Oil reserves is a topic deserving more attention. There are precise definitions that have economic consequence for valuing companies and resources within the broad concept presented here.
Just one little point here... I'm new to wikipedia, but. Given the political nature of this subject, I'd appreciate knowing approximately the viewpoints of the writers. As far as I've understood, the idea of wikipedia is strict peer control and striving for neutrality. Still, there could be a meta-page about the writers/sources and their (self-reflected) opinions and possible biases. Naturally, one might ask what the point is to ask anyone if he lies or not. Still, some kind of background, even given anonymously, about the sources used, would be highly appreciated, and add great value to the reliability of the article. What is the general wiki stand about this kind of issues? Some pages are protected, but that is different: it's only against straightforward sabotage and not a wiki way to protect neutrality. --Sigmundur
Two new users User:Dracken and User:Sleibhine added a large chunk of info to the article at almost the same time: [1]. It may just be a new user who does not know you cant use copyrighted material. The second part was copied from this article [2] and I removed it, I suspect the first part (the "Solutions?" section) was copied from somewhere aswell Astrokey44 12:25, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
This article is coming along well, I'm surprised by how much it has grown because of the COTW, there are some really dedicated wikipedians working on this one! — Wackymacs 08:41, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Should Oil supplies be merged into this article? Its the same thing isnt it? Astrokey44 08:55, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
The article states:
"It has been estimated that there is a total of 2,390 billion barrels (380 km³) of crude oil on Earth, of which about 30% has been used so far."
Where does this data come from? There is no clear reference, yet this precise figure would suggest that there should be. -- Erik Garrison 15:26, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
This portion of the article seems to focused to much on Shell Oil's contributions. The discussion should be more general. I would fix it but I lack the expertise and knowledge in this area.
I think this column should be erased. Reserves are almost *never* totally depleted. Some oil well is Pennsylvannia have being producing oil for more than 100 years. But there production is ridiculous. Production is trending to zero, but almost never gone to nil - in fact, one shut down the wells when they are no more making money, but theorically, small amonts of oil could continue to be produced almost forever.
Are the reserves of ANWR included or not in the estimates of US reserves or not? I'm not sure if they should be if they are, because it's hard to consider untappable reserves as accessable, usable oil reserves. But on the other hand, they exist within US boarders and are thus US oil reserves...even if they aren't being harvested. Just something to check up on... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.104.165.232 ( talk • contribs)
I know the chart about production peaks is alleged to come from some reliable source, but at least one entry is patently false, going by normal definitions. The United States, in particular. People stopped drilling in the US, not because of any inherent extractive difficulty, but because new restrictions and regulations made extraction elsewhere more profitble. The chart gives the implication that the US "ran out" when no such thing happened. On this basis, I'll remove the entire chart as tainted in a week unless this is better explained. MrVoluntarist 01:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
That the US has passed its conventional oil production peak is a well-known fact in both the industry and in geological circles. However, this does not mean the US has "run out" of oil--it simply means that the with current technologies it is becoming economically unfeasible and geologically difficult to extract much of the remaining conventional oil--this is the normal definition of a "peak." Your point about regulations making oil drilling more difficult is not a valid one--take the Texas example. Regulations in Texas are by no means restrictive, and yet much of the new land-based drilling has stopped (because of dry holes) and most efforts in that area are in off-shore oil, which has yet to be as geologically exhausted as land-based oil.
Publicus
14:13, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm having trouble figuring out where this table is sourced -- the footnote says it comes mostly from the newsletters of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil And Gas (ASPO): [7] -- which appears to be mostly Colin Campbell (geologist). This is a very non-transparent chart, and Campbell's site is no help -- see, for example, ASPO depletion profiles by country, by Dr. Colin J. Campbell. Campbell himself seems mostly sensible, if a bit dim re the coming boom in tar-sand oil.
I'm also having NPOV problems with the chart's name, "Countries that have already passed their production peak". The headnote helps some, but perhaps it needs an NPOV warning box as well.
Pete Tillman
19:59, 9 December 2006 (UTC) Consulting Geologist
I have deleted the chart titled "Top ten nations by oil reserves" since it is using mixed data and provides a mixed message regarding oil reserves. For instance, in the chart just above "top ten" Canada is listed as having estimated reserves of 4.7 as a low and a high of 178 billion barrels, but in the top ten chart that low estimate is no longer shown and just the higher number is given. Further, the other countries are not treated in a consistent fashion--Saudi Arabia's top ten number uses the lower estimate, as does Iran--but Kuwait's top ten number uses the higher estimate. Therefore, this top ten chart is not especially helpful--especially since the chart above does a much better job of illustrating how the oil reserves number for each country is actually more of a range than a static number.(especially until Canada's reserves are determined) Publicus 12:53, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
I have taken out the graph listing countries that have peaked in their oil production as the source's information doesn't represent anywhere near what anyone else is claiming and the simple fact that there are many countries on that list that you can look up now as producing more oil than they were when the graph claims that they hit their oil peak and are now declining.
Misleading information from that so called British study.
