ΔcHo298 is −5430 kJ/mol, so for the equation given, it becomes

2C_8 H_{18(l)} + 25O_{2(g)} \rightarrow \; 16CO_{2(g)} + 18H_2 O_{(l)} + 10.86 MJ

For some reason at this edit the phase was changed from (l) to (aq), which makes no sense to me. Is this the normally used notation? Also, by halving the number of mols, the change should also have halved the enthalpy. Reverting for now.LeadSongDog 14:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I took what was there at face value, as being the same thing using a different method. Good job in catching that it wasn't. In any case, italic chemical element symbols are totally acceptable. Let's try it again without the halves, with l instead of aq (it isn't even miscible in water) and comment out the precise energy value, pointing out that either that number or double or half it might be correct. Gene Nygaard 22:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
This equation is somewhat off-topic. The topic is the formation of petroleum, the formula is for the combustion of octane, which is one of the numerous components of petroleum. It would be more appropriate for an article on gasoline. RockyMtnGuy 01:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps rather misplaced in that section, but some direct discussion of the chemistry of the principle product applications is certainly pertinent to the article as a whole. The octane oxidation example given is a relevant and representative one, but a more general discussion is still missing.LeadSongDog 06:43, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ersatz

Any sources for 'It was known as Ersatz ("substitute" in German)'? First of all, calling an oil substitute "substitute" doesn't sound very much worth mentioning to me. Secondly "Ersatz" out of a compound word and in this context doesn't sound very German to me. The sentence might still be true and relevant but I'd like to see some references, I couldn't find any. --Mudd1 12:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

A bigger problem is that even if it is true, it may be misleading because of possible deviations in connotation between English ersatz and German Ersatz. Gene Nygaard 12:59, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Map of oil producing countries - Canada

I don't know who put up the map of oil producing countries, or why they would want to break Canada down by province, but the provincial coloring is incorrect. British Columbia should be included because it is the fourth largest oil producing province, ahead of Manitoba and Ontario. Also, the Northwest Territories should be included, since it also produces more oil than Manitoba or Ontario. Ontario is mainly interesting for historical reasons since it produced most of its oil before 1900. In reality, the Western provinces and territories are producing out of one huge geological structure, the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, and since Alberta is in the middle of it, it produces most of the oil in Canada. RockyMtnGuy 17:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Jay Hanson - Deleted Article/Notability

Jay Hanson's biography page on Wikipedia was deleted in 2006 due to non-notability. It is unlikely to be re-created, though if you feel he is important enough to warrant an internal link, you should do what is necessary to include his biography. Otherwise it will be a permanently dead link and confusing to readers.Typing Monkey - (type to me) 00:25, 22 November 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Definition, Classification, and Alternative methods

In the definition we refer to petroleum as 'mostly alkanes of various length'. Further we include hydrocarbons from tar sands as 'petroleum', and thirdly we include synthetically manufactured hydrocarbon mixtures with petroleum.

To my knowledge crude oils are classified, according to their principal hydrocarbon constituents as paraffin based, naphthene based, asphaltene based, and mixed or intermediate types. Neither the naphthenic, nor the asphaltenic crudes consist of paraffins. Therefore, unless these denominations are now superseeded, the definition here incorrect.

The tar sand oils, the mineral oils from oil shales (not mentionned here) and the synthetically produced mixtures to my knowledge are normally referred to as 'syncrudes'. Perhaps we ought to find out also how much paraffin is in the Athabasca tar sands.

Enhancement production methods of crude oil production, such as deep sea drilling, pressurisation and solvent application ought to be included here, but manufacture of petroleum products substitutes such as synthetic gas oil and syntetic gasoline production either by direct catalytic hydrogenation of coal powder, coal tar (the method employed by Bergius in Germany during WWII), or the heavy ends of the vacuum products of conventional crude, or of tar sands extracts should go into a Synfuels article, together with the production of these fuels by the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis starting from any carbon containing material through synthesis gas (if such an article does not yet exists).

LouisBB (talk) 17:34, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at the Synthetic oil and Synthetic fuel articles (if you have not already) and see how they fit into your overall work on the Petroleum article. H Padleckas (talk) 00:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

H Padleckas (talk) 00:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks for pointig me in the right direction for the subjects which ought to be only touched here. On another matter I've put in a couple of links, and a slight change with the main activities within the petroleum industry, which are by no means complete. Downstream processing, such as manufacture of waxes, greases, specialty lubricants, chemical additives, and raw materials for the plastics industry (ethylene, styrene etc monomers) could also be mentionned.LouisBB (talk) 22:30, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, what it says is "a complex mixture of hydrocarbons (mostly alkanes) of various lengths." Crude oils are a heterogeneous mixture of hydrocarbons, but most crude oils do contain mostly alkanes, and the alkanes are what oil refineries are mostly interested in. They generally also contain varying amounts of napthenes (a.k.a. cycloalkanes) and asphaltenes, both of which the refineries will do their best to crack to alkanes.
"Tar sands" is a misnomer, since the sands do not contain tar but an extremely heavy form of crude oil variously known as "crude bitumen" in Canada and "extra-heavy crude oil" in Venezuela. The difference is somewhat arbitrary, since bitumen is defined as "crude oil that will not flow toward a well under reservoir conditions". Apply heat or chemicals to the reservoir and it will flow toward a well, hence the rapidly increasing production in Canada due to the Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) process. The Athabasca oil sands contain quite large amounts of long-chain paraffins, but also considerable amounts of asphaltenes. In the upgrading process the oil sands plants convert the long-chain paraffins, naphthalenes and asphaltenes to a mixture of short-chain paraffins they call "syncrude" or "synthetic crude oil". However, any good oil refinery does the same, so an oil sands upgrader is just the front end of a heavy oil refinery. A more recent trend is for oil refineries to take crude bitumen directly to gasoline and diesel fuel without any intervening steps, which is more efficient.
"Oil shales" do not actually contain oil but an oil precursor known as kerogen. Kerogen is fairly easy to convert to crude oil with heat and pressure, but it isn't quite petroleum before that happens, and nobody has figured out how to convert it in situ. Hence extracting it is a more difficult and expensive process. The Fischer-Tropsch synthesis is also feasible for coal and other hydrocarbons, but it is quite drastically different than oil sands upgrading. Oil sands upgrading is just more-aggressive-than-usual oil refining, the Fischer-Tropsch process completely restructures the chemical compounds. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 22:26, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Oil spills

