Well, well, well–this story from the Gray Lady, which hates the Canadian “tar sands“:
New Fields May Propel Americas to Top of Oil Companies’ Lists
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil has begun building its first nuclear submarine to protect its vast, new offshore oil discoveries. Colombia’s oil production is climbing so fast that it is closing in on Algeria’s and could hit Libya’s prewar levels in a few years. ExxonMobil is striking new deals in Argentina, which recently heralded its biggest oil discovery since the 1980s.
Up and down the Americas, it is a similar story: a Chinese-built rig is preparing to drill in Cuban waters; a Canadian official has suggested that unemployed Americans could move north to help fill tens of thousands of new jobs in Canada’s expanding oil sands; and one of the hemisphere’s hottest new oil pursuits is actually in the United States, at a shale formation in North Dakota’s prairie that is producing 400,000 barrels of oil a day and is part of a broader shift that could ease American dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
For the first time in decades, the emerging prize of global energy may be the Americas…
Meanwhile Bret Stephens of the Wall St. Journal looks across the sea with a rather dystopian lens:
What Comes After ‘Europe’?
The riots of Athens will become those of Milan, Madrid and Marseilles. Border checkpoints will return. Currencies will be resurrected, then devalued…
Gray Lady/WSJ predate:
Frack Whom?
The Federal government is going to impose
a 40% tax on Aspirin.
Why, you ask?
Well, primarily because it’s white and it works.
“…a Canadian official has suggested that unemployed Americans could move north to help fill tens of thousands of new jobs in Canada’s…..”
Now how daft is that?
These unemployed American’s are not the people you want working in Canada. To begin with they will drive down labour market wages (which I suspect is the real motive of the comment). Secondly if there are reasonably skilled oilfield people in the US – they have jobs. The rest are the undesirable leftovers. So they are looking for jobs for California’s immigrant population because California can’t sustain them any longer or Detroit’s food stamp lines.
As far as the Brazilian oil fields, like any countries other than white western ones, white people need not apply for jobs unless they are specifically technical or managerial enough that the local population can’t handle it. Even then concessions are made, which is one of the reasons most of these offshore operations in various foreign countries are grossly over budget with much higher personal injury and lost time accident rates.
Don’t ever bring that here.
I like the comments following the NYT article – more people than expected realize that oil production in North and South America is a good thing. Sure, there are still those who are outraged and hysterical about the Alberta Deathsands (I read the emerging name in G&M comments)and Bakken oilfield fracking but they are losing ground to the reality-based community. It is not quite “Drill,Baby,Drill” but “Drill More but Drill Responsibly”.
Nuke sub?
Because “how much does Soros stand to lose if those fields fall to someone else?”
And here our DE’s aren’t fit to guard the Ocean Ranger…
Canada better to sell Tar sands
as amount buitnmen is high in tar sands
to sell it as Paving asphalt for road and roofing
or spray tar for roof and road and so many other purposes and make more money out of it and some extraction of oil only sell to US.
We could also use it to patch our canoes filled with Beaver pelts…just like Peter Pond.
http://www.google.ca/#hl=en&sa=X&ei=fe54TrLrJsbE0AGd2_WDDA&ved=0CDgQvwUoAQ&q=tar+sands+paving+asphalt&spell=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=ee23ccb32b96d44c&biw=1024&bih=571
“…a broader shift that could ease American dependence on Middle Eastern oil.”
When will the parrots stop repeating this tired old myth? Europe is dependent.
So true, 2Kevin.
We have enough oil and gas in Canada and the U.S. to last us centuries if only we could sweep away the radical environmentalist obstruction that prevents us from harvesting it.
Six paragraphs, Eight uses of the phrase “tar sands” (nine with the headline). What is it do you think they’re trying to say? – I mean other than they have no fracking idea what they’re talking about.
one of the comments to the “after europe” article mentions the new global economy, maybe I’ve missed something but to me the term is nothing more than a leftist missive to blame others for internal problems. After all, since when, in the last 500 years has the economy not been global?
While lights go on in Asia & other places, they go out in America, in Europe.
That Saudis are now threatening (winning too) Canada is a hallmark of the Change that will be coming to them. After all, before oil they wondered the desert. After oil all they will have is sand. Tie to call their bluff. Time to stop buying our own executioners. Now they want a World Empire.