Because oil reserves measure the amount of oil economically extractable when considering the price of oil and the current technology, oil reserves vary by the day, and can vary quite considerably. Given this is it even relevant to discuss them?
Hi all. Is there some reason we're using "giga" to reference the number of barrels of oil (i.e. 30 gigabarrels) instead of "billion"? This may be standard terminology in the oil industry but it is confusing to the lay reader. Monkeyman( talk) 17:58, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
The reporting agencies (EIA, IEA & OPEC) and most of the consultants and oilco's use mbd (million barrels/day) ,& kpd (thousands) for production and Gb (billion barrels) & Tb (trillion barrels) for reserves. -- 207.189.230.222 11:09, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
This article contains many inaccuracies including terminology and numbers. I am a Geophysicist with 16 years oil industry experience - I will gradually correct most of the mistakes in the near future.
There will always be some pools which are too small to be economically developed. We are going after smaller sattelite fileds all the time but there is always a limit. With regards to sale price peole will keep pumping just to keep the facilities alive - anybody who lived through the oil field depression in the 1990's will tell you that. Where the price does really matter is when we are considering new projects or enhancements to existing projects. People in western companies are scarred by the experience of the low oil price era and this acts as a break on more speculative investments.
With regard to substitutes ALL of them have significant problems. There are two devices: the Internal combustion engine and the gas turbine which will not be replaced in the foreseable future,there are however alternative fuels. Hydrogen Fool cells have very serious problems which make them unlikely as anything but a spacialised niche product in the next 30-40 years.
1. Non conventional oils eg Tar sand bitumen - economic at $40 per barrel, but very difficult to scale up to meet demand, also serious local environmental damage which is costly to repair. Uses up a lot of energy to manufacture 2. GTL and Coal to liquids - economic at about $ 50 per barrel, again difficult to scale up 3. Biofuels - yes you can supply all of America's if you convert 80% of the midwest breadbasket to growing corn ethanol or canola diesel
The world is developing and becoming more energy hungry, People in China, India and other 3rd world countries are leading much better lives than their ancestors. It is up to people like me to help them
3.biodiesel:Algaculture?-- Ruber chiken 05:43, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
We will never run out of oil. There will always be at least a small trickle. That small trickle may be expensive to produce and to valuable to use for anything other than the productions of medicines but it will always be available as a trickle.
Also, the environment in the tar sands is often left in far better shape than it was befor extraction. The amount of oil seeping in to the local rivers for example is vastly reduced when you wash all the oil out of the sand.
Switch grass is twice as efficient a source of ethanol than corn. Carbonate 09:39, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
like he sayd.ither you eat,iether you run on your SUV.Algaculture seems to me a more viable option -- Ruber chiken 09:47, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
biodesil also requires an acid (sulfuric?) to make it from vegtable oils (which takes enegry to make and leaves polution) Carbonate 08:30, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
There's a fundamental problem with fuel alcohol. It's one of scale. If you converted ALL of the corn produced by the US to ethanol, you would replace only 12% of the gasoline consumed. So 88% of the people would have to walk to work. And nobody could have corn flakes for breakfast any more so they'd have to walk on an empty stomach. RockyMtnGuy 02:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
The feature graph shows oil production not URR (ultimate recoverable resource).-- 207.189.230.222 11:04, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
There was an edit some time ago that changed all refs to "Canada" to "Alberta." Not disputing Alberta's importance, especially in the context of the tar sands, but that made it sound like Canada has no other production or reserves. I made a small change to reflect the other conventional reserves. -- Geologyguy 22:39, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
[10] is a Yahoo News article saying that Greenland might have as much as half of Saudi Arabia's oil reserves. Six previous test drillings were not profitable, but with oil prices shooting up and global warming making the region more accessible there is renewed interest. Simesa 21:51, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Hey RockyMtnGuy -- regarding your recent edit, even if Saudi Arabia has passed its peak of production, it will likely be a VERY long time before its wells would be classified as stripper wells at 10 barrels per day or less. Even considering inflated reports etc., by most accounts Saudi's 8 million barrels per day or so comes from about 1500 wells - averaging more than 5000 barrels per day per well. Even with steep declines it will be a while before any of those wells are stripper wells. Cheers -- Geologyguy 00:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I think it is appropriate to point out that Saudi oil fields are based on carbonate rock formations. Combined with the unfortunate use of water flooding, they are likely to undergo catastrophic decline. See "Twilight in the Desert" by Matthew Simmons (a must read) for technical details and historical presidence. Based on other carbonate reserves, 20% or less recovery of original OIP is not unlikely. Carbonate 16:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I read somewhere that Venezuela has vast reserves of heavy crude oil. The Venezuela article doesn't mention them, nor does this article. The heavy crude oil article itself is a stub. -- Smithfarm 11:15, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Publicus edited out a line that said "Despite its obligations to do so, PDVSA has stopped filing reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, so it is difficult to verify actual production". I put it back in with a link to the PDVSA press release on their web site, and the reason why it is important (PDVSA owns Citgo, which owns 14,000 service stations in the U.S.). Note that this failure to file is mentioned in the Wikipedia article on PDVSA along with the information that Moody's has stopped rating them. The SEC is investigating, but what can the U.S. do? Send an aircraft carrier? Well, actually, George W. just might... RockyMtnGuy 23:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Interesting that the discussion started with Venezuelan heavy-oil and ended up with confiscating assets. Going back to the point of heavy-oil, the issue is two fold (a) you could argue that most of the deposits accross the Orinoco are not heavy-oil per se, we are rather talking about uncoventional oil (good article on oil sands) which also explains the reluctance to consider it in any estimates as their break even economic point is significantly higher than heavy-oil.
