Russia Natural Gas Discovery -- 11 TCF -- Arctic LNG -- October 14, 2018

This is a huge story, on several levels. It was reported under the Obama administration that the US would relinquish oil and gas reserves in the Arctic to Russia and five other countries. The US would not participate in Arctic exploration under President Obama.

It is now being reported that Russia has made an important Arctic discovery. 

See this post from August 5, 2018: US remains the "natural gas king."

October 8, 2019: new USGS assessment sets new records. 

Highlights from that post:

Reserves:

• Middle East: 2.8 quadrillion cubic feet = 2,080 trillion cubic feet (quadrillion is 10^15; trillion is 10^12)
• US: 309 trillion cubic feet (but see below)

I've long lost the bubble on global natural gas reserves (and I'm sure the reserves are currently way under-estimated) but back in 2016, this post:

Disclaimer: I often make simple arithmetic errors. Numbers rounded. Natural gas reserves according to BP/wiki, 2013 - 2014 (US estimate as of December 2013). Top five countries:

Russia: 6,000 trillion cubic feet

add another 11 TCF from the Arctic discovery announcement, 2018

Iran: 1,000 trillion cubic feet

Qatar: 900 trillion cubic feet

Turkmenistan: 600 trillion cubic feet

US: 350 trillion cubic feet

see first comment: add another 11 TCF from Pennsylvania alone in 2019

#11: Australia: 152 trillion cubic feet (as of January, 2014). (See this post.) 

Pakistan: 10,000 trillion cubic feet (highly unlikely, something tells me we are mixing apples and oranges, reserves vs technically recoverable

Now, today, this from the Rigzone staff: Russia makes 11 TCF natural gas discovery. Link here.

PJSC Novatek has announced the discovery of a new gas field in the Ob Bay area, which is estimated to hold natural gas reserves of more than 11 trillion cubic feet. The discovery was made via an exploration well in the North-Obsk license area.

“The discovery of a new field is an important starting point for the start of one of our future Arctic LNG projects,” Leonid Mikhelson, chairman of the board of Novatek, said in a company statement posted on Novatek’s website, which was translated into English.

Now, let's go back and re-run the numbers that were posted earlier:

• that recent huge Mediterranean natural gas find: 30 trillion cubic feet
• Barnett, revised USGS figures: 53 trillion cubic feet
• Utica, newly revised figures: 782 trillion cubic feet; USGS official figure: 117 TCF, September, 2019
• Marcellus, EIA revised estimates: 65 trillion cubic feet, "proved" reserves; revised to 84 - 97 in 2019;
• Bakken/Three Forks, USGS estimate: 7 trillion cubic feet (2013 estimate)
• Qatar: 800 trillion cubic feet, wiki, conversion
• Mozambique, from the story above (see link above): 85 trillion cubic feet