I added some detail on oil spills. This is from memory and from talking to innumerable experts on the subject. I can't find any citations of any worth, because anybody who is an expert on this kind of stuff is keeping it to themselves - because of the lawsuits, you know. Damn those lawyers. And it kind of makes you wonder. In the old days, they would just throw a burning rag into an oil spill and it would go away spontaneously. Nowadays, they spend billions of dollars cleaning them up with all kinds of high-tech paraphernalia, and in the end they make it worse rather than better. During WWII, they sank hundreds of tankers containing millions of tons of oil, many of them within sight of shore, and you don't read anything about the environmental aftermath, do you? That's because the oil went up in flames, as well as the crews. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 17:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

There is already a separate article called Oil spill where details can (perhaps) be added. H Padleckas (talk) 03:29, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Maybe it's also because people were like, at war, and unfortunately didn't really have time to notice how much damage they were doing to the environment? Nil Einne (talk) 12:16, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Petroleum exploration, Alternative methods, Fischer-Tropsch byproducts

The article states that Ideally, a ton of coal produces nearly 200 liters (1.25 bbl, 52 US gallons) of crude, with by-products ranging from tar to rare chemicals. The problem is, according to the article on the FT process, the reactants involved contain only carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Therefore, it makes no sense to claim that rare element compounds are produced in the process. I have therefore removed this claim.--Rossheth | Talk to me 21:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Coal is not a pure product : it includes a large number of impurities, among which all kind of trace-level metals. So the Fischer-Tropsch process *will* produce all kinds of by-products, most of them in small quantities, many of them unwanted/pollutants. Not very important point IMHO in this particular scope.--Environnement2100 (talk) 12:47, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes and you might want to read more about South Africa's use of the process for more info on a real world case Nil Einne (talk) 14:56, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Petroleum composition

Following Mwtoews recent comment, there are discrepancies in the following sentence, quote : " The approximate length range is C5H12 to C42H86.[citation needed] The formula to work out how many hydrogen atoms there are compared to the amount of carbons is CnH2n+2. Any shorter hydrocarbons are considered natural gas or natural gas liquids, while long-chain hydrocarbons are more viscous, and the longest chains are paraffin wax."

a) the "approximate range" starts from the lightest hydrocarbon, CH4, actually present in many oils, and includes the following alkanes, i.e. ethane, propane and butane (both i- and n- forms)
b) the formula provided only describes alkanes, which are a part, but only a part of the oil content ; it does not describe all hydrocarbons
c) "shorter hydrocarbons" will be considered and sold as LPG after treatment only ; they still are present in the original oil.
d) long chain hydrocarbons are viscous, but they are still present in the heavier oils —Preceding unsigned comment added by Environnement2100 (talk • contribs) 09:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
It's more accurate to say that crude petroleum is a mixture of hydrocarbons, mainly alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, cycloalkanes, and aromatic hydrocarbons, with trace amounts of metals such as iron, nickel, and vanadium. Only the alkanes follow the CnH2n+2 rule. On the light end you get traces of methane, ethane, propane and butane, but generally it's pentanes plus. On the heavy end you get paraffin waxes and asphalts with molecular weights up to 100,000. Only the mass spectrometer knows for sure. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 01:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and I forgot sulfur compounds, salt water, and a bit of sand. Here's a link to an EPA document which describes what typically is found in crude oil pipelines. http://www.epa.gov/earth1r6/6en/xp/lppapp6a.pdf RockyMtnGuy (talk) 02:31, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History & Future of petroleum production

In the history section, please add: The use of petroleum was also referred to in the Biblical story of Noah's Ark whereby God commanded Noah build the ark out of wood and to seal the cracks with pitch.(Genesis 6:14). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.12.192.254 (talk) 00:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


There is a paragraph about the future of petroleum in the History section. I don’t think most of it belongs there. The information about concern of oil supply levels following the 1973 energy crisis and the 1979 energy crisis is history and should stay. But all the stuff about “The future of petroleum as a fuel remains somewhat controversial” is not. It should be in the “Future of petroleum” section not the “History” section. (Halgin (talk) 19:28, 13 January 2008 (UTC)).