The Venezuelans call their non-conventional oil deposits "extra-heavy oil", but in fact there is little difference between them and what the Canadians call oil sands. The new Canadian in-situ technology would probably work very, very well in Venezuela, but with the current political situation in Venezuela, you are more likely to see former PDVSA heavy oil experts working in the Canadian oil sands than Canadian experts working in Venezuela. Look for continued decline in Venezuelan oil production and continued increase in Canadian exports. RockyMtnGuy 19:10, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
The first link, "The End of the World as We Know It" is out of date.
A transite pipeline has been taken offline by BP because of corrosion. 5 barrels of oil have been leaked. Should this be reflected in the article?
Carbonate 16:44, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
UPDATE - it looks like BP will continue to run the East side while fixing the West (and probably the reverse when the time comes). This means a drop of only 200 000 barrels per day. Carbonate 00:57, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Saudi Arabia's political system is here described as 'medieval', which reflects the values of the authors rather more effectively than it explains why there are risks inherent to continued Saudi domination of world oil supply. Pity that, because some intelligent work has gone into what is an otherwise excellent article. I hope one of the authors will revisit this section and add the something of the depth that the article had exhibited up to that point.
As I understand it, the field in the Gulf of Mexico has been suspected for some time but was inaccessable due to it extreme depth (1 mile of water before 6 miles of rock). It was reported that this is the deepest well ever and is producing 6000 barrels a day. Matthew Simmons has already commented on the discovery suggesting that like many other finds in the Gulf region, it may not procduce as much as would be indicated at first. The prohibitive cost and technical hurdles are likely to make this field difficult and slow to bring in to production.
So who wants to write something up for the article?
Carbonate 08:01, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Just some things to keep in mind: The fact that the oil well won't come online for a few years doesn't change the fact that it has impacted prices now. It has pulled down bids for oil futures, which traces back to the pump price. Also, it's essentially irrelevant to the matter of the US's self-sufficiency on oil. Oil hits the world market and is sold at market rates. Some American oil is sold elsewhere, lots of oil outside America is sold in America. MrVoluntarist 17:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Production rates will depend on all sorts of things, including the nature of the drive (water, gas), the amount of natural pressure, the total estimated volume, the nature of the reservoir (fractured, highly porous, whatever). Even if this one field contains the 15 billion barrels (which I think they really meant the whole play might have at P90 that much - this field is more likely to have 500 million to 1 billion bbl), it would not likely be produced at more than 1.5 million barrels per day; to produce more, even if technically possible, would irrevocably damage the formation and would drastically reduce the ultimate recoverable output. This is what has happened time and time again, in 1870's Pennsylvania, at Texas' Spindletop in 1901 (which initially produced around 100,000 barrels per day, but rampant overdrilling rapidly depleted the pressure, and it peaked within 2-3 years and then precipitously declined, leaving much oil unretrievable), in many Russian fields, and possibly in Saudi Arabia. 1.5 million b/d is 7% of current US demand - a great help, but no panacea. With demand growth of 1%-3% per year, of course we'll be using more than today's 21 million b/d 6 years or so from now when this comes on stream. Cheers -- Geologyguy 02:23, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I chopped out all of the reserves section of pemex and started subsections if anyone knows more about it? I recently read an article talking about a catastrophic decline in their field but I have to go back and find it... Carbonate 09:09, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
www.pemex.com Yikes! Carbonate 23:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
The CIA World Factbook lists 1,349,000,000,000 barrels of proven reserves. The article states the number at 2000 to 2400 gigabarrels. Why the major discrepancy? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Audacity ( talk • contribs) 00:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC).
Is there any particular reason why Denmark is not included in this list? Unfortunately, I don't have the figures myself. Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 11:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
should the table of possible reserves (ie lowest and highest estimates by country) have the scale listed? - Im.a.lumberjack 23:03, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
According to The Economist ( http://economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_STQTGTN ), there are many more billions of barrels in the offshore oil fields. It says in the article 19 billion barrels, but 86 bn in the picture, and I don't quite see the reason for the discrepancy. Anybody have any data on the matter? Offshore oil should most certainly be included in the national reserves. I looked at the Statistical Abstract of the United States and it listed 21 bn total barrels for national reserves, including 4bn under federal jurisdiction, suggesting that offshore oil reserves were not included, if The Economist figures are to be trusted.
