The abiotic oil crowd will be particularly interested.
Conspiracy theorists will enjoy it also.
So now there are two countries where oil resources may suddenly exceed that of Saudi Arabia! In fact, it never made sense that the Middle East was the repository of the world's oil. It was just too ... coincidental. The Saudis had all the world's oil and they were willing to cooperate with the US to sell for dollars and nothing else.The second country, of course, is Australia.
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Added later, see comments below. From the Platts link, building on the above:
Offshore exploration in the oil industry is percolating furiously like a pot of Maxwell House, and brewing up a handsome lot of discoveries to whistle at.
To that end, here’s a tidbit extracted from the fourth-quarter earnings conference call of contract driller Noble Corporation on January 24.
During the call, Roger Hunt, Noble’s senior vice president of marketing and contracts, said that in 2012, global customers announced 52 deep- and ultra-deepwater discoveries in waters 4,000 feet of water and deeper. This eclipsed by 40% the previous record in 2010 of 37 discoveries.
Of last year’s 52 discoveries, 18 were in ultra-deep waters of 7,000 feet and deeper, including nine in more than 8,000 feet of water. The 52 discoveries were made in 14 countries, Hunt said.
And industry continues to spread its wings across more and different regions of deepwater drilling, he said. In 2008, the so-called “Golden Triangle” of the US Gulf of Mexico, Brazil and West Africa accounted for 80% of all deepwater discoveries. But last year, that area only accounted for 47% of total discoveries; the rest were in a diversity of areas throughout the world, said Hunt.
“Only five short years ago, we heard the first mention of deepwater successes in Israel, Australia, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Mexico,” he said. “Now these countries are present in the backlog of discoveries each year … and new areas are surfacing” such as Tanzania, Mozambique, India and the Ivory Coast.
Occasionally I ponder the implications of some of the recent plays and their explanations.
ReplyDeleteThe X sandstone has oil that migrated from the Y shale...
The sub salt play has the oil and gas that preceded the post salt plays that everyone knew were as deep as could be. Nothing could be deeper. But there it is.
If oil moves and rises, where does it really come from? Are there things and layers we don't understand? There are. But what are they? What is the story? Future generations will find things, but still won't know all the answers.
Somewhere there may be someone or something watching us and laughing.
anon 1
I've often thought the same thing (someone or something watching and laughing). France, no doubt, is the cosmic equivalent of "Gilligan's Island."
Deletehttp://blogs.platts.com/2013/01/25/industry-keeps-the-paddlewheel-of-deepwater-discoveries-turning/
ReplyDeleteanon 1
To say the least, a very interesting observation by the Noble senior vice president. I brought the data up to the stand-alone post for easier access for readers.
Delete