From: Glenn Morton (glenn.morton@btinternet.com)
Date: Thu Nov 21 2002 - 15:24:30 EST
I have run into a few interesting comments over the past few months:
ìíWe havenít replaced (US oil and natural gas) production with new
discoveries in 35 years,í McClendon observed. Any maintenance of production
levels has been primarily through revisions and adjustments to original
estimates of potential production of existing fields, he said.
ìíNow itís time to pay the piper,í said McClendon. ëand I think the
industry will benefit.í
ìThatís especially true of US gas production, which is
expected to be ëdown
5% this year, if not 6%. That production has been going down for the last
4-5 years, and itís not likely to change,í he said.î Sam Fletcher, ìIPAA:
Lack of Good Prospects Undermines Drilling Activity, Heightens US Gas Supply
Concerns,î Oil and Gas Journal,, Nov. 4, 2002, p. 25
One of the sources of natural gas is Alberta Canada. The problem with this
as a source for US natural gas is that they are running out. Reserves
divided by production yeilds a measure of how stable the supply is. It isn't
a measure of how long production will last because ---well it is a technical
reason. Anyway, here are the R/P's for Alberta:
R/P Alberta
1975 26
1980 27
1985 24
1990 18
1995 12
2000 8
2001 7.5
Dave A. Russum, "Exploration strategies in the 21st Century--the end of
Elephant Hunting?" World Oil, Oct 2002, p. 65
Alberta is running out of gas.
Of the North Sea production, a friend of mine, Roger Read wrote an article
for the Oil and Gas Journal on what will happen. The only thing that bugs
me about this is that we were at a dinner party in Aberdeen together and we
got into a serious discussion about the fate of North Sea oil. I told Roger
it was declining sharply. He disagreed. When I got home I e-mailed him some
data. He did a bunch more research and got an article in the O&GJ. Maybe I
should have written the article. :-)
Anyway, Roger is a fine guy and he writes:
ìAs a consequence of these factors, Simmons & Co. International's
production forecast assumes a decline in UK oil production to 1.78 million
b/d of oil by 2005. Our long-range production forecast for Norway assumes a
slow decline in oil production and that oil production will average 2.7
million b/d in 2005.î
ìSimmons believes that the combined North Sea production of the UK and
Norway peaked at 5.9 million b/d of oil in 2000. We estimate that production
will decline to 5.7 million b/d in 2002 and 2003 before declining more
rapidly to 4.7 million b/d by 2005.î
ìGiven the 10% average net depletion rate, the decline in field sizes,
the large long-term decline in exploration and appraisal drilling, and the
lack of multiple large projects that could increase production over the next
4 years, we believe these estimates for North Sea production are reasonable.
ì
Roger Read, ìNorth Sea Evolution to Track Gulf of Mexico Model,î Oil and
Gas Journal, Aug. 26, 2002, p. 41
"Estimates of volumes of new hydrocarbon discoveries made in
the year for
the world less North America was almost 9 billion barrels of liquids and 42
trillion ft3 of gas." "Statistics Show 2001 Was No Vintage Year for
Discoveries and Production World-Wide," First Break 20:9 Sep. 2002, p. 537
GRM: the world produced about 27 billion bbl in 2001. Not a good thing.
As the saying goes, Eat drink and be merry because tomorrow you won't be
able to.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Fri Nov 22 2002 - 00:12:49 EST