According to this link oil production in Saudi Arabia fell by 8% during 2006. G-Man * 20:33, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
The suspicious OPEC numbers section says Kuwait lost 6 billion barrels in the fires, but the article about that says it lost 6 million brl/day. And it didn't last 1000 days...? Medico80 21:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I am working on the following table for the
Peak oil page. Does anyone have more reliable data and references to fill-in this table?
Kgrr
15:53, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi, As far as I know Russian Samotlor field is not in decline.
80.230.116.103
07:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Field | Country | Discovered | Started Production | Peaked | Billion Barrels | Production (mb/day) | Rate of Decline |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ghawar Field | Saudi Arabia | 1948 [1] | 1951 [1] | 2005 [2] | 75-83 [3] [4] | 5 [5] | 8% per year |
Burgan Field | Kuwait | 1938 | 1948 | 2005 [6] | 66-72 [7] [4] | 1.7 [8] | 14% per year |
Cantarell Field | Mexico | 1976 | 1981 | 2004 [9] | 35 [4], 18 billion recoverable | 1.4 (2006) [10] | 15% per year [10] |
Bolivar Coastal Field | Venezuela | 1917 | 30-32 [4] | 2.6-3 [4] | |||
Safaniya-Khafji Field | Saudi Arabia/ Neutral Zone | 1951 | 30 | ||||
Rumaila Field | Iraq | 1953 | 20 [4] | *civil war | |||
Tengiz Field | Kazakhstan | 1979 | 1993 | 15-26 [4] | .53 [4] | ||
Ahwaz Field | Iran | 1958 | 1960 | in decline | 17 | .16 [11] | 64% per year |
Kirkuk Field | Iraq | 1927 | 2000 | 16 | |||
Marun Field | Iran | 1963 | 16 | ||||
Daqing Field | China | 1959 | 1960 | 2004 [12] | 16 | 1 | |
Gachsaran Field | Iran | 1928 | 15 | ||||
Agha Jari Field | Iran | 1937 | 14 | ||||
Samotlor Field | West Siberia, Russia | in decline | 14-16 | 9% per year | |||
Prudhoe Bay | Alaska | 1969 | in decline | 13 | 0.9 | 11% per year | |
Kashagan Field | Kazakhstan | 13 | |||||
Abqaiq Field | Saudi Arabia | 12 | 0.43 [13] | ||||
Romashkino Field | Volga-Ural, Russia | in decline | 12-14 | ||||
Chicontepec Field | Mexico | 12 | |||||
Berri Field | Saudi Arabia | 12 | |||||
Zakum Field | Abu Dhabi, UAE | 12 | |||||
Manifa Field | Saudi Arabia | 11 | |||||
Faroozan-Marjan Field | Saudi Arabia/ Iran | 10 | |||||
Marlim Field | Campos, Brazil | in decline | 10-14 | 8% per year [14] |
East Timor is an oil country too, please include it in the list (e.g. with unclassified, ...)
I moved the extremely incomplete, and heavily disputed table to Talk:Oil reserves/Draft table where it can be developed. Please discuss it here once it is completed, and then neutrality issues can be resolved before it is reinserted. Savidan 04:45, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
May I suggest that the near-edit war between Belligero and Savedthat be discussed here on the talk page? I have not seen any kind of discussion, even in the edit summaries. Please do so. Cheers Geologyguy 17:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
While you may feel it necessary to entirely rewrite the article, that really isn't the proper way to handle it. Please discuss your edits. Publicus 18:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
A major producer of oil that should get a section in the article
Okay, everybody. Read the definitions of reserve categories at the top of the article before quoting some talking head on the nightly news about new oil discoveries on Mars. In particular, 1) IHS report that there may be another 100 million bbls of oil in Iraq. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. This is Possible reserves, P10 or 10% probability of being produced. Someone will have to drill some wells to find out, and nobody wants to risk drilling rigs and crews in a war zone. 2) There may be 25% of the worlds oil reserves in the Arctic Ocean. This is an Urban Legend or P0. According to the Economist, see http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9660012 this is usually attributed to the U.S. Geological Survey, but the USGS has never done a study of Arctic reserves and knows nothing about it. I personally worked for a company that ran a drilling fleet of 26 ships in the high Arctic for some years, and we spend billions but found diddly-squat squat up there. RockyMtnGuy 00:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Just wanted to know. ? Muntuwandi 04:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I read in "International Business" 10ed. Daniels, John Et.Al. 2004, that Russia´s Oil Reserves are, as of 2001, bigger than Saudi Arabia's. -- Crio de la Paz 03:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
So sorry: I misread: it´s Russias Oil Production that was, at least in 2001, according to that book, bigger that Saudi Arabia´s and I also just checked that they seem to be overproducing?, Thanks!-- Crio de la Paz 03:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Oil reserves/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
Class B and Top importance seems to be up to date. For Higher assessment, please list this article for WP:GAN Beagel ( talk) 18:44, 10 December 2008 (UTC) |
Last edited at 18:44, 10 December 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 21:49, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
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Oil reserves is a topic deserving more attention. There are precise definitions that have economic consequence for valuing companies and resources within the broad concept presented here.