Revnant Dream >
So true for the entire global economy!
Everything considered “modern” civilized abroad is either an original or a mimic of western ingenuity and style. They very well enjoy our material goods and technologies, simply not our ideologies of individual freedom & liberty.
All modern societies from Beijing to Dubai rely on western commerce and technology to maintain the lifestyles they have become accustomed too. We’ve never been forced to war or needed to accept them into our societies in vast numbers to influence their governments or create fair trade agreements.
We have instead done everything backwards by filling our own societies with anti western values, all the while giving away our industries, technologies, and commerce. In other words we have given away all of our future wealth to totalitarian societies and filled our own with poverty, decay and eventual collapse. China, India, Russia etcetera who will one day dominate the global landscape will not be as kind to us as we were to them, too be sure. In fact we will be in their way, and considered squatting on their future resources.
After oil all they will have is sand
Don’t forget the goats and camels.
thats been their mainstay for thousands of years.
Without our technology, in a decade, it would Look like we were never there.
It’s nice to see these fields finally being exploited, but these are deposits we’ve known about for a long time, and don’t change the overall picture much. Even including the various oil sands and shales in the Americas, the Middle East still holds about 50% of the worlds reserve of oil.
Different peak-oil calculations make different assumptions, but even the most optimistic numbers show the peak hitting around 20-30 years from now. The opening of new wells is largely irrelevant because the projections depend heavily on rise in demand (especially in the developing nations) – at best you might push back the peak another decade. The only times when demand has declined so far is when new efficiency mandates were implemented, and when bio-fuels started entering mainstream use.
If you don’t understand these things, you really haven’t studied the subject well enough to say anything intelligent on the matter. There are only two things that could make a significant difference at this point – a massive, world-wide decrease in the human population, or the discovery of new technologies which can effectively replace fossil fuels. Unless you’d like to see global warfare, or are happy to wait around and hope for a global epidemic, I’d suggest you put less effort into waiving your pom-poms, and start lobbying for increased funding in fusion research, renewables, and battery/ultra-cap technology.
Alex you are full of it.
We have several centuries worth of both oil and gas reserves. Technology has already created regional gluts of NG and it is vey unlikely that much of the world will ever see NG prices above 6$ for any extended period for the rest of THIS CENTURY. A similar phenomenon is happening in oil production as well as new tech driving down the cost of heavy oil and oilsands production costs and delivery times.
While the new oil supplies come on line NG will increasingly supplant oil as a transport fuel – first in local large vehicles and latterly in long distance machines and personal vehicles.
Peak oil is a myth. Less than five percent of the known reserves have been used and there are likely two to three times more in unknown reserves. We will have moved on to other energy options – in the next century – long before we abandon oil and NG due to lack of economic supply.
To quote the brilliant sheik Yemeni: “the stone age did not end because we ran out of stones”
“Less than five percent of the known reserves have been used and there are likely two to three times more in unknown reserves.”
lol. I see basic math still isn’t in fashion around here.
Alex
you twit, there are NEW discoveries every damn day lately
even Isreal now is looking at a future of selfsufficiency in NG
and on top of new discoveries there are new technologies happening every day, along with more effective recycling,
Gord….be nice to Alex…after all.
, it probably gets a subsisdy from the gubermint to spew its renewable crap(or its Mom feeds it in the basement),OR its Duhton McSquishy in disguise!
I hate to sound like I’m defending “alex” because his arguments are normally based on that, having an argument for the sake of argument. BUT oil reserves are declining worldwide and new discoveries fewer and further between.
A simple way to understand this is the billions of additional dollars put into deep water research and development over land or shallow water development. The only reason so much investment is made these days is because new land discoveries are fewer, and old fields are dwindling to abandonments.
With the Liberal dream of putting every Chinaman and Indian in a gas or coal heated McMansion with 2 SUV’s and an RV, the remaining oil reserves are depleting at exponential rates. Sorry but thems the facts. When it will reach a point that the average person can’t afford to put fuel in their car is up for speculation, but it will come most probably sooner than most people want to believe.
As an example alex: the us now has between 150’to 250 years of Proven or near proven NG reserves but only 15% of the prospective land has been surveyed.
