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Posted: 8/19/2006 8:27:52 PM EDT
I work in the Division of Oil and Gas, California Department of Conservation as a cartographer (GIS). Yesterday I was talking to our chief petroleum geologist about the Peak Oil theory. He laughed and said we are already well beyond Peak Oil. He then showed me the daily oil production numbers: currently it is running 637,000 barrels per day; he said a few years ago it was 950,000 barrels a day.
Also, it is taking more energy to get the oil up to the surface. Look at this pic, which I took on a recent field trip to the oil fields outside of Bakersfield:  See all those silver lines? Those are insulated steam pipes; live steam is injected in the vicinity of a producing well to get the oil to flow towards a producing well. LOTS of infrastructure in steam injection; the oil is just not as easy to get to as it once was. Oil used to be burned to heat the steam, but due to air pollution issue, natural gas is now used. In any case, the energy requirement is the same: the equivalent of one barrel of oil expended to heat the steam used to extract three barrels of usable oil. And it is only going to get worse. |
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Posted: 8/19/2006 8:32:16 PM EDT
[#1]
Who cares about Peak Oil?
Peak Ammo is more important! 
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Posted: 8/19/2006 8:33:18 PM EDT
[#2]
Well, there's CO2, and you could also use small nukes on skids to make the steam. it doesn't have to be steam and natural gas.
Also, a lot of California production that would still be running in Texas has been shut in in California. That was a choice. In a few years, you will start to see big tar balls washing up on the beach in LA again. |
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Posted: 8/19/2006 8:34:49 PM EDT
[#3]
That's frickin' funny right there. 
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Posted: 8/19/2006 8:42:43 PM EDT
[#4]
peak oil for Comnifornia or the world? Either way he is wrong. There are vast oilfields that we have just barely tapped into, just becaue it is expensive with current technology to get to it Thinka bout the huge nearly untapped oceanic oil fields.
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Posted: 8/19/2006 8:44:32 PM EDT
[#5]
Yeah, man, I'd totally tap that gas. 
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Posted: 8/19/2006 8:44:41 PM EDT
[#6]
Peak oil depends on production capacity (demand exceeds production) IIRC, it doesn't matter if we have only discovered 1% of the world's oil if we can't get to it fast enough. These locations in CA could very well have reached peak oil, but it does not matter. |
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Posted: 8/19/2006 8:44:57 PM EDT
[#7]
Of course, peak oil theory doesn't really matter if you aren't exploiting all the oil you could be, which California isn't.
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Posted: 8/19/2006 8:45:44 PM EDT
[#8]
That's right, there is plenty of oil off the coast but off-shore rigs are banned here 
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Posted: 8/19/2006 8:48:22 PM EDT
[#9]
And now the lefties are targeting the oil industry in California with ballot Proposition 87, which would hit the petroleum industry with massive fee increases. The lying commercials are already flooding TV, and I'm sure they will energize all the little liberals to say "Yeah! Let's punish Big Oil!" Their big chance to Stick It to the Man.
If there is one thing Californians are good at, it is chasing buisnesses out of the state. |
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Posted: 8/19/2006 8:49:26 PM EDT
[#10]
Actually, I think you've got that backwards. All that matters is whether or not production continues to increase. The reasons why are meaningless, unless they're rectified. |
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Posted: 8/19/2006 8:50:05 PM EDT
[#11]
More like peak environmentalism.
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Posted: 8/19/2006 8:51:23 PM EDT
[#12]
Well, I'm differentiating between "natural" causes like exhaustion and "man-made" causes like corrupt, oppressive government antagonism of the industry. |
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Posted: 8/19/2006 8:51:59 PM EDT
[#13]
That's Peak Oil in a nutshell: there IS oil left, but we can't get at it easily. Google "Lakeview #1 gusher" if you want to see how easy it used to be to extract oil here in the PRC. |
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Posted: 8/19/2006 8:59:02 PM EDT
[#14]
Plenty of Kerogen in Colorado and Utah, Pleny of Tar Sands in Alberta and plenty of Coal in West Virginia to do the F-T thing on.