Just one little point here... I'm new to wikipedia, but. Given the political nature of this subject, I'd appreciate knowing approximately the viewpoints of the writers. As far as I've understood, the idea of wikipedia is strict peer control and striving for neutrality. Still, there could be a meta-page about the writers/sources and their (self-reflected) opinions and possible biases. Naturally, one might ask what the point is to ask anyone if he lies or not. Still, some kind of background, even given anonymously, about the sources used, would be highly appreciated, and add great value to the reliability of the article. What is the general wiki stand about this kind of issues? Some pages are protected, but that is different: it's only against straightforward sabotage and not a wiki way to protect neutrality. --Sigmundur
Two new users User:Dracken and User:Sleibhine added a large chunk of info to the article at almost the same time: [1]. It may just be a new user who does not know you cant use copyrighted material. The second part was copied from this article [2] and I removed it, I suspect the first part (the "Solutions?" section) was copied from somewhere aswell Astrokey44 12:25, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
This article is coming along well, I'm surprised by how much it has grown because of the COTW, there are some really dedicated wikipedians working on this one! — Wackymacs 08:41, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Should Oil supplies be merged into this article? Its the same thing isnt it? Astrokey44 08:55, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
The article states:
"It has been estimated that there is a total of 2,390 billion barrels (380 km³) of crude oil on Earth, of which about 30% has been used so far."
Where does this data come from? There is no clear reference, yet this precise figure would suggest that there should be. -- Erik Garrison 15:26, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
This portion of the article seems to focused to much on Shell Oil's contributions. The discussion should be more general. I would fix it but I lack the expertise and knowledge in this area.
I think this column should be erased. Reserves are almost *never* totally depleted. Some oil well is Pennsylvannia have being producing oil for more than 100 years. But there production is ridiculous. Production is trending to zero, but almost never gone to nil - in fact, one shut down the wells when they are no more making money, but theorically, small amonts of oil could continue to be produced almost forever.
Are the reserves of ANWR included or not in the estimates of US reserves or not? I'm not sure if they should be if they are, because it's hard to consider untappable reserves as accessable, usable oil reserves. But on the other hand, they exist within US boarders and are thus US oil reserves...even if they aren't being harvested. Just something to check up on... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.104.165.232 ( talk • contribs)
I know the chart about production peaks is alleged to come from some reliable source, but at least one entry is patently false, going by normal definitions. The United States, in particular. People stopped drilling in the US, not because of any inherent extractive difficulty, but because new restrictions and regulations made extraction elsewhere more profitble. The chart gives the implication that the US "ran out" when no such thing happened. On this basis, I'll remove the entire chart as tainted in a week unless this is better explained. MrVoluntarist 01:53, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
That the US has passed its conventional oil production peak is a well-known fact in both the industry and in geological circles. However, this does not mean the US has "run out" of oil--it simply means that the with current technologies it is becoming economically unfeasible and geologically difficult to extract much of the remaining conventional oil--this is the normal definition of a "peak." Your point about regulations making oil drilling more difficult is not a valid one--take the Texas example. Regulations in Texas are by no means restrictive, and yet much of the new land-based drilling has stopped (because of dry holes) and most efforts in that area are in off-shore oil, which has yet to be as geologically exhausted as land-based oil.
Publicus
14:13, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm having trouble figuring out where this table is sourced -- the footnote says it comes mostly from the newsletters of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil And Gas (ASPO): [7] -- which appears to be mostly Colin Campbell (geologist). This is a very non-transparent chart, and Campbell's site is no help -- see, for example, ASPO depletion profiles by country, by Dr. Colin J. Campbell. Campbell himself seems mostly sensible, if a bit dim re the coming boom in tar-sand oil.
I'm also having NPOV problems with the chart's name, "Countries that have already passed their production peak". The headnote helps some, but perhaps it needs an NPOV warning box as well.
Pete Tillman
19:59, 9 December 2006 (UTC) Consulting Geologist
I have deleted the chart titled "Top ten nations by oil reserves" since it is using mixed data and provides a mixed message regarding oil reserves. For instance, in the chart just above "top ten" Canada is listed as having estimated reserves of 4.7 as a low and a high of 178 billion barrels, but in the top ten chart that low estimate is no longer shown and just the higher number is given. Further, the other countries are not treated in a consistent fashion--Saudi Arabia's top ten number uses the lower estimate, as does Iran--but Kuwait's top ten number uses the higher estimate. Therefore, this top ten chart is not especially helpful--especially since the chart above does a much better job of illustrating how the oil reserves number for each country is actually more of a range than a static number.(especially until Canada's reserves are determined) Publicus 12:53, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
I have taken out the graph listing countries that have peaked in their oil production as the source's information doesn't represent anywhere near what anyone else is claiming and the simple fact that there are many countries on that list that you can look up now as producing more oil than they were when the graph claims that they hit their oil peak and are now declining.
Misleading information from that so called British study.