Another:
Offshore eastern Newfoundland the orphan basin has between 4 and 16 billion bbls of reserves no one knows for sure (or isn’t telling – there was a well drilled this spring).
Offshore Labrador it’s anyone’s guess how much NG is there – it’s certainly in the quads maybe the tens of quads. Almost no drilling has been done but what has been drilled tested reserves into the trillions based on 1967 technology. This past summer and now fall seismic is being run. (and one way to avoid ice and iceberg issues is to drill out horizontally from shore – something unthinkable twenty years ago. (the us consumes a little over 25 tcf/yr)
So of what we know exists we have consumed 5, maybe ten percent of since the late 1800s, what we don’t know maybe two to three times that of what we do know even conservatively speaking.
Peak oil my azz…
C’mon up to the oilsands!! Employment for a decade, at least.
Make sure you can pass a drug test, oh and get up mondays to get to work. First nations take note….
Knight99: that is simply untrue. Reserves are vast and more is being discovered becoming commercially viable (see fracking and sagd Thai etc etc) than is being consumed.
The pinch is in the rate at which new production is coming online as old production declines. This is due to two factors one large and one small. The large issue is political – a very large portion of the near-production ready reserves are In The hands of government controlled entities which are either very poor at develoPing them or are deliberately sitting on them (or both). The small issue is that there is a growing shortage of skilled workers to help bring the new supplies online – this is Alberta and the ROCs biggest impediment.
In time new production coming online will accelerate – just look at what’s happening in new NG production – and likely catch up to the deletion rate and when it does the price willcollapse (as it always has/does). It is worth noting that the last time that happened the soviet bloc was driven into bankruptcy. The next time it will be most of the extremist members of OPEC.
In sum: it is not the lack of reserves that is causing prices to remain high and may even go higher – it’s the human-caused barriers to their utilization.
“As an example alex: the us now has between 150’to 250 years of Proven or near proven NG reserves but only 15% of the prospective land has been surveyed.”
Which is completely irrelevant to the question of peak oil. You may as well be talking about the number of potatoes grown every year. Get it through your head – Peak Oil is Peak Oil, not Peak Oil and Gas.
Furthermore, natural gas is not a replacement for crude. You could theoretically convert it to gasoline, but the cost of the process would make electric cars look like a bargain-basement special in comparison. Alternately, you could convert existing cars to run on natural gas, but you’d also have to convert the fuel delivery infrastructure, all of which costs lots and lots of money; in return your 150-200 years of supply would turn into 75-150 years because you’d now be consuming at rate that’s double current demand. If we assume a (conservative) 5% annual growth in consumption, it would work out to 30-40 years (assuming your figures are correct, even though you’re obviously doubling the real estimates). So we spend trillions overhauling the whole worlds transportation model, and in return we get, as a best-case-scenario, an extra 4 decades to waste more hydrocarbons. Awesome. Got any more bright ideas?
“Offshore eastern Newfoundland the orphan basin has between 4 and 16 billion bbls of reserves no one knows for sure (or isn’t telling – there was a well drilled this spring). ”
The equivalent of between 0.5 and 2 years consumption by the US at current levels, or between 1 and 6 months at current global consumption levels (though, again, you’re doubling the legitimate figures, but I’ll play with your numbers because it makes you look even more silly).
Again, largely irrelevant when discussing peak oil. It’d be a nice boost for the Canadian economy, and I’m all for getting it out into the market, but if you think it will make any difference in staving off peak-oil, you’re fooling yourself. It’s like 5 men in the middle of a desert, carrying 5 bottle of water each, getting excited that they just found a half-full shot-glass. Ridiculous.
“So of what we know exists we have consumed 5, maybe ten percent of since the late 1800s, what we don’t know maybe two to three times that of what we do know even conservatively speaking. Peak oil my azz…”
Hilarious 🙂 What corner of your “azz” did you get those figures from?
Hrm. Change that 75-150 to 75-100, and 30-40 to 30-35. Always miss little stuff when doing off-the-cuff calculations. Though, in this case, it was an error in your favor.
You know Alex, your first post at 8:31 started out fairly enlightening (assuming your facts were accurate and I would like to think you tried to make sure they were). However, after 2 paragraphs of civilized presentation of ideas, you managed to completely blow any credibility that you may have attained to that point by speaking like a pompous ass in the 3rd paragraph.