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Posted: 8/19/2006 9:01:01 PM EDT
[#15]
I bet there is a lot of easy oil off the coast. Plus nuke plants are no problem to build. Oh wait. You want the LUXURY of enviornmentalism. That's fine you are paying for that LUXURY. |
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Posted: 8/19/2006 9:01:31 PM EDT
[#16]
And it's really a pity, because there is a lot left that we can get out of California. When everyone in Texas is busy using small lead-cooled breeder reactors on skids for powering membrane-based direct atmospheric CO2 extraction and 130 degree C repressurization and fracing for 2cm narrow guage "needle RST" bores with selectively permeable water rejecting expanded tubing and are producing 25% more oil out of Texas on shore than we do now, the folks in California will be wondering why their beaches are covered with tar balls and their regular unleaded is $9.00/gallon. But at least they will have lots of shrinks and really fresh tofu. I guess it is a worthwhile tradeoff. |
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Posted: 8/19/2006 9:03:39 PM EDT
[#17]
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Posted: 8/19/2006 9:06:51 PM EDT
[#18]
hee hee heee! next, google "Coal Oil Point Seep Field"! Not too many people know about that one! |
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Posted: 8/19/2006 9:09:52 PM EDT
[#19]
That's right, barrelburner...all the businesses are leaving here and going to your state 
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Posted: 8/19/2006 9:11:51 PM EDT
[#20]
Actually, you would be amazed what people in Texas (and Oklahoma, also known as North Texas) know about California oil and gas. And it kills us that we can't get it out any more. We have learned so damned much in the last 30 years, and California is essentially off limits. |
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Posted: 8/19/2006 11:56:06 PM EDT
[#21]
That seep has been tarballing the beaches in So Cal for thousands of years. Lots of oil under downtown LA, just a little tougher to get it out. In fact we had a company doing steam injection several weeks ago and it was a bit exciting when several buildings in the southern part of downtown LA started getting oil flowing into their basements.
My family for years used to get monthly checks from Union Oil for the oil pumped out from under the property in what is now Pico Union district. My grandfather used to live in what was going to be the northeast corner of the new Belmost High School unfortunately they keep finding petroleum and related toxic gases etc coming up through the the school location, www.laspe.org/URBANOILFIELDSTOUR.htm 
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Posted: 8/20/2006 12:31:28 AM EDT
[#22]
When that oil seep in downtown LA first appeared it was considered to be a mystery, but as soon as we saw it on the news we got the map for that area out and saw that an active steam injection well was a block away, we said "Oh shite!"
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Posted: 8/20/2006 12:38:41 AM EDT
[#23]
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Posted: 8/20/2006 4:51:14 AM EDT
[#24]
Peak oil theories are dependent on the notion that petroleum is the product of the decomposition of dinosaur poop and other organic materials. From what I have read in my limited research on the subject, I tend to believe that oil is the result of geological processes. Therefore, we don't know for certain if we have hit 'peak oil'. What we do know for certain is that the world;s proven reservers are greater than known in history.
The real problem is the supply chain - extracting and refining it. Blame your local environMENTAList for that.... |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 4:57:11 AM EDT
[#25]
I havent a clue what you just said, but think I agree. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 5:07:02 AM EDT
[#26]
+1 Pretty stupid to say we are running out of oil (because the wells we currently are using are running low) when for every well we are using there are two sources we aren't. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 5:46:52 AM EDT
[#27]
I'm gonna bet that Twoprod is illustrating the benefit of using technology to make the extraction process more efficient. Much moreso in Texas than California. The use of technology will mitigate the cost of fuel because less energy and work goes into extracting each barrel of oil. Hence why the mention of nuclear energy and extracting CO2 from the atmosphere. California, however, will legislate its oil industry into a perpetual 2006 technology standstill while everyone else is moving forward or simply out of the state. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 5:49:41 AM EDT
[#28]
OK, well what about the Shale oil in CA.
A guy I used to work with just quit to manage a project out there (by Fresno) relating to the removal of Shale oil from CA. There is still a lot of untapped oil in CA and with the project my former coworker is on, they are trying to perfect methods of removing oil with ver little environmental impact. The equipment they are using is even camoed up so as not to "disturb" the lay of the natural landscape. I was out there in March and found it very interesting. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 6:11:46 AM EDT
[#29]
Do a Google search on ABIOTIC OIL and see what you find...
How come so many "Depleted Oil Wells" that are suddenly springing forth with new reserves? Because there is NO SUCH THING as "FOSSIL FUEL". It is Liquid Mineral, but not Fossil Fuel. Someday we are going to look back on this "Fossil Fuel" nonsense like we do now on using leeches and bleeding sick patients in the dark ages. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 6:24:03 AM EDT
[#30]
I wish I lived in a smoke and mirrors bullshit fantasy world some of you guys believe in.