Because oil reserves measure the amount of oil economically extractable when considering the price of oil and the current technology, oil reserves vary by the day, and can vary quite considerably. Given this is it even relevant to discuss them?
Hi all. Is there some reason we're using "giga" to reference the number of barrels of oil (i.e. 30 gigabarrels) instead of "billion"? This may be standard terminology in the oil industry but it is confusing to the lay reader. Monkeyman( talk) 17:58, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
The reporting agencies (EIA, IEA & OPEC) and most of the consultants and oilco's use mbd (million barrels/day) ,& kpd (thousands) for production and Gb (billion barrels) & Tb (trillion barrels) for reserves. -- 207.189.230.222 11:09, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
This article contains many inaccuracies including terminology and numbers. I am a Geophysicist with 16 years oil industry experience - I will gradually correct most of the mistakes in the near future.
There will always be some pools which are too small to be economically developed. We are going after smaller sattelite fileds all the time but there is always a limit. With regards to sale price peole will keep pumping just to keep the facilities alive - anybody who lived through the oil field depression in the 1990's will tell you that. Where the price does really matter is when we are considering new projects or enhancements to existing projects. People in western companies are scarred by the experience of the low oil price era and this acts as a break on more speculative investments.
With regard to substitutes ALL of them have significant problems. There are two devices: the Internal combustion engine and the gas turbine which will not be replaced in the foreseable future,there are however alternative fuels. Hydrogen Fool cells have very serious problems which make them unlikely as anything but a spacialised niche product in the next 30-40 years.
1. Non conventional oils eg Tar sand bitumen - economic at $40 per barrel, but very difficult to scale up to meet demand, also serious local environmental damage which is costly to repair. Uses up a lot of energy to manufacture 2. GTL and Coal to liquids - economic at about $ 50 per barrel, again difficult to scale up 3. Biofuels - yes you can supply all of America's if you convert 80% of the midwest breadbasket to growing corn ethanol or canola diesel
The world is developing and becoming more energy hungry, People in China, India and other 3rd world countries are leading much better lives than their ancestors. It is up to people like me to help them
3.biodiesel:Algaculture?-- Ruber chiken 05:43, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
We will never run out of oil. There will always be at least a small trickle. That small trickle may be expensive to produce and to valuable to use for anything other than the productions of medicines but it will always be available as a trickle.
Also, the environment in the tar sands is often left in far better shape than it was befor extraction. The amount of oil seeping in to the local rivers for example is vastly reduced when you wash all the oil out of the sand.
Switch grass is twice as efficient a source of ethanol than corn. Carbonate 09:39, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
like he sayd.ither you eat,iether you run on your SUV.Algaculture seems to me a more viable option -- Ruber chiken 09:47, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
biodesil also requires an acid (sulfuric?) to make it from vegtable oils (which takes enegry to make and leaves polution) Carbonate 08:30, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
There's a fundamental problem with fuel alcohol. It's one of scale. If you converted ALL of the corn produced by the US to ethanol, you would replace only 12% of the gasoline consumed. So 88% of the people would have to walk to work. And nobody could have corn flakes for breakfast any more so they'd have to walk on an empty stomach. RockyMtnGuy 02:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
The feature graph shows oil production not URR (ultimate recoverable resource).-- 207.189.230.222 11:04, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
There was an edit some time ago that changed all refs to "Canada" to "Alberta." Not disputing Alberta's importance, especially in the context of the tar sands, but that made it sound like Canada has no other production or reserves. I made a small change to reflect the other conventional reserves. -- Geologyguy 22:39, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
[10] is a Yahoo News article saying that Greenland might have as much as half of Saudi Arabia's oil reserves. Six previous test drillings were not profitable, but with oil prices shooting up and global warming making the region more accessible there is renewed interest. Simesa 21:51, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Hey RockyMtnGuy -- regarding your recent edit, even if Saudi Arabia has passed its peak of production, it will likely be a VERY long time before its wells would be classified as stripper wells at 10 barrels per day or less. Even considering inflated reports etc., by most accounts Saudi's 8 million barrels per day or so comes from about 1500 wells - averaging more than 5000 barrels per day per well. Even with steep declines it will be a while before any of those wells are stripper wells. Cheers -- Geologyguy 00:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I think it is appropriate to point out that Saudi oil fields are based on carbonate rock formations. Combined with the unfortunate use of water flooding, they are likely to undergo catastrophic decline. See "Twilight in the Desert" by Matthew Simmons (a must read) for technical details and historical presidence. Based on other carbonate reserves, 20% or less recovery of original OIP is not unlikely. Carbonate 16:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
I read somewhere that Venezuela has vast reserves of heavy crude oil. The Venezuela article doesn't mention them, nor does this article. The heavy crude oil article itself is a stub. -- Smithfarm 11:15, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Publicus edited out a line that said "Despite its obligations to do so, PDVSA has stopped filing reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, so it is difficult to verify actual production". I put it back in with a link to the PDVSA press release on their web site, and the reason why it is important (PDVSA owns Citgo, which owns 14,000 service stations in the U.S.). Note that this failure to file is mentioned in the Wikipedia article on PDVSA along with the information that Moody's has stopped rating them. The SEC is investigating, but what can the U.S. do? Send an aircraft carrier? Well, actually, George W. just might... RockyMtnGuy 23:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Interesting that the discussion started with Venezuelan heavy-oil and ended up with confiscating assets. Going back to the point of heavy-oil, the issue is two fold (a) you could argue that most of the deposits accross the Orinoco are not heavy-oil per se, we are rather talking about uncoventional oil (good article on oil sands) which also explains the reluctance to consider it in any estimates as their break even economic point is significantly higher than heavy-oil.