It doesn't belong there, nor is it very convincing. USA Today would not be my first choice of authorities, and their statement "there are 40 years of petroleum left in the ground" pretty well confirms their lack of depth. In addition to "somewhat controversial", it's also of full weasel words like "Some argue", "Others claim", etc. indicating there are numerous other people who know nothing but are willing to speculate - but we already knew that. One would prefer to get one's information from petroleum geologists rather than talking heads. So, I would say the paragraph is historical in the same sense as a salad that's been left in the refrigerator too long, and pretty much a dead loss from a useful information perspective. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 03:49, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I confirm that part should be moved and merged into "Future of petroleum production" ; this last paragraph is considering only the end of oil, the immediate future of oil is more than that.--Environnement2100 (talk) 17:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Abiogenic theory

There is a lot of misinformation creeping into the abiogenic theory section of the article, for instance:

  • Russia is known to have applied this theory with some success.
Russia has been open to outside access for some years, but there are no quotable citations on the subject. If it was true, one would expect to find at least an SPE paper or two.
  • Zion Oil Company of Israel and Jordan has drilled very deep oil wells with good success
The web site for Zion Oil and Gas is http://www.zionoil.com/. According to its SEC statement, the company has no income and no oil reserves. They drilled one well, to a depth of 15,842 feet. The tested zones were non-productive and they abandoned the well in June of 2007.
  • ... and the areas are too deep for life as we know it.
Scientists have actually found living organisms at these depths, however, it is somewhat irrelevant because the biogenic theory holds that oil is derived from the remains of dead organisms, not live ones.
  • More than 99% of the hydrocarbons in the solar system are not the result of life.
More than 99% of the hydrocarbons in the solar system are methane (CH4), otherwise known as natural gas. This is irrelevant to this article because petroleum generally consists of hydrocarbons starting at pentane (C5H12) and continuing up to C40H82 or so.
  • The gas giants, particularly Neptune and Uranus, as well as other bodies, such as Titan, have extremely large reservoirs of hydrocarbons. While Earth's hydrocarbons may well be life-generated, the rest of the solar system's are not.
This is irrelevant because we are on Earth and have no way to import natural gas from other planets - or Alaska for that matter.
  • NASA's opinion in recent years has been that Earth's oil is likely the result of the same mechanisms that produced the rest of the solar system's hydrocarbons.
NASA's opinion is nothing of the sort. Someone made this up.
  • While coal is found in all stages from plant to anthracite, no such stages have ever been found for petroleum. This lack of intermediary stages casts doubt on the biotic creation of petroleum.
This is incorrect. The so-called oil shales of the United States and other countries actually contain an intermediate stage of petroleum called kerogen. Kerogen can be converted to petroleum with the application of heat and pressure, something people have been doing for hundreds of years.

The sections on biogenic versus abiogenic theory are really an example of a false dichotomy. There are actually many more than two theories, and they are not mutually exclusive. I think the people who are promoting the abiogenic theory are a bit delusional - they are trying to deny the apparent reality that oil is becoming a lot harder to find by claiming that it's just because companies are looking in the wrong places. Their arguments involve a misunderstanding of how oil companies explore. Companies do not start exploring on the basis of theories, instead they start by drilling a large number of wells, and then try to formulate theories on why some of them find oil and some of them do not. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 05:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Since nobody commented on the above claims, I deleted them. I don't think its useful to repeat what are actually urban myths rather than real facts in an article. The abiogenic theory is very much a fringe theory, and I don't know of any petroleum geologists using it with any success. I do know of a number instances in which people have lost a lot of money drilling dry holes using it. I know it sounds convincing if you don't have a lot of experience in the oil industry, but it's been tried and it doesn't work to find oil - unlike the "drill completely at random" method, which has been used with fair success.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 22:55, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I had to do some further edits because people continue to blather on about the vast oil deposits of the moons of Saturn. This is getting way past the ozone layer and into deep space. I get the impression that some people are becoming really delusional about petroleum and upset because there may not be enough left to fuel their SUV for the daily commute from the suburbs into the city. Take my advice, forget the Abiogenic Theory, sell the SUV and buy a hybrid car. Or maybe a mountain bike. It's much more practical. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 19:03, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Texas T

Isn't crude oil's nickname "Texas T"? Basketball110 the pages I've messed up completely 23:14, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Texas tea perhaps? Only on "The Beverly Hillbillies" afaik.LeadSongDog (talk) 23:18, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Recipe for Texas Tea:
  • 2 oz tequila
  • 2 oz rum
  • 2 oz vodka
  • 2 oz gin
  • 2 oz bourbon whiskey
  • 2 oz triple sec
  • 2 oz sweet and sour mix
  • Coca-Cola
Fill a 1 gallon pitcher with ice. Add all the ingredients except the Coca-Cola. Stir, then add the Coca-Cola and stir again. Pour into your favorite glass with ice and enjoy. It could also be a colloquial name for crude oil, but there's not a great deal of that left in Texas.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 23:59, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wrong Main Article link

The link under "Petroleum by country" links to Main article: Petroleum Industry

This is wrong, "Petroleum industry" has link to Main article: Petroleum industry and this is appropriate. However Main article: Petroleum industry cannot be considered a main article for "Petroleum by country" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.101.132.92 (talk) 18:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. It was a legacy link from a previous version of the section, for which that link made more sense. If there was an article about consumption/production etc by country, I'd link to it, but I couldn't find one. NJGW (talk) 03:13, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

The table of oil consumption vs. GDP has the wrong units. It's 1000 US dollar/barrel and not US dollar/barrel/day Wbenthem (talk) 01:12, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Done. I also removed some empty sections (placing what little info they had in other sections). This article could use a rewrite, moving the sections to places that make more sense, increasing readability, and spinning off daughter articles. NJGW (talk) 03:13, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Formation

Under "Biogenic theory", the phrase: « Most geologists view crude oil and natural gas as the product of compression and heating of ancient organic materials over geological time » could benefit from giving a reasonable estimation of the time(s) when this formation occurred; is it (mostly).soon after the Cambrian Explosion? or much later? I couldn't find any such estimation in the phrase's links or in the text that follows. Thanks to anyone who could add some of this information.Michel Merlin (talk) 15:28, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

The time frame is anything from the start of the Cambrian period to last Wednesday. There doesn't seem to be any theoretical reason why no oil was formed prior to the Cambrian, but it doesn't really seem to have happened. Somebody should come up with a theory. On the other hand, it's not necessarily that ancient. Some oil appears to be in the process of forming right now in places such as the Gulf of Mexico. But don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen ("geological time" = very slow). RockyMtnGuy (talk) 03:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Petroleum#Non-producing_consumers incorrect!

