Peak Oil? What Peak Oil?

Updates

June 6, 2012: Even CarpeDiem has picked up this story. 


Later, 10:40 p.m., RigZone has the same story.  The American company that could be the winner? ExxonMobil.

Original Post

How many story angles from this one story? Meet the oil shale eighty (80) times bigger than the Bakken.

Before we get to the linked story, some data points about the Bakken.

Regarding the Bakken:

• USGS/NDGS estimate: 4 billion bbls recoverable oil, 150 times greater than original estimate
• oil company's old estimate: 20 billion bbls recoverable oil
• oil company's new estimate: 24 billion bbls recoverable oil
• oil company's newer estimate (based on Pronghorn Sand): 50 billion bbls recoverable oil 

Now, from the linked story:

But as great as the Bakken is, I learned last week about another oil shale play that dwarfs it. It’s called The Bazhenov. It’s in Western Siberia, in Russia. And while the Bakken is big, the Bazhenov — according to a report last week by Sanford Bernstein’s lead international oil analyst Oswald Clint — “covers 2.3 million square kilometers or 570 million acres, which is the size of Texas and the Gulf of Mexico combined.” This is 80 times bigger than the Bakken.

and, continuing:

... a play 80 times bigger like the Bazhenov would imply 1,920 billion barrels. That’s a preposterous figure, enough oil to satisfy all of current global demand for 64 years, or to do 5 million bpd for more than 1,000 years. ... it looks like they’ll still be working the Bazhenov long after ... the Peak Oil crowd realizes there’s more oil out there than we’ve ever imagined.

Now about those story lines:

• the Bakken is still the "gold" standard for unconventional oil
• lessons learned will be exported to Russia
• axis of oil continues to shift away from Saudi Arabia
• summer melting in Siberia makes it more difficult to drill in the summer, but global warming just in time to make Siberian winters a bit more tolerable for roughnecks
• geographically right next to country that will need this oil most: China
• peak oil? what peak oil?
• anything but good news for alternative energy sources on supply/demand basis
• another blog authored by one of my granddaughters, or perhaps one will be a petroleum engineer working in Russia

With regard to "the Bakken is still the 'gold' standard":

• the Forbes article is a major business magazine in the US
• the headline for the article mentions the Bakken
• the photograph of the drilling rig is a Bakken rig
• the face shot is that of Harold Hamm, the "face of the Bakken"