The Venezuelans call their non-conventional oil deposits "extra-heavy oil", but in fact there is little difference between them and what the Canadians call oil sands. The new Canadian in-situ technology would probably work very, very well in Venezuela, but with the current political situation in Venezuela, you are more likely to see former PDVSA heavy oil experts working in the Canadian oil sands than Canadian experts working in Venezuela. Look for continued decline in Venezuelan oil production and continued increase in Canadian exports. RockyMtnGuy 19:10, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
The first link, "The End of the World as We Know It" is out of date.
A transite pipeline has been taken offline by BP because of corrosion. 5 barrels of oil have been leaked. Should this be reflected in the article?
Carbonate 16:44, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
UPDATE - it looks like BP will continue to run the East side while fixing the West (and probably the reverse when the time comes). This means a drop of only 200 000 barrels per day. Carbonate 00:57, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Saudi Arabia's political system is here described as 'medieval', which reflects the values of the authors rather more effectively than it explains why there are risks inherent to continued Saudi domination of world oil supply. Pity that, because some intelligent work has gone into what is an otherwise excellent article. I hope one of the authors will revisit this section and add the something of the depth that the article had exhibited up to that point.
As I understand it, the field in the Gulf of Mexico has been suspected for some time but was inaccessable due to it extreme depth (1 mile of water before 6 miles of rock). It was reported that this is the deepest well ever and is producing 6000 barrels a day. Matthew Simmons has already commented on the discovery suggesting that like many other finds in the Gulf region, it may not procduce as much as would be indicated at first. The prohibitive cost and technical hurdles are likely to make this field difficult and slow to bring in to production.
So who wants to write something up for the article?
Carbonate 08:01, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Just some things to keep in mind: The fact that the oil well won't come online for a few years doesn't change the fact that it has impacted prices now. It has pulled down bids for oil futures, which traces back to the pump price. Also, it's essentially irrelevant to the matter of the US's self-sufficiency on oil. Oil hits the world market and is sold at market rates. Some American oil is sold elsewhere, lots of oil outside America is sold in America. MrVoluntarist 17:16, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
Production rates will depend on all sorts of things, including the nature of the drive (water, gas), the amount of natural pressure, the total estimated volume, the nature of the reservoir (fractured, highly porous, whatever). Even if this one field contains the 15 billion barrels (which I think they really meant the whole play might have at P90 that much - this field is more likely to have 500 million to 1 billion bbl), it would not likely be produced at more than 1.5 million barrels per day; to produce more, even if technically possible, would irrevocably damage the formation and would drastically reduce the ultimate recoverable output. This is what has happened time and time again, in 1870's Pennsylvania, at Texas' Spindletop in 1901 (which initially produced around 100,000 barrels per day, but rampant overdrilling rapidly depleted the pressure, and it peaked within 2-3 years and then precipitously declined, leaving much oil unretrievable), in many Russian fields, and possibly in Saudi Arabia. 1.5 million b/d is 7% of current US demand - a great help, but no panacea. With demand growth of 1%-3% per year, of course we'll be using more than today's 21 million b/d 6 years or so from now when this comes on stream. Cheers -- Geologyguy 02:23, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I chopped out all of the reserves section of pemex and started subsections if anyone knows more about it? I recently read an article talking about a catastrophic decline in their field but I have to go back and find it... Carbonate 09:09, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
www.pemex.com Yikes! Carbonate 23:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
The CIA World Factbook lists 1,349,000,000,000 barrels of proven reserves. The article states the number at 2000 to 2400 gigabarrels. Why the major discrepancy? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Audacity ( talk • contribs) 00:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC).
Is there any particular reason why Denmark is not included in this list? Unfortunately, I don't have the figures myself. Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 11:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
should the table of possible reserves (ie lowest and highest estimates by country) have the scale listed? - Im.a.lumberjack 23:03, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
According to The Economist ( http://economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_STQTGTN ), there are many more billions of barrels in the offshore oil fields. It says in the article 19 billion barrels, but 86 bn in the picture, and I don't quite see the reason for the discrepancy. Anybody have any data on the matter? Offshore oil should most certainly be included in the national reserves. I looked at the Statistical Abstract of the United States and it listed 21 bn total barrels for national reserves, including 4bn under federal jurisdiction, suggesting that offshore oil reserves were not included, if The Economist figures are to be trusted.