I’m assuming you are fairly young – under or around 30 – because you remind me of myself at that age. By 35 or 40, I had finally realized that I didn’t know everything – and not everything I read was gospel. I also learned to temper my enthusiasm and arrogance so that I didn’t appear to others as a, well, pompous ass. You would do well to invest in some humility and discretion.
Alex:
Oil and gas are both fossil fuels as is coal. Their usage overlaps – NG and coal for electricity, ng and oil for transport etc. So you have to include both oil and gas in the supply discussion – already the transportation fleet is being converted more an more to NG.
Fully proven Oil reserves are north 1.5 trillion bbls. near-proven is probably 3 times that amount and unproven/undiscovered is likely ten times that. The world has only consumed 1.2 trillion since colonel drake started the ball rolling. We have centuries of reserves. the peak we are seeing is in price, not in rate of supply at least not in the hundred or more years.
As to where i get my figures.. there are lots of others who are versed in oil and gas reserves who read this site who likely can back me up.
but here’s the proven reserves:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil_reserves
that does not include fracking and new oilsands technology – two things that will likely more than add double to that current number in less than 5 years.
an addendum to my last post:
case inpoint – in 2009 venezuela had 97.7 billion bbls of proven reserves. by late 2010 that number had been revised to 296.5 billion – a 15% increase in global proven reserves – making it country with the largest proven reserves in the world.
that does not include fracking and new oilsands technology – two things that will likely more than add double to that current number in less than 5 years.
~Gord Tulk
I used to work for a medium large oil company in Calgary which is in the process of pulling up stakes and moving it’s head office to Pennsylvania over the next 3 years.
Why?
Because they have a new horizontal drilling technique that will bring new life to all those old wells that played out in the early-mid 20th century, permits already included, that they bought up in Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Texas which they will make a huge profit from with the new technology.
As you might guess, I bought a few of their shares a couple of years back and buy some more every time the market swings low.
I’m gonna do nicely betting against Obama, the socialists, and the environmentalists.
Brian:
“You know Alex, your first post at 8:31 started out fairly enlightening … however, after 2 paragraphs of civilized presentation of ideas, you managed to completely blow any credibility that you may have attained to that point by speaking like a pompous ass in the 3rd paragraph.”
Thanks 🙂 If I come across as a pompous ass to people who are anti-intellectual, I know I’m doing something right!
“I’m assuming you are fairly young – under or around 30 – because you remind me of myself at that age. By 35 or 40, I had finally realized that I didn’t know everything – and not everything I read was gospel.”
Wow, took you that long? I figured that out before I hit 20. Sorry – we’re not all equally inclined to rationality and skepticism.
So, tell me, you’re obviously not religious, you think all this AGW denial is hilarious, you don’t buy into the left-right political dichotomy, and you laugh your a$$ off at creationists and “ID” proponents, right?
“You would do well to invest in some humility and discretion.”
False humility is the refuge of the incompetent. I much prefer an honest debate. If someone has data that shows me to be in error, I will gladly concede the point and re-examine my conclusions. In the meantime I’m not going to pussy-foot around the beliefs of fools, nor am I going to take a passive role while constantly being assailed and insulted by others, so you and your ad-hom attacks can go to hell. If I thought you were being sincere I might be more kind, but quite frankly you come off as a pompous hypocrite.
Gord, I’ll get back to you when I have time – need to be up for work in less than 6 hours. Not getting much sleep tonight.
Alex:
You’re wasting your time. Right wingers, like economists, drink at the altar of infinite resources and eternal economic growth. On that respect they are just like left wingers, except the latter think taxpayers are the infinite resource.
Peak oil is misunderstood. It doesn’t mean we’re running out – far from it, it means production cannot be increased. In other words, it occurs when new production can no longer keep up with declining production in exploited fields. We are close to that point; we could be there now, or will be there in the next 20 years. The exact date is irrelevant; what is 20 years in history? Next to nothing.
Major producers like Norway, the UK and Mexico have seen their production decline sharply in the last 10 years. They hit their own Peak Oil. And no, you can’t blame greenies for that. They just pumped their fields dry. UK is now a net importer of oil. That’s reality.
