Repsol makes big shale oil find in Argentina

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

The Spanish energy firm Repsol has made its biggest ever oil discovery in Argentina, finding reserves of nearly 1 billion barrels of shale oil.

The find of 927m barrels could make Argentina one of the world's leading producers of the oil.

The discovery was made by the Argentinian energy firm, YPF, Repsol's subsidiary in the country.

It says that additional reserves could be found as much of the area where YPF is working remains unexplored.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15631423

---

More earthquakes imminent I guess. :(

[MADem]

1. Don't cry for me, Argentina... nt

[Nihil]

2. It's not "oil", it's "tar" ...

It needs a shitload of energy (and water) to extract it from the "reservoir"
and leaves nothing but toxic pollution, death & destruction behind.

You want a picture of an apocalyptic landscape?
Go to a tar shale site.

[FBaggins]

3. Not so

You've conflated "oil shale" and "shale oil" in there. They aren't the same thing.

Oil recovered from these shale plays is far from "tar"... it's most commonly quite "light/sweet". Nor does it take a "shitload of energy" (from an EROEI standpoint). It takes more than "conventional" extraction, but not enough more to be an issue.

There are two legitimate concerns over this type of play. One is the potential environmental damage of the fracking itself and the other is the fact that it reduces the drive to replace oil with cleaner alternatives (thus hurting the global environment long-term) by pushing back the "peak" - potentially by many decades. Unfortunately, neither outweighs the perceived economic benefit.

[Nihil]

8. Correct.

> You've conflated "oil shale" and "shale oil" in there. They aren't the same thing.

I'd misread the OP - thanks for the correction.

:toast:

[JohnyCanuck]

4. Time to Worry: World Oil Production Finishes Six Years of No Growth

By Kurt Cobb

We are entering what may be the longest stretch of no growth in world oil production since the early 1980s. But the reasons for that lack of growth differ in ways that ought to make us all uncomfortable.

Starting in 1980, production slumped because for the first time in history people needed less oil. After the huge oil price increases in the 1970s, cars suddenly got smaller. People became more careful about combining trips to save gas. A lot of people switched their home heating to natural gas which was considerably cheaper than heating oil. And, in the United States the Congress severely restricted the use of oil for new electric power generating plants. Those using oil began to switch to cheaper natural gas and coal. The whole globe went on an energy efficiency binge.

snip


Now, it's not as if high prices haven't sent people looking for more oil and working on more substitutes. The problem is that all of this activity is facing a considerable headwind. It's called depletion. And, as they say in the oil patch, depletion never sleeps. It's going on in every operating well in every country around the clock, 365 days a year. Estimates suggest that the decline in current production capacity might be around 4 percent per year. That means that 4 percent of the current production capacity for oil must be replaced each year just to break even. And, of course, to grow supplies, new production capacity must exceed this amount. But it hasn't, and oil substitutes haven't really grown by any significant amount in the last six years either.

The media loves to announce new seemingly large discoveries of oil as if they are the solution to what is really an unfolding liquid fuels crisis. They point to the Tupi field off Brazil which is purported to have 8 billion barrels of oil in it. And, they point to discoveries in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico thought to contain between 3 and 15 billion barrels. And, they point to the 4 billion barrels in the Bakken Shale in North Dakota. It all sounds like a lot. When I ask audiences how long a billion barrels of oil will last the world at current rates of consumption, I often get replies that range anywhere from three months to 5 years. The correct answer is 12 days. Just multiply these multi-billion-barrel discoveries by 12, and you'll realize right away that they are not going to overcome the constraints we are experiencing in oil supplies.

http://scitizen.com/future-energies/time-to-worry-world-oil-production-finishes-six-years-of-no-growth_a-14-3714.html

[FBaggins]

5. Reality is slowly rolling over Mr Cobb.

Like most peak oil true believers, Mr Cobb is well versed in the argument that there just aren't enough substantial finds out there to prop up production in the face of depletion. A new find off the coast of Brazin or in the Gulf could be spun in terms of "days of global demand" and shown to be too little to make a dent in the global picture. They talked about the need to find "a new Gwahar every six months" (etc).