Petroleum#Non-producing_consumers states that The Netherlands is a non producing consumer, this is incorrect! Shell is partly Dutch, it's pumping it up from the North Sea and it is mentioned on in the page it self. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rick Smit (talk • contribs) 16:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess the important question is whether or not this is in Dutch waters. Anyone have a source? NJGW (talk) 16:32, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
List of oil and gas fields of the North Sea certainly lists a number of Netherlands entries, but doesn't source them. Try google?LeadSongDog (talk) 18:05, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
I checked the CIA fact book (the source for the table in this artcle) and it shows that the three countries I looked at (Netherlands, Japan, and Spain) all produce some oil, but it's less than 10% of their consumption. Netherlands actually import more than 2x what they use, and then export the balance, so I'm guessing there's an important refinary business there. I guess terms need to be more strictly defined. NJGW (talk) 18:23, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
The Dutch offshore fields are what is known as "gas prone", and produce large amounts of natural gas along with a smidgen of oil. According to the CIA, they only produce 76 thousand bpd of oil, but the Netherlands consumes 1 million bpd. It also imports 2.5 million bpd and exports 1.5 million bpd. In other words, it has a huge refining industry (e.g. Royal Dutch Shell) that mostly processes oil for other countries - notably the US, which is itself at risk of becoming a "non-producing consumer" in a few years. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 18:44, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Apparent errors in historic references

The abiogenic theory is attributed to writings in the 1800s by Kudryatsev. The Wikipedia article on this fellow has him born in 1893, and mentions nothing about dramatic precocity, so these are presumably writings in the 1900s.

The entry on Mendeleyev ends with a very clear and unequivocal quotation in which he states the abiogenic theory. Given his preeminence in Russian chemisry, it would seem likely that Kudryatsev was familiar with Mendeleyev's claim, and thus he developed rather than originated the theory.

Since I know nothing about this other than what I read in other articles I hesitate to make corrections myself to this aricle.

67.182.136.94 (talk) 11:00, 30 March 2008 (UTC)jgrudin

[edit] Biogenic oil?

Surely there's no proof that petroleum comes exclusively from biological detritus. Petroleum is primordial material that biology reworked after it arrive in crust from earth's mantle. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.17.61.110 (talk) 23:19, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

There is abundant evidence, as indicated by the article, that most petroleum is of biologic origin. No one says all hydrocarbons are "exclusively" from that source, simply that abiogenic hydrocarbons are exceedingly small in volume in comparison. Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 23:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
There is only two possibilities that most part of oil is biogenic: if a miracle occur! or the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics are incorrect.Regards 201.17.61.110 (talk) 23:37, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
The second law of thermodynamics (that the entropy of a closed system tends to increase) has nothing whatsoever to do with this subject. This is nonsense. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 18:46, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Nothing whatsoever to do with this subject? Tell your opinion obout thermodynamics of Hydrogen-Carbon system because petroleum is hydrocarbon. 201.53.15.42 (talk) 19:49, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Consumption rates table

I think the units specified in the GDP-to-consumption table must be awry. For example, according to the figures as given, the UK uses over 109,000 barrels of oil (3.34 barrels of oil a day each day for a year) to produce $1,000 of economic output.

Shurely some mishtake? The oil alone is worth around $12 million. 79.77.32.208 (talk) 18:46, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

You were right, but were reading the table a little bit wrong. It's saying that for every barrel of oil it uses, the UK has $1000 of GDP, so that's $3340 GDP. I did the math and it should be GDP/barrels/year (not day). It's fixed now. NJGW (talk) 06:17, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Peak oil

NPOV, please. The list of recent supergiants *were* discovered. Just because they're not producing yet doesn't mean they didn't happen. If you want a particular cutoff, name it. Want big fields found by gravimetric or seismic means that haven't been drilled yet? Want big fields that have been drilled and verified, but no production schedule yet? Want big fields that are under production, but aren't producing yet? Want big fields that just went online? Name your timeperiod and I'll list supergiants from them, but one moves from the next moves to the next.

And no, it's not a straw man at all that the peak oilers have shown repeated incompetence in predicting peaks. They have. They've been doing it over and over since the 1800s, and especially recently.

In short: this isn't a page to promote peak oil. It's a page for a brief summary of the topic,and *not* a one-sided promotion. -- Rei (talk) 03:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