The key in this is Energy Return On Energy Invested (EROEI). We don’t find Oklahoma-style gushers anymore. All the new discoveries have a much lower EROEI than oil found 20, 30 or 50 years ago. Shale oil, deep water oil, heavy oil and sand oil are abundant, but difficult and costly to produce. That’s why Alberta will never produce 12 million barrels a day, like Saudi Arabia, despite a 1.7 trillion barrel resource. There will be oil in the future, lots of it, but it will cost more, a lot more.
Peak oil is misunderstood. It doesn’t mean we’re running out – far from it, it means production cannot be increased.
Yeah well that’s only because of environmentalist obstruction.
Those days are quickly coming to a close.
Yeah well that’s only because of environmentalist obstruction.
A well worn myth. Please document exactly which oil, worldwide, is not produced because of greenies. I bet it is less than one percent of the total reserves.
Oh, I see. ANWR. About 10 billion barrels, which is about 16 weeks of worldwide oil use. Let’s drill, baby! Peak Oil is delayed, I’ll go buy that SUV now.
GreenNeck – environmental restrictions are a big factor – political factors are mch larger as i posted above.
But since you asked – both coasts of north america.
Several states are irrationally dragging their feet on frack and other technologies. here in AB enviro permits can take five or more years – in sk they can happen as quick as 6 weeks for the same tech (read: shell/petrobank project)much of colorado and California onshore. Just those areas could hold 150 billion plus barrels or more.
It isn’t just the all the already located oil that isn’t being harvested, it’s the refineries that aren’t being built that are a significant bottleneck.
Oz: true dat.
Gord Tulk >
I won’t waste time arguing the point, you have an opinion and I have mine. You may or may not work in the oilfield industry as I do, I know many prominent people in the field who have opposing views on the matter.
My opinions are based on over 30 years in the industry living in 6 separate oil producing countries on every continent except Antarctica. I have travelled and worked fields in too many countries to name in the capacity of technical service to my current position as an oil company rep. In those years I have physically witnessed the process of declining reserves and been involved with the development of new reserves.
Again not to belabour the point, you’re in good company with your opinions. Also bear in mind I’m not speaking about oil disappearing completely in the next few years. Of course deep water drilling, horizontal shale, Coal Bed Methane are breathing new life into the industry. “Oz” is 100% correct about refinery capacity and the inability to build new ones on western soil (I have a brother who is the Director of Trading at a major oil company who is directly affected by this and personally seeks out land potentials for new refineries). My point is, that it is not limitless as people will have you believe, the rise of the East and growing demand will drain reserves exponentially in the future. If you understand exponential growth, you will understand what this really means. Indeed we do have new discoveries to still be made, but the easy access discoveries are all but gone now.
The day will come that only the very wealthy and governments will be able to afford oil and gas, when that day happens is still anyone’s guess.
” … the rise of the East and growing demand will drain reserves exponentially in the future. If you understand exponential growth, you will understand what this really means.”
Bingo. This is what I’ve been trying to get across from the start. Unfortunately, most people just don’t understand large numbers. Innumeracy is the reason they reject these simple concepts.
Gord, there are two issues here:
1. Steadily rising demand means that a well which contains “2 years worth” of oil only puts off peak oil by a few months. The magic of exponential growth.
2. Steadily declining yields mean that new wells which are discovered cannot provide enough output even to replace wells which are going dry – let alone increase capacity to keep up with future demand.
If you don’t understand those two things – and it seems rather clear that you don’t – then you don’t have the basic knowledge to have a rational discussion on the subject. If you DID understand those concepts, it would be clear to you that the only way to significantly push-back the peak is to first stop the growth in demand, and eventually reverse the trend. You really need to wrap your head around the math, otherwise we’re both wasting our time here.
good post knight99.
Too many people don’t have enough experience in the oil industry to be able to make informed opinions about things like peak oil or oil and gas reserves, then to combine that with a blinkered opinion of economics or the environment will put them firmly in one camp or the other.
Alex spieling off his numbers that he presumably took several minutes to google if he hasn’t studied peak oil for the last 5 years. Either way, they are educated guesses at best. The recent shale gas and oil horizontal/multi-frac breakthrough has opened up a lot of opportunity that hitherto was never in the equations; that will add years to economical production.
