BP's "giant oil discovery"

[LTVibe]

And it's in the Gulf of Mexico:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bp-says-its-made-a-giant-oil-discovery-2009-09-02

Quote:

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- BP on Wednesday said it drilled to one of the lowest depths ever in the oil and gas industry as it touted a "giant" discovery.

 

[addyguy]

Yeah, I read about that, but didn't post b/c the last post on a 'big oil find' got locked.....

Nice to see this one is in a fairly 'stable' location. As deep-water exploration and drilling techniques progress, it's going to be REALLY interesting to see what oil companies find out there...future looks exciting!

 

[bepperb]

Why would a oil company want to publish this, as any news of an oil find will have a negative impact on current prices, and obviously futures. Are the releasing stock soon?

 

[ZZman]

Can you imagine drilling 35,000 feet? And 4,000 of that is water. That is mind blowing.

 

[PT1]

Originally Posted By: ZZman
Can you imagine drilling 35,000 feet? And 4,000 of that is water. That is mind blowing.


Sure, drill 1 foot at a time. The high water pressure at 4000 feet is the issue to contend with. Plus the usual hurricanes etc.

 

[PT1]

Originally Posted By: bepperb
Why would a oil company want to publish this, as any news of an oil find will have a negative impact on current prices, and obviously futures. Are the releasing stock soon?


Having proven documented oil reserves makes BP stock that much more valuable. If they can't find oil they are going out of business.

 

[LTVibe]

The news gets better:

BP’s ‘Giant’ Find May Revive U.S. Gulf Exploration

Quote:
BP Plc’s latest Gulf of Mexico discovery, the biggest U.S. oil find in three years, may spur an exploration revival in a region thought by some industry executives to be played out after output slumped.

...The find confirms there are more large crude reservoirs yet to be found off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas, said Matt Snyder, lead Gulf of Mexico analyst at consulting firm Wood Mackenzie Ltd. in Houston.

“This is definitely good news for the Gulf,” Snyder said in a telephone interview yesterday. “When a supermajor like BP uses a term like ‘giant’ to describe a discovery, people sit up and take notice.”

 

[Samilcar]

I find it interesting that the oil temp in this reservoir is over 200F because of the depth.

 

[hillclimber]

I read that analysts are actually expecting a modest uptick in US oil production in years to come. Remember that all new finds must first produce more oil than is lost in older, declining fields before any new net oil hits the market.

The fact that we've had no hurricanes in the Gulf is helping, too. The area has been battered the past few years; platforms beat up, pipelines on the seafloor broken up and tossed about, etc.

 

[GMGuy]

Volcanoes will stop working. =-)

Alex.

 

[Dan55]

Because of the depth, the price of oil needs to be $70 a barrel for it to make a profit.

 

[hillclimber]

"So sustaining that going forward is a really important thing from an energy independence standpoint," MacKnight said. He noted that most Gulf of Mexico production wells tend to hit their peak within a year or two, and then begin to drop steeply three to five years later.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/02/AR2009090203560.html

 

[MarkC]

Originally Posted By: GMGuy
Volcanoes will stop working. =-)

Alex.


Why?

 

[Cutehumor]

Originally Posted By: bepperb
Why would a oil company want to publish this, as any news of an oil find will have a negative impact on current prices, and obviously futures. Are the releasing stock soon?


to slow down the talk of alternative energy. they want us to be oil whores.

 

[Shannow]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFyOw9IgtjY&NR=1

 

[Tempest]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFyOw9IgtjY&NR=1


???

 

[ueberooo]

Originally Posted By: PT1
Originally Posted By: ZZman
Can you imagine drilling 35,000 feet? And 4,000 of that is water. That is mind blowing.


Sure, drill 1 foot at a time. The high water pressure at 4000 feet is the issue to contend with. Plus the usual hurricanes etc.


Those are Mt Everest type heights, about seven miles! Makes you think why the oil is buried so deep under the crust? From how many hundreds of millions of years ago is this chemical energy from? These must've been from continents or seas of way back yore.

 

[fsskier]

Exciting yes....... but perhaps a little less exciting when you realize that the US uses almost 20 million barrels a day of oil.

So, 450 million barrels of recoverable oil becomes a 24 day supply. The world uses 80+ million barrels a day, this makes the find a 6 day supply for the world.

The huge fields we used to find - Saudi Arabia for example - have delivered 10 million barrels a day, even after 50 years of pumping. Sadly, those fields are now in secondary recovery per oil guru Matt Simmons, energy analyst at Worldbank. Saudi Arabia is now injecting huge quantities of water into their fields in an attempt to force out the remaining oil, this is only done as the field begins to peter out.

The other thread was locked because someone chose to attach political labels to people like Mr. Simmons. The label was neither true, nor relevant.

 

[Torino]

One of the well accepted theories of the Earth's EARLY formation was that the surface was covered by oceans of methane. If true ( I personally subscribe to this idea) the supply of crude oil is virtually limitless. Getting to it is another matter. Emerging technology is also fairly limitless. The sky is NOT falling. John-Las Vegas.

 

[ueberooo]

Originally Posted By: Torino
One of the well accepted theories of the Earth's EARLY formation was that the surface was covered by oceans of methane. If true ( I personally subscribe to this idea) the supply of crude oil is virtually limitless. Getting to it is another matter. Emerging technology is also fairly limitless. The sky is NOT falling. John-Las Vegas.


You mean kind of like this guy:

Titan (moon)

That's an really interesting possibility. Maybe earth did go through a stage like that in earlier formation, as a much smaller planet. That would help with getting further chemical energy, but still, way too early to tell how much; it may have just been a brief and short phase.

That would be wishful thinking; or, on futher thought, maybe not. My personal view is that we are very reckless and unaccountable to future generations. They leave them heavily in debt, and deplete their resources. If ocean temperatures rise, and the methane at the sea floor rises to the atmosphere, we'll also leave them with an uninhabitable planet.