Now the thing is CERA's latest reports does show we can reach production capacity of around 110 MBD when you account for existing new projects which will be coming online in the future. What a good deal of people question is if CERA's decline rates are accurate. Which is of course the real big kicker. You can bring on all the new projects you want, if it doesnt account for the declines in existing wells and still bring on extra production capacity your still losing ground. And the countries which have the majority of oil arent too forth coming in their fields abilities to ramp up production. And even beyond all of that the simple fact is we are using it faster then whatever it is is making it. Theres no one in the world whos going to keep a straight face if you tell them the Earth can produce 110 MBD of this "abiotic oil". Simple fact is, at some point we will reach a point where production begins to fall off. Peak Oil isnt the end of energy by any means, its the end of increased production which leads to an end of cheap energy. And chances are it aint far away. 5-20 years seems to be the most often stated numbers. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 9:18:52 AM EDT
[#31]
That right there is the crux of the matter, even if the Abiotic theory is true. No way it would bubble up at a fast enough rate to replace what we are extracting. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 9:50:59 AM EDT
[#32]
Cali-fornia doesn't have a problem with not enough oil, the problem is not enough of the high quality stuff. Cali-fornia's has plenty of crude, the problem Cali-fornia's crude oil is relatively low-quality, ie it has more sulfur(the bane of all gasoline refiners), and it's yield per barrel to gasoline is lower than that of higher quality crude from the Middle East, UK North Sea etc.
And of course the extreme enviromental laws, the Cali-fornia legislature in its infinite wisdom forced the gasoline refiners to make gasoline with MTBE, and then found that it contaminated the ground water, but the refiners had invested in millions of dollars of refinery mods, and then they change their minds again etc etc, all of this BS adds up to higher gasoline cost. Running an oil refinary is not for the faint of heart, they deal with 900ºF of heat(the melting point of lead), AND hundreds of PSI of pressure, and if you're not careful, BOOM! |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 10:00:09 AM EDT
[#33]
That's why we need to use more nuclear plants. Harnessing the tides along the northern coast is a great idea, too. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 10:02:40 AM EDT
[#34]
*DING DING DING* WE HAVE A WINNER! |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 10:04:50 AM EDT
[#35]
Then "peak oil" is a man-made crisis and the solution is simple. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 10:07:47 AM EDT
[#36]
Maybe in the land of fairy goblins, perhaps. But just shouting "DRILL FOR MORE OIL" does not make it happen. There's lots of oil deposits we could tap into... the problem is it would likely cost more than it's worth, they are on foreign soil and they don't want us there, or it's in a geographically implausible area. For instance, if we found out there's 20 gazillon quadrillion gallons of oil under Mt. Everest... do you honestly think we'd be able to drill that at affordable cost? Fuck no. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 10:13:32 AM EDT
[#37]
Actually, peak oil is about easily gotten oil. The giant oil fields which are the easiest to draw oil out of are either past peak or showing signs of peaking. There's plenty of oil scattered around the world but it's all much more difficult or expensive to extract or requires a lot of energy to produce (like tar sands). The big discoveries that the news keeps reporting are either tiny compared to the big fields or are unproven. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 10:29:22 AM EDT
[#38]
The whole arguement over peak oil is ridiculous, people on both sides talking right past each other, nobody really listening.
Yes, there's lots of non-conventional oil in the world, and there are political and environmental issues which are contributing to the problem. None of that matters though, the issue isn't what the total maximum production would be if conditions were ideal and we had unlimited funds to invest in nuclear plants or whatever it takes to extract the tar or whatever. The issue is how much light sweet crude we can extract at reasonable prices, production of which is almost certainly going to peak quite soon. Yes, the price increases that will result from diminishing supply will decrease demand and bring on new supply, that's sort of the point. Per-capita energy consumption is nearly synonimous with wealth in the modern world, and the price of that wealth is at issue. Fortunately, the extreme dire predictions are somewhat mitigated by the fact that there's so much waste in the current situation, lots of oil is used for luxuries. On the other hand, our economic and monetary systems aren't designed to deal with a lack of growth well at all. One (of several) downside to the rapid growth made possible by using debt instruments as means of exchange is that growth is required to keep the system liquid, that's my biggest concern actually concerning this issue, that real economic growth will decline or even reverse itself and we won't institute the reforms necessary to deal with that until a great deal of damage has been done. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 10:33:10 AM EDT
[#39]
[Beavis and Butthead] Huh huh huh huh huhhuh huhuhuhuh huh. [/Beavis and Butthead] And, I agree with the idea that oil IS a renewable resource. I don't believe that we will run out within the next two hundred years. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 10:44:12 AM EDT
[#40]
LOL! Right fucking on! OFTADPOI! (Oilfield trash and DAMN proud of it!) This message has been brought to you by the fine folks of the AMERICAN oil industry. Moving completion technology into the new millenia!