To put it another way: you can't say "there haven't been any recent finds", and then when someone points out recent finds, say "those finds haven't been developed yet." Well, *duh* -- they're recent. You can't have it both ways. -- Rei (talk) 03:23, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Are there supergiant fields that prevent a peak in production? Has there been a change in the trend of steadily decreasing discoveries since the 60s (ignoring any blips)? Has there been a significant change in our understanding of the earth's remaining reserves since the 60s? Discussing oil discoveries is a strawman argument against Peak oil because it doesn't invalidate the theory. It can only move the date a little.
And in any case, new discoveries were factored into the model to begin with. The peak was originally calculated based on the peak of discoveries. Keep in mind that the end of discoveries and the end of production are not at issue. There will be oil discovered and produced probably for as long as we look for it... but it won't be easy or cheap to retrieve, and eventually it won't be worth it. Take the Tupi in Brazil for example: it could hold as much as 12 billion barrels... or less than 6 months at current consumption rates... and hopefully it will be producing 1 million barrels a day by 2020!!![3]
The peak is entirely mobile. If the current gas prices force people to drive less, the peak moves. For any alternative to oil that comes on-line, the peak moves. NJGW (talk) 03:44, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
"Are there supergiant fields that present a peak in production? Has there been a change in the trend of steadily decreasing discoveries since the 60s (ignoring any blips)?" Absolutely. You're reverting work without bothering to check the sizes of the reserves of the supergiants found? All of those fields were found in the past decade. Jack 2 is 3-15B. Azadegan, 42B. Carioca/Sugar loaf, 25-40B. Ferdows/Mounds/Zagheh, 38B. Tahe, 29B. Jidong Nanpu, 7.5B, with 146B estimated for all of Bohai Bay. Kashagan, 9-13B. Oh, and if you want to count reserve growth, nothing's a better example than the Bakken, which multiple studies have shown has several hundred billion (the recovery % is still unknown, and predictions range from a couple percent to 50%; Elm Coulee has done great, mind you) Now, these are just newly discovered fields that have been *drilled*. Ones where gravimetric and/or seismic readings say there's tons of oil? Greenland, dozens of billions. Falklands, 60B. Iraq, ~100B. Indonesia (off the coast of Aech -- they found the spot when studying the earthquake that lead to the tsunami), 107-320B. Refs available on request.
About supergiants: "As is true for any oilfield, the volume of economically-sensible extractable crude is likely to be significantly less than its estimated total reserves. For example, the amount of recoverable crude in the Kashagan field is estimated at 7-9 billion barrels, whereas Iran's Azadegan oilfield, with estimated reserves of 26 billion barrels, has only about 9 billion recoverable barrels." [4]
Azadegan will peak at 400,000 b/d; Sugarloaf seems very problematic, as are Tupi and Jupiter [5], and all 3 together they amount to almost a year of oil IF it all gets pumped out (but see above, plus pumping won't start for another 10 years); These were the first 4 in alphabetical order. I don't have all night to show that they all have problems. The fact that you think the peak can disappear shows you don't fully understand peak oil. NJGW (talk) 04:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
"As is true for any oilfield, the volume of economically-sensible extractable crude is likely to be significantly less than its estimated total reserves" At the same time, more fields than not are initially *underestimated*, as was stated. Furthermore, as tech advances, the estimated recoverable percentage *almost always* rises. For example, the Bakken was initially essentially unrecoverale. That was before horizontal drilling, solvent injection, and proppant injection.
Yes, some supergiants are slow. Others are fast. Overall, it roughly averages out. The slower ones don't help as much off the bat but keep helping long into the future. Azadegan would continue producing for half a century. "but see above, plus pumping won't start for another 10 years" -- You really seem to have trouble with the concept that our current oil is based on the investments from the 90s and earlier, don't you? No, the Brazilian reserves are not "problematic"; they just don't have all the data yet. Once again, you did want *new* finds, right? If you want older finds (where we have more data), by all means, say so!
"It can only move the date a little." Hundreds of billions of barrels don't just move the date "a little". And we're just talking supergiants here, ignoring all other field discoveries and field growth with continued expansion (something a lot of peakers like to pretend never happens, despite the fact that the majority of the world's biggest fields -- yes, Ghawar, too -- have grown since their original estimates thanks to continued exploration around the field). Even then, that's where syncrude comes in. And ultimately, syncrude is only limited by "energy", from any source.
Lear it, live it, love it, [6]. NJGW (talk) 04:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Or, perhaps, call it what it is.. My favorite part about that graph that gets passed around? That they keep changing the scale bar on the left hand side  ;) -- Rei (talk) 05:21, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
And what exactly are the expected flow rates of all those wells? How much time does it all add up to? I'd like some industry analysis, not your misreading of the recoverable amounts. NJGW (talk) 05:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay, for hopefully what will be the last time, do you want data on *new discoveries* or not? If your answer is "no", then I'll give you data on older supergiants. If your answer is "yes", don't expect every last bit of information to be known about them. You're asking for the impossible -- new discoveries that we already know everything about them. -- Rei (talk) 05:40, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Hey man, you're the one that claims to know what they'll do. NJGW (talk) 05:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Look, I'm asking you to *make up your mind*. You can't say "there are few new discoveries", and then when some are pointed out to you, say "we don't know enough about them", then refuse to consider them, and then go back to your original "there are few new discoveries" line of argument. Can you really not see that you're defining yourself into a circle? -- Rei (talk) 06:29, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
I never said either of those things. You put them both in my mouth (well, actually you're the one that said we don't know enough about them). NJGW (talk) 06:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
It's paraphrasing. You keep making claims that oil discoveries have been declining (that's what the revert war you've been waging is all about, in case you forgot), and in response to my counterarguments, you've been repeatedly refusing to consider them or trying to downplay them with arguments that we don't know enough (asking about flow rates, questioning how good the data on them is, etc). Don't pretend that you haven't been doing that  :P -- Rei (talk) 06:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