According to this link oil production in Saudi Arabia fell by 8% during 2006. G-Man * 20:33, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
The suspicious OPEC numbers section says Kuwait lost 6 billion barrels in the fires, but the article about that says it lost 6 million brl/day. And it didn't last 1000 days...? Medico80 21:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
I am working on the following table for the
Peak oil page. Does anyone have more reliable data and references to fill-in this table?
Kgrr
15:53, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi, As far as I know Russian Samotlor field is not in decline.
80.230.116.103
07:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Field | Country | Discovered | Started Production | Peaked | Billion Barrels | Production (mb/day) | Rate of Decline |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ghawar Field | Saudi Arabia | 1948 [1] | 1951 [1] | 2005 [2] | 75-83 [3] [4] | 5 [5] | 8% per year |
Burgan Field | Kuwait | 1938 | 1948 | 2005 [6] | 66-72 [7] [4] | 1.7 [8] | 14% per year |
Cantarell Field | Mexico | 1976 | 1981 | 2004 [9] | 35 [4], 18 billion recoverable | 1.4 (2006) [10] | 15% per year [10] |
Bolivar Coastal Field | Venezuela | 1917 | 30-32 [4] | 2.6-3 [4] | |||
Safaniya-Khafji Field | Saudi Arabia/ Neutral Zone | 1951 | 30 | ||||
Rumaila Field | Iraq | 1953 | 20 [4] | *civil war | |||
Tengiz Field | Kazakhstan | 1979 | 1993 | 15-26 [4] | .53 [4] | ||
Ahwaz Field | Iran | 1958 | 1960 | in decline | 17 | .16 [11] | 64% per year |
Kirkuk Field | Iraq | 1927 | 2000 | 16 | |||
Marun Field | Iran | 1963 | 16 | ||||
Daqing Field | China | 1959 | 1960 | 2004 [12] | 16 | 1 | |
Gachsaran Field | Iran | 1928 | 15 | ||||
Agha Jari Field | Iran | 1937 | 14 | ||||
Samotlor Field | West Siberia, Russia | in decline | 14-16 | 9% per year | |||
Prudhoe Bay | Alaska | 1969 | in decline | 13 | 0.9 | 11% per year | |
Kashagan Field | Kazakhstan | 13 | |||||
Abqaiq Field | Saudi Arabia | 12 | 0.43 [13] | ||||
Romashkino Field | Volga-Ural, Russia | in decline | 12-14 | ||||
Chicontepec Field | Mexico | 12 | |||||
Berri Field | Saudi Arabia | 12 | |||||
Zakum Field | Abu Dhabi, UAE | 12 | |||||
Manifa Field | Saudi Arabia | 11 | |||||
Faroozan-Marjan Field | Saudi Arabia/ Iran | 10 | |||||
Marlim Field | Campos, Brazil | in decline | 10-14 | 8% per year [14] |
East Timor is an oil country too, please include it in the list (e.g. with unclassified, ...)
I moved the extremely incomplete, and heavily disputed table to Talk:Oil reserves/Draft table where it can be developed. Please discuss it here once it is completed, and then neutrality issues can be resolved before it is reinserted. Savidan 04:45, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
May I suggest that the near-edit war between Belligero and Savedthat be discussed here on the talk page? I have not seen any kind of discussion, even in the edit summaries. Please do so. Cheers Geologyguy 17:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
While you may feel it necessary to entirely rewrite the article, that really isn't the proper way to handle it. Please discuss your edits. Publicus 18:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
A major producer of oil that should get a section in the article
Okay, everybody. Read the definitions of reserve categories at the top of the article before quoting some talking head on the nightly news about new oil discoveries on Mars. In particular, 1) IHS report that there may be another 100 million bbls of oil in Iraq. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't. This is Possible reserves, P10 or 10% probability of being produced. Someone will have to drill some wells to find out, and nobody wants to risk drilling rigs and crews in a war zone. 2) There may be 25% of the worlds oil reserves in the Arctic Ocean. This is an Urban Legend or P0. According to the Economist, see http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9660012 this is usually attributed to the U.S. Geological Survey, but the USGS has never done a study of Arctic reserves and knows nothing about it. I personally worked for a company that ran a drilling fleet of 26 ships in the high Arctic for some years, and we spend billions but found diddly-squat squat up there. RockyMtnGuy 00:16, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Just wanted to know. ? Muntuwandi 04:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I read in "International Business" 10ed. Daniels, John Et.Al. 2004, that Russia´s Oil Reserves are, as of 2001, bigger than Saudi Arabia's. -- Crio de la Paz 03:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
So sorry: I misread: it´s Russias Oil Production that was, at least in 2001, according to that book, bigger that Saudi Arabia´s and I also just checked that they seem to be overproducing?, Thanks!-- Crio de la Paz 03:32, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Oil reserves/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
Class B and Top importance seems to be up to date. For Higher assessment, please list this article for WP:GAN Beagel ( talk) 18:44, 10 December 2008 (UTC) |
Last edited at 18:44, 10 December 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 21:49, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
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