Bottlenecks are refining capacity, qualified workers, and pipeline capacity, each of them takes several years to address or solve. Over-regulation and/or reaction to activists trying to stop pipelines or frac technology or development in wilderness increases bottlenecks.
Alex’s best point is that we should still develop alternatives, some day the demand for oil and gas will exceed the ability to produce enough to meet the demand.
I console myself that high prices will mean efficient development, and contribute to a desire for market-driven research in alternative energy sources – not any crony capitalist sly-and-dry $500 million boondoggle or similar scams like carbon-trading (ostensibly market driven, but actually institutionalized robbery of consumers).
Nothing about oil is very simple, unless your grandfather happened to homestead and got the mineral rights, which passed 100% to you, and now there are 4 wells producing 200 bopd each. Then it’s simple.
“Alex spieling off his numbers that he presumably took several minutes to google if he hasn’t studied peak oil for the last 5 years”
They’re not my numbers; I was working with the figures that the peak-oil-denier provided, and making conservative assumptions about annual growth in consumption. Pay attention! 🙂
“not any crony capitalist sly-and-dry $500 million boondoggle or similar scams like carbon-trading (ostensibly market driven, but actually institutionalized robbery of consumers).”
If they really want to implement some kind of emission taxes, get rid of the “trading” part. We didn’t have asbestos-credits, or CFC-credit-trading; if emissions are an issue, tax it, give the money to NASA and DARPA, and set them loose working on alternate fuels, batteries, and high-efficiency engines. Otherwise s**tcan the whole idea. The “carbon trading” nonsense seems to be mostly about guilt-tripping people, making money for scam-artists, and redistributing wealth to the third world.
Sexton Beetle >
Likewise, good post.
The term “supply and demand” cannot be understated here, as basic mathematics easily proves that demand will outstrip supply in coming years. This fact has everything to do with discovery/ production costs, restrictive regulations, refinery capacities, lack of skilled labour, poor infrastructure and maintenance costs, and most importantly exponential consumption.
The term “Peak Oil” is a red herring assuming that there is a physical volume of oil/ gas on planet earth to be exploited. Obviously there is a volumetric number of which no one knows for certain, as there are a certain physical number of grains of sand on the planet which can only be estimated. The point of course is cost verses the ability to find and produce that volume, verses the exponential growing demand of the volume. It crosses a line of affordability for average people at some point in time which cannot be disputed. (Unless the lefty dream of universal sharing becomes the norm – yea right). It will however not simply just disappear one day. Long before that day occurs governments will ration public consumption then hoard what remains for themselves and their usage. If you want gas but cannot afford to pay for it you will be looking down the wrong end of a gun barrel trying to get it.
We also need to be clear about what consumption is. It is not simply oil and gas for an ever increasing amount of vehicles across the globe; it includes most consumer products today like the tires for those vehicles, cosmetics, and the ever increasing demand of food production. Its “exponential” meaning a bad day will come for all the regular folks who depend on it, unless either demand is curtailed, or alternatives are found. There really is no other two ways about it that I can see.
I’m no “greeny” to be sure, the oil & gas industry has provided me a very good living. I do however from a conservative viewpoint understand the basic mathematics, physics, supply & demand realities that the metaphoric term “Peak Oil” entails.
“The term “Peak Oil” is a red herring assuming that there is a physical volume of oil/ gas on planet earth to be exploited”
Um, no. It simply a label we put on an event which you yourself just admitted will happen “in coming years”.
Seriously? Is that the issue here? You guys haven’t even bothered to look up the term which you’re disparaging?
Alex >
“Seriously?”
When has trollex ever been serious? The only issue here is that your gay and no one takes you seriously. So sorry.
As trollex pointed out, my comment was not typed in the way I meant it to read and it sounds out of place….
To clarify the original sentence to better reflect what I meant –
“The term “Peak Oil” is a bit of a red herring based on the sensible assumption that there is a limited physical volume of oil/ gas on planet earth to be exploited. At face value this tends to distract from other more immediate economic issues that will cause an oil crisis well before the actual peak oil reserves are proven……”
Aww. Poor little homophobe got his panties all tangled up 🙂