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Russia hits Peak Oil + Bakken disappoints (4 posts)

1. truthmod
   Administrator

   http://www.dailyreckoning.co.uk/commodities-tradin...

   A Russian oil executive has admitted Russian oil production has hit a peak

   Peak Oil theory gets a shot in the arm...

   Russia was the new frontier for oil production a few short years ago. Not any more it seems, according to an FT report today...

   Russian oil has peaked already according to Leonid Fedun, vice-president of Russian oil giant Lukoil,

   10m barrels a day from the world’s number two oil producing country is as good as it gets in his lifetime he reckons. He’s 52 but given the average life expectancy of Russians that may not be too long. And it’s not going to be stable. Oil rich Western Siberia is more like Mexico and the North Sea i.e. output is sliding fast. “The period of intense oil production growth is over” claims Fedun. They’ve sucked up the oil fast and now the party’s over.

   The Russian government has admitted so far to oil production growth “stagnating” but not that it has “peaked” says the FT so this is news to those less intimately familiar with Russian oil reserves. It’s a blow. In recent years, increased Russian production has helped offset the additional and growing demand from Asia and help keep a lid on the price of crude. So, if Mr Fedun right, this particular brake on the price has reached its limit. Future new production for Big Oil increasingly rests on ‘unconventional’ sources such as the 54,000 square miles of black rock that comprise the Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta, Canada.

   Posted 16 years ago #
2. truthmod
   Administrator

   So, the highly touted "Bakken Formation" probably only contains about 4 billion barrels of recoverable (not easily, either) oil, compared to earlier estimates as high as 500 billion barrels.

   Balkin' at Bakken

   http://media.cleantech.com/2713/balkin-at-bakken

   No, the peak oil crowd looks vindicated: we appear to still be running out of oil—not to mention other resources like water and selected minerals—at a worrisome rate, with no magic reserves.

   Two latest datapoints:

   495.7 billion barrells short
   New findings from the U.S. Geologic Survey (USGS), released last week, suggest the oil reserves of North America's Bakken geologic formation, lying under North Dakota, Montana, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, only contain between 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the immediate term.

   This is significant, given that estimates of the amount of oil in the Bakken formation had varied wildly, with estimates of up to 500 billion barrels touted optimistically.

   ---

   Say what you will about the science of peak oil, or its exact timing. And no, there still isn't very good integration of the peak oil and cleantech communities; the two groups don't talk much to each other! But these latest developments underscore that it seems a safe bet to heed the peakists and continue to plan for overall oil decline as a driver of cleantech policy, innovation and adoption.

   Posted 16 years ago #
3. truthmod
   Administrator

   Peak Oil? Saudis Squeeze the Stone Even Harder
   http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/04/...

   As oil reserves get harder and more expensive to suck out of the ground, one big question looms: Is Saudi Arabia facing “practical peak oil” or the real thing?

   Saudi Arabian officials made waves last week with an announcement that the kingdom would voluntarily limit future oil production, in order to leave oil wealth “for future generations.” Last weekend, Saudi officials said that the world’s biggest oil producer won’t be diving into new exploration projects after next year, citing sluggish Western demand and the search for alternative fuels to petroleum.

   So are the Saudis smartly shepherding their oil resources? Or are they obliquely acknowledging that getting them out of the ground will be increasingly difficult and expensive?

   Posted 16 years ago #
4. chrisc
   Member

   The Bakken Formation: How Much Will It Help?

   This is a post by Piccolo, a petroleum engineer working in the petroleum industry.

   Conclusions

   1. The Bakken shale has produced about 111 million barrels of oil during the last 50+ years in Montana and North Dakota.

   2. Total Bakken production is still rising, and producing at the rate of 75,000 BOPD in October 2007.

   3. Because of the highly variable nature of shale reservoirs, the characteristics of the historical Bakken production, and the fact that per-well rates seem to have peaked, it seems unlikely that total Bakken production will exceed 2x to 3x current rate of 75,000 BOPD.

   4. The latest boom in Bakken production is driven by the application of horizontal wells and hydraulic fracturing technology, which has added about 70 million barrels of production in 7 years. Ultimate recovery of the already-drilled wells should be at least double this volume.

   5. The USGS estimates the mean volume of technically recoverable hydrocarbons to be 3,649 million barrels of oil. This is roughly 7 to 12 times the size of already known resources.

   6. Based on current production and areas likely to be drilled, the USGS estimate of technically recovery resources seems optimistic.

   7. The Bakken potential resource, while large by US onshore field standards, will have only a minor effect on US production or imports. Using 2006 US imports and consumption for comparison, the Bakken undiscovered resource of 3,649 million barrels of oil, if subsequently discovered and fully developed, would provide us with the equivalent of six months of oil consumption or 10 months of imports, spread over 20 or more years. In reality, the reserves developed are likely to be many times smaller than this value.

   8. The October 2007 production rate of 75,000 BOPD amounts only 0.4% of US oil consumption, or 0.6% of imports.

   9. Per-well Bakken production peaked in August 2005 at 116 barrels a day, and was down to 79 barrels a day in October 2007. If the Bakken production history in the 1990s can be used as a guide, the peaking of per-well production may portend a peak in total Bakken production.

   http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3868

   Posted 16 years ago #

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