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Posted: 8/20/2006 11:08:32 AM EDT
[#41]
Sorry. My area and all. What I said was that: 1.) with a portable supply of power and heat (small lead-cooled plutonium reactors) 1.a)we can use the power to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere on site (not transport cost) and use it to flood the formation, repressurizing the rock and getting the oil moving 1.b)and we can use the heat from the reactor to heat the formation up enough to pull some of the heavier oil out without burning other hydrocarbons 2.)with the new drilling technology we can 2.a)exploit very, very narrow formations by fracing and 2.b)soon we will also be able to use very narrow guage (very thin) rotary steerable tools (RSTs) to actually drill horizonatally into those formations and 2.c)low speed high pressure facturing is getting far more sophisticated and can work with the above to get more of the formation exposed to flow and 2.d)the tubing that we have is now incorporation active filters to seperate out the water and so on downhole and this will get to the point of being able to use membranes instead of screens and spinners in the next few years so, we are looking at being able to go into old fields and CHEAPLY rework them to get vastly more oil out of them. The technology and expertise developing in Texas is somewhat portable, but if all of the people are busy here and no California firms are doing it, then the oil in California will stay in the ground. Environmentalism as a "quality of life" cost, not as part of normal business, and leading to much higher energy costs. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 11:12:37 AM EDT
[#42]
Yes. I am sorry that I wasn't clearer. The technology that we have now is amazing, and a lof of the "dead" fields in Texas are looking really good right now, and not just from refilling, but from the ability to change the game on total recoverable reserves. And yes, the technology will travel, but the cheap technology and the small operators who can keep it cheap won't, and when everyone in Texas is reworking wells to use this still, California will still be stuck. Look at what is happening with wireline right now -- the middle (where the high end tools were used on low cost jobs) is going away and the low-rez tools for basic jobs and the expensive tools for the expensive jobs are what is left. As the cheap, low end tools approach the high end (now) in resolution, they will make well rework for strippers economical and progressively easier. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 11:14:55 AM EDT
[#43]
Damn! Sounds like Science fiction almost! Tell me, what is the going rate for a GIS tech with ArcGIS9.X experience in the oil bidness? |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 11:18:58 AM EDT
[#44]
I am not sure that the decline is going to be all that steep, actually. The ability to use narrow guage directionals to string areas of high porousity together like pearls on a silk string and to do it cheaply (not compared to how it used to be -- cheaply as in 15% more costly than just stabbing and going, and getting a gunbarrel straight bore out of it to boot) and with the ability to easily make sure that the completion fluid is out, scraping is good, casing and cement is good, and so on and to do all of that cheaply makes a ton of stuff (the Austin chalk formations are what I am thinking of) recoverable, and not for that much money either, and a lot of that would be new production. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 11:22:14 AM EDT
[#45]
When you can get $25,000,000 net net out of an 8" hole in the ground in a field, you have people willing to commission engineering straight out of science fiction. I don't know, I literally haven't done proper GIS in more than ten years. I think that good GIS people make $130k or so down here, but I can't tell you for sure. Landmark pays pretty well, and you would (should) have a hard time starting at less than $75k with experience. But I am not the best person to ask. I can ask our SGI vendor. He usually has a finger on the pulse of the GIS shops (for obvious reasons). In the oilfield, you should try to live for (and bank 100% of) the bonuses during good years, because in a lot of companies they can be 30%. And then you eat domestic smoked salmon (The horror! The horror!) during the bad years when no one gets raises or bonuses. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 11:30:16 AM EDT
[#46]
Yes, damn it. It's just not that bleak. Well, if you are Chinese and looking for $.99 unleaded it's pretty bleak. But not in the US, not for many years. Y'all understand that all of the work we have been doing down here is drectly applicable to extracting tar sands and oil shale and coal bed methane hydrocarbons in place, with no strip mining or anything, don't you? The missing pieces are all falling into place in the oilfield down here. What we need now is a portable, heat-producing nuclear reactor that is walk-away safe on skids, like big mud pumps. That and more of the interesting narrow guage work and we will be able to do almost anything. ETA: I know, I know, if it has a huge mouth and a tiny brain it is either a reptile or a Texan, but still, we are doing 80% of this today (less the portable Russian reactors on skids, and we are looking into that). |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 11:42:19 AM EDT
[#47]
How much exploration and development of new fields has happened in that time? My guess is nothing or close to it. You can't even drill in the remotest, most godforsaken hellhole in America these days because of the environmentalists. Remember to thank them next time you're at the pump. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 2:13:11 PM EDT
[#48]
No new exploitation at all...what we are seeing (and mapping) is infill to already intensly tapped areas...In some of my maps I have almost a thousand wells (!) in one Township & Range Section (1 square mile). Some of the pics I took down in Bakersfield (Aera Energy LLC fields) are mind-boggling, what with the well density and steam-injection infrastructure. |
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Posted: 8/20/2006 2:26:48 PM EDT
[#49]
In my shop we are using MapInfo We have two old guys who still use ink on mylar 
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Posted: 8/20/2006 2:30:07 PM EDT
[#50]
But less important than Peak Pie. |
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