22 Sep, 2006
Huge Oil Discovery -- ?????
I've been intrigued with the huge oil field discovered in the GOM (Gulf of Mexico) by Chevron. It seems to put the kibosh on the "peak oil" theory -- a theory I was starting to believe. Keep in mind that, for me, this is not academic; I write a 6-times-yearly energy commodities column for Energy & Power Management magazine.
To sum up: When this thing was announced, I stopped reading "Twlight In The Desert," the peak-oil Exhibit A book by Matthew Simmons. I was about to write my November column for E&PM on the book. Instead, I shifted gears and ended up with a neat column headlined, "Disregard All Forecasts."
I'm not familiar with the Web site Energy Bulletin, but on 9/6 it provided an 8-point post, "Clarification of the Huge Chevron Gulf Oil Discovery." Assuming for a moment that the facts in here are true, you ought to read it (click here).
One fact of which I was aware, and it's regurgitated here, is that the range of the discovery has been given as 3B to 15B barrels of oil. The first point puts that in perspective: "reserves of Esson Mobil are around 14B barrels total." That puts the high end of the range in perspective.
Other points of note: "Full production will not start at the very earliest [until] 2013."
The discovery "is comprised of no single field of more than 300M barrels." Wow.
Read the post. It might be off-base, but it's food for thought!