":And in any case, new discoveries were factored into the model to begin with. The peak was originally calculated based on the peak of discoveries." You apparently believe in the theory so strongly that you felt fit to delete a referenced statistic that the US is producing 1.7 times what the Hubbert Peak says we should be producing right now. Heck, let's go even worse and look at multipeak countries (which flatly contradict the theory) like Canada, shall we?
Hubbert's 1956 numbers didn't include Alaska. Please forgive his 1956 numbers for not being entirely correct about production 53 years later (while you ignore that the theory still holds). NJGW (talk) 04:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Um, if the theory doesn't hold, then you can't say the theory holds, quite obviously. Explain Canada. Explain Venezuela (even *with* their oil strike and incompetent management). The theory only holds with roughly constant prices and no advancing technology. -- Rei (talk) 05:21, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Is false logic all you've got? The theory holds. It's like asking how the Yankees will do in 50 years. Probably pretty good, but hard to say for sure. Hubbert got it way better 50 years ago than anybody could predict how the Yankees will do this season. NJGW (talk) 05:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
The Hubbert peak theory has absolutely no accounting for shapes other than a curve. Other shapes mean that there are *defects in the theory*, plain and simple. In the case of Canada, the defect in the theory is the one that gets cited in *every last argument* about it -- that it doesn't account for increasing prices or advancing technology putting harder to recover reserves into play. You refuse to acknowledge this. -- Rei (talk) 05:40, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Now you're playing with definitions. Hubbert was calculating conventional crude. Canada peaked on crude and is now producing from unconventional sources. Two different beasts, but both will have their peaks. NJGW (talk) 05:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Then you have a ton of correction to do on the Hubbert peak page, now don't you? By the way -- Orinoco Belt crude is conventional (just ultra-heavy), so try again. -- Rei (talk) 06:29, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Not really. A peak is possible for any finite resource, you just have to define which one you're talking about. NJGW (talk) 06:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Energy. Because, thanks to Fischer-Tropsch and Sabatier, that's what it'd take. Yes, the universe will eventually die of heat death, so peak energy will happen *eventually*, but I don't think the proponents of the theory mean tens or hundreds of billions of years of a wait for the peak. Pretending like peak oil is somehow inherently inevitable (apart from "end of the universe") is not a tenable position, and it's the position you've been taking. -- Rei (talk) 06:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
"There will be oil discovered and produced probably for as long as we look for it... but it won't be easy or cheap to retrieve, and eventually it won't be worth it." That violates basic economics. If people are paying for it, it's always worth it. Bitumen wasn't worth it when we could produce oil for $5 a barrel, as it costs $10-$30. Now that oil is >$100/barrel, bitumen is an utter bananza, and utterly predictably, money is pouring in. The same applies to Venezuelan ultra-heavy crude from the Orinoco Belt. Not good enough? Shale is $20-$40 with modern techniques. Coal liquefaction is similar. The Bakken is currently $50/barrel, although seems likely to drop as more experience is gained in drilling it. Greenland oil is also expected at $50/barrel. You realize what this means, right? If you can make something for $50 (plus refining, distribution, etc) and sell it for $100, that's a huge bonanza. It's most definitely "worth it". These sorts of sources are utterly monstrous. And, worst case, there's outright Fischer-Tropsh with waste CO2 and electrolysis hydrogen (don't have any prices offhand, but I'd wager it's more than $50 a barrel but under $100/barrel). Oh, and GTL, thermal depolymerization, "green gasoline" from biomass waste... geez, I could go on all day  :P
There comes a time when even Americans will stop buying gas. It happened in the early 80s and it will happen again. I heard a story on the radio this week about people in LA taking the bus!!! NJGW (talk) 04:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, then, if it's completely voluntary, what's the problem? The world didn't fall apart in the 80s. It won't fall apart if people take the bus. And that's hardly the only way demand can reduce. People invested in more capacity from less convenient sources, and prices stayed low through the 90s (when losses from betting on high prices led to a fear of new investments in more expensive resources -- a fear we've been paying for lately). -- Rei (talk) 05:21, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Why do you keep thinking this is about running out of oil or the world falling apart. This is about the peak in production capacity. I've seen lots of people make these same mistakes, but you have to separate the concepts. The peak can move, nobody is debating that. That said, the peak won't go away, no matter how hard you tap your heels together. NJGW (talk) 05:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Then why'd you even bring up the aspect of people stopping buying gas? And I'm sorry if you don't like the Fischer-Tropsch and Sabatier reactions, but you can't wish them away. -- Rei (talk) 05:40, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Like I said above, the peak IS mobile, and that's not in question. The timing is the only thing in question. It sounds like you have a bone to pick with Oil depletion, not with Peak oil. Please figure out the difference. NJGW (talk) 05:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Are you honestly trying to argue for peak oil without oil depletion? What's your argument -- population decline? -- Rei (talk) 06:29, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
No, I'm hoping one day you'll see they are not the same thing though. Compare: gas-tank-half-full and gas-tank-empty. NJGW (talk) 06:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
You've been saying that the timing is the only thing in question as though it's inevitable. I'm pointing out that we can make oil simply from *energy* and the combustion products of oil (water and CO2); you don't have to have any sort of fossil reserves. Hence, if you want to continue claiming an inevitable peak, your argument must change to "there's something about said processes that means it inevitably must peak as well". -- Rei (talk) 06:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