All of that is changing right in front of him and he hasn't recognized that the argument no longer holds water. These shale "discoveries" are not issolated exploration finds. They are usually well-known supplies that were just never considered possible sources of economic production. There are scores of them around the world and the potential for each is often in the tens of billions of barrels (and the history of technology implies that a new extraction technique will only get cheaper and more effective over time). This really can't be ignored by pretending that it's just a billion or two barrels in a handful of locations.

The story can be told effectively by just looking at the US. We have not seen "six years of no growth" in oil production. What we've seen is a reversal of what was long thought to be an irreversable permanent decline.

[Celefin]

6. Peak-easily-extractable-oil

Unfortunately I think you are right.

But I shudder at the thought of what the world will look like when all these shale oil fields are taken into production down the coming decades as conventional fields are depleted. You don't even have to acknowledge the existence of climate change to be disturbed by that. Massive, subsidized, institutionalized environmental damage blighting whole chunks of countries and continents.

[FBaggins]

9. Even "easily extractable" changes over time.

There are supplies that clearly would have been called "unconventional" in Hubbert's day that are quite conventional today. Fracking is beginning to look like it will be quite conventional within a decade or two.

Massive, subsidized, institutionalized environmental damage blighting whole chunks of countries and continents.

The thing is that this has long been the case. It's just that the bulk of that environmental damage took place "over there". Bringing it closer to home could have two benefits (apart from delaying any "peak"): Fewer dollars will be sent to the middle east (and less need to fight wars there to protect those supplies), and more americans will be faced with the direct environmental impact of the results of their consumption.

[Celefin]

12. Sad that it always has to be 'in your face'

Hey, I'm actually agreeing with FBaggins two posts in a row :b

I'm well aware that large swathes of the global south (aka 'over there') already have been devastated. The problem is that it will be far too late for the average western consumer to start worrying about the impact of their behavior when said impact arrives on their doorstep. Developing alternatives takes a lot of time. Destroying the countryside with fracking doesn't. And I don't think any alternatives will be ready, since the delayed 'peak' will keep costs manageable and prolong the illusion of happy continuation of the status quo. Your point about the wars is very good, but I have a nagging suspicion we'll find something else to go to war over. Yes, I'm a pessimist.

[Arctic Dave]

7. Shale oil recovery is an intensive and continous.

The reason why you here the drill so many wells is becuase they have to. These type of well produce for about two or three months and then peter out quickly and only produce a little. It is a hand to mouth operation and one that will never need less intensive measures to produce but more.

[FBaggins]

10. I've seen that kind of claim more than once...

...but I haven't seen any evidence for it.

"So many wells" is actually tiny compared to the oil drilling of decades past... and each appears to produce for far longer than "two or three months". They wouldn't pay for themselves if that were true. I don't think that they're likely to last the 15-50 years that wells used to, but it's much longer than a couple months.

The real reason to see so many rigs going up (as fast as they can build them), is because they're expanding production for the first time in decades.

[Arctic Dave]

14. Here is article about it.

http://www.oilandgasevaluationreport.com/tags/shale-play/


Compared to convetional drilling practices the are drilled at an incredible rate. Because they have to. We have wells that have prodeuced for close to a decade at high rates in Alaska, you will never see anything close to this in a system of small fracking operations.
They are talking about starting this type of operation up here(Halliburton/Great Bear). If this model proves out they plan drilling 200 wells a month, currently we don't do that in a year statewide.

[NickB79]

13. How much does a barrel of shale oil cost to produce?

Vs., say, a barrel of Mexican or Saudi crude? The statistics I've seen thrown around are usually $30-$50/barrel for unconventional oils like shale, while only $10-$20/barrel for conventional crude.

If we're simply replacing the conventional fields with more expensive shales and tars, what impact will that have on future oil prices? $140/barrel oil in 2007 had a significant impact on global economies, to the point that some have argued it was one of the drivers of the Great Recession. Can our economy handle getting a majority of our oil from shale and tar?

[Terry in Austin]

11. Read 'em and weep, petroholics! -nt