"and hopefully it will be producing 1 million barrels a day by 2020!!" I really hope that it's not just now news to you that today's oil comes from investment made in the 1990s or earlier. Oil is all about forecasting market conditions a decade in advance, to predict how expensive of oil sources you're willing to develop. If you bet on expensive sources and prices are low (as happened to a lot of people in the 1970s before the collapse in the 1980s), you lose a fortune. Hence, it's safer for them to bet conservatively and risk high prices. For example, to be blunt, Mexico is screwed. For decades they've used PEMEX as their own ATM, using it to fund the country while hardly putting anything into further development. They have Chicontepec, which is much bigger than Cantarell, but the capital costs and time needed to develop it are huge (the profit would be even bigger,mind you). So, they just pretended that Cantarell would keep producing forever. Now they're having to play catchup, and they have no choice but to accept both the declining revenue *and* the fact that they have to put more into development for at least a decade or so. On the opposite side of the spectrum is Brazil, which dedicated significant resources to a comprehensive project of developing not only alternative fuels, but developing more expensive fields (betting, successfully, on higher prices) and launching an extensive exploration program that just landed them some huge payoffs. Perhaps even OPEC membership. -- Rei (talk) 04:32, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Reality check: You're possibly dreaming in Technicolor. Of course they're going to find a big discovery every so often, but its the sheer volume on new discoveries required that is the problem. If you don't find a supergiant field every so often, you're going to be in trouble very quickly because the existing supergiants are badly depleted and falling rapidly in production. The peak of oil discoveries was in the 1960's, when something like half a trillion barrels of oil was found, and has declined in every decade since. During the 1980's, the consumption of oil began to exceed the discovery rate, and has continued to do so ever since. The current rate of consumption is 30 billion barrels per year, or 300 billion barrels per decade. So, you have to find 300 billion barrels of oil per decade to keep up. If the rate of consumption keeps increasing, so does the rate of discovery needed to maintain supply. If you don't keep up, sooner or later it's crunch time. Judging by the oil price increases in recent years, it's getting to be crunch time. And as for these new discoveries, first, you have to recognize the difference between oil-in-place and recoverable oil. It's not much use if you can't get it out of the ground. And second, the new fields are very technically challenging. For instance, the old Cantarell field was in 40 metres of water. These new Brazilian finds are under something like 2000 metres. It costs $250 million to drill one well. As one oil executive said, deep offshore drilling is like a NASA space project, but under more pressure. And third, you have to realize that a lot of people are just blowing smoke in the interests of pumping the price of their favorite stock, and a lot of this oil is really hot air. Or as the Brazilian authority who mentioned the 33 billion barrels said after the lawyers talked to him, "I did not make an announcement, nor did I use the word 'announcement'". RockyMtnGuy (talk) 04:54, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Did you read the list of supergiants? That's, what, one a year? In new supergiants alone, let alone smaller fields and field expansions? And speaking of field expansions, some have been monstrous, like the Bakken. And no, you *don't* have to find new fields fast enough to keep up, as previously stated, thanks to Fischer-Tropsch and Sabatier synthesis, either from "easy" feedstocks (coal gas, wood gas, etc) or even outright CO/CO2 plus H2 from electrolysis. And, of course, there's ultra-heavy crude, bitumen, shale, thermal depolyermization, and half a million other things whose reserves are utterly monstrous. But because we can make oil from any form of syngas, it is *not finite*, any more than energy itself is. "Judging from the price increase" -- you do realize that the largest component of the price increase is the falling dollar, right? And that hedging on the falling dollar is a good chunk of the rest. As for the cost to drill deepwater wells, deepwater rigs about $100-200k/day. That means a mere 1-2kbpd is needed to be profitable; that's nothing (your typical Cantarell well yielded 20kbpd, and the deeper the water, the more resources you put into increasing well yield to reduce the required number of wells). As for Petrobras, they're more state oil company than public (55/45 if I remember the shares right). Iran's supergiant finds were from state oil companies. So were China's. The Petrobras exec was, by his own admission, just summing up this article. Yes, it's a new find. Yes, there's always a lot of uncertainty with new finds. If you can't deal with that, then *don't ask for people to report new finds*, because it's pretty much guaranteed; ask for finds from a decade or more ago. Far more often than not, however, the history of oil exploration is one of *underestimates* -- underestimating OOIP, underestimating recovery rates, etc. The consequence of this, by the way, is "backdating" the increased finds and recovery percents, which *automatically* gives you a distorted graph of when oil was found. When you look at the graphs peakers throw around, virtually none of the supergiants I listed are on there, because they're not yet "proven" reserves. Ten years in the future, these fields will be spiking up at their original discovery dates, but the finds from the new dates, ten years in the future, will all look small, and the peakers will then complain that, "see, we're not finding as much oil as we did ten years ago!". 20 years in the future, when more blocks drilled around Tupi, Jupiter, Carioca/Sugar Loaf, Jack 2, Ferdows/Mounds/Zagheh, Azadegan, West Kamchatka, Tahe, Bohai Bay, and Kashagan yield further results, expanding the known extent of the oil-bearing strata as almost invariably happens, this will all get credited back to the original discovery date. The finds from the '10s will then look smaller than the finds from the '00s, and the peakers will talk about how "oil has declined from the '00s to the '10s to the 20s". 30 years in the future, when new enhanced oil recovery techniques increase the yield, that too will get backdated and the peakers will talk about the decline from the '00s to the '10s to the '20s to the '30s". It's a patently ridiculous line of argument, but it's one I've watched them make over and over.
Oh, and while we're at it: world oil output is expected to increase to 100mbpd by 2017. Nah -- it's a conspiracy, right? -- Rei (talk) 16:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I did read the list of "supergiants", and I noted that they basically represent a decade of discoveries, not a year. And some of them are not really "fields", they are better described as "trends" or "basins" or whatever. The reason they are not called "proven" reserves hearkens back to the discussion of "proven" (90% probability) versus "probable" (50%) versus "possible" (10%). A lot of these new discoveries fall into the "possible" (P10) category, and people have to realize is that only about 10% of these discoveries turn out to be as big as advertised. In the U.S. companies are legally required to report reserves at the P90 level, but in many countries they use P50, and in some they are likely P10. Unlike the U.S., they don't throw oil executives in jail for exaggerating reserves.
As for the exotic methods of producing oil, such as the Fischer-Tropsch method, all I can say is that you can turn anything into oil given enough time and enough money. The problem is that you probably don't have as much time or money as some people I know, so they will be driving long after you are reduced to walking everywhere you go. You will always be able to buy as much oil as you can afford, but that may not be very much.
The real problem is that the world is burning through in excess of 30 billion barrels of oil per year, which is 300 billion barrels per decade. In order to maintain production, they have to find 300 billion barrels of oil per decade, or eventually production rates will start to decline. As world oil consumption increases, the discovery rate must also increase to prevent a production decline, and the reality since the 1960's has been quite the reverse. Discoveries have decreased every decade.
The trouble I have always had with the Hubbert Peak theory is that it really doesn't predict anything. If there is a peak, you will see it first in your rear-view mirror - you will know it is a peak 10 years or so after it has passed. However, the way things are currently going, I would check your rear-view mirror regularly. There's a real chance you may see the world oil peak looming behind you in a decade or so. At that point you will realize it would have been a good idea to buy a more fuel efficient car. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 07:45, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
"One a year" means "one a year", not "all of them in one year". You misread what I wrote.
Sorry, I guess I did. I thought you were talking about a LOT of oil. One new supergiant field a year isn't enough. You have to replace 30 billion barrels a year of production, and one supergiant doesn't come close.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 05:34, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Bohai Bay is a trend/basin; Jidong Nanpu is a field, and it's still a supergiant. Of course, is the distinction really all that important? Bohai Bay still has almost 200B of oil in it. Yes, it's not proven yet, but for, what,the fifth time on this thread, you can't ask for *new* discoveries *and* expect them to be proven at the same time. Also, for about the fifth time on this thread, initial estimates are more often *too low*; look through the world's largest oil fields and compare the original reported discovery sizes with what has been ultimately *produced* from them.
According to the Energy Information Administration: Some independent analysts estimate that the Bohai Bay area holds more than 1.5 billion barrels of recoverable oil reserves. Now, THAT number will probably increase with more drilling. Your number of 200 billion barrels (I have no idea where you got it) will probably turn out to be hot air. And the real problem with China is that it has a huge and growing market for oil. Its consumption is increasing rapidly while its production is rising slowly. Prior to 1994 it was a next oil exporter, now it imports nearly half its consumption of 2.7 billion barrels per year. According to the EIA, including Bohai Bay, China has 18.3 billion barrels of proven reserves, which at a production rate 1.4 billion barrels per year, works out to a 13 year supply of oil. And while Bohai Bay is increasing in production, their biggest oil field, Daqing (which produces 1/4 of their oil) is in long-term decline. So they have to drill fast to keep production from falling.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 05:34, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
"The problem is that you probably don't have as much time or money". You have sixty-five trillion dollars in the world economy going to whatever industry offers the best return, and you're going to say there's not enough money? The more oil costs, the more profit there is, so the more people want to invest; this is basic economics here. As for "time", you'd need a dramatic loss of all of the world's oil within the 5-10 years it takes to bring new facilities online, which is patently ridiculous. If even the loss of Cantarell only leads to a slow decline in Mexico's total oil production, how can you expect this to happen to the *whole world*? Just *ignoring* all of the new capacity coming online.
Well, "a dramatic loss..within 5-10 years" is what we're looking at here. According to the EIA, Mexico’s reserves/production ratio fell from 20 years in 2002 to 10 years in 2006. In other word's, Mexico's oil industry is in freefall. The Cantarell field, which produces 55% of the country's oil, has been showing decline rates of 25% per year. While Mexico does have the Chincotepec field, which was found decades ago, it doesn't have the money or the technological expertise to develop it, so I would expect Mexico to cease exporting oil within a few years. Saudi Arabia's oil fields are showing an 8% annual rate of decline, and analysts are starting to wonder whether their Ghawar field, the biggest in the world, isn't in serious trouble due to water invasion. Where is all this Saudi oil they promised us? Russian oil executives recently admitted that they can't keep up production rates much longer, the North Sea is already in steep decline, and Alaska production is a quarter of what it was when it first came on line. So, there are a lot of major producers with major production problems, and not a lot of new oil coming on in the next decade. That's why oil passed $133/barrel today.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 05:34, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
"they have to find 300 billion barrels of oil per decade" -- you mean you don't want to consider the couple hundred billion from bitumen, a couple trillion from coal and shale, a couple hundred billion from enhanced oil recovery in the US alone? Then what about the almost 300B in recoverable oil from supergiants and trends alone per decade (with no signs of stopping -- see minimally-explored Iraq, off the coast of Aech, Greenland and the rest of the Arctic, off the Falklands, and so on)?
Canada's bitumen reserves, which are about as big as the world's conventional oil reserves, have been known for over 100 years. A successful production method was patented in the 1920's, the first commercial operation opened during the 1960's. It's just that suddenly THIS decade, the rest of the world woke up and realized it was there. So, it's not new, it just never attracted attention before. That was because, previously, there was lots of conventional oil in the world, and now there isn't. So, bitumen is the only game in town. The only problem is that Canada is not going to replace the oil production of the rest of the world. There's not enough people in Canada to build the plants, there's not enough natural gas to fuel them, there's not enough water to run the separation processes, and they aren't keen on excavating an area of forest the size of Florida for all the mines. And frankly, Canada doesn't need that much money, so they'll probably put a limit on production rates and stretch it out for a couple of leisurely centuries. Oil shale is even worse in terms of scale, and nobody has invented a practical production method yet, so there needs to be several decades of research done before they get a handle on how to do it. As for drilling in the Arctic - been there, done that. I worked for a company that ran a fleet of 23 ships in the Arctic. They drilled a lot of wells, found a lot of natural gas and a little bit of oil. However, not enough oil, so they abandoned all the wells, sold all the ships, and wrote it all off. Just because somebody thinks there SHOULD be oil somewhere, doesn't mean there IS. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 05:34, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Evidence your claim that these reserve numbers are p10. I'm pretty sure most of them are p50; I can verify if you want. And remember -- p50 is just as likely to have *more* as *less*. -- Rei (talk) 18:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, some of the are P90, some of them are P50, and some are P10. You aren't distinguishing between them. You need to know which is which before you can evaluate a discovery. And a lot of them are not even P10, they're mostly just hot air.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 05:34, 22 May 2008 (UTC)