Brazil oil field could be huge find

[NickB79]

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A deep-water exploration area could contain as much as 33 billion barrels of oil, an amount that would nearly triple Brazil's reserves and make the offshore bloc the world's third-largest known oil reserve, a top energy official said Monday.

snip

""This would lay to rest some of the peak oil pronouncements that we were out of oil, that we weren't going to find anymore and that we have to change our way of life," said Roger Read, an energy analyst and managing director at New York-based investment bank Natixis Bleichroeder Inc., which buys and sells stock in offshore drilling contractor Seadrill for clients."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080414/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/brazil_oil_11;_ylt=Ao0TNnVsaLEt7Jke3ZpMp7cXIr0F

My personal prediction: this field will turn out like the Caspian oil basin, and the final oil reserves will end up around 15 billion barrels, far less than predicted. It is also located in deep water, making it far more expensive to extract than land-based reserves.

Also, as to this putting to rest the peak oil argument, the author of this article should have really bore in mind that 33 billion barrels of oil is barely ONE year's worth of world consumption.

[dflprincess]

1. I predict that Brazil will become a threat to America's security

and we will have to invade to save Brazil from itself.

I can hear Bush now, "No need for alternative enery, we have found a brazillion barrels of oil!"

[HeresyLives]

3. Groan!

We should have seen THAT one coming!

:rofl:

[dflprincess]

5. Sorry,

I couldn't resist - I was just suprised no one beat me to it. :evilgrin:

[Ganja Ninja]

11. You must be psychic.

:spray:

[xchrom]

2. recommend

[JohnyCanuck]

4. Oh Boy! They found a whole 33 billion barrels of new oil!

Which is about 1 year's worth of oil at present world consumption rates.

The good news is that we have consumed only about 900 billion barrels (less than half), and that we currently consume only about 30 billion barrels per year. This leaves from 900 to 1500 estimated ultimately recoverable (EUR) oil in the ground. The bad news is that historically in a given region, as the EUR (remaining oil) approached the halfway mark, the yearly oil production has reached a plateau and then declined. Peak discovery of new oilfields over the entire world occurred in the 1960s, followed by a declining rate of discovery in the last forty years. New discoveries are now far below the replacement rate for current production. Living off of forty year old oil fields is inconsistent with economic growth, which requires ever increasing amounts of oil.

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/gene/peakoil/node2.html

[diane in sf]

6. Any thought of not cutting oil consumption radically soon is a neocon fantasy

[Dead_Parrot]

10. OBEY!

...'E's not dead, E's pining for the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fnord">Fnords

[Oerdin]

7. Here's reality.

All the peak oil guys who kept saying there was no new big discoveries of oil in the 80's and 90's have completely missed reality. The reason few companies spent much on exploration in the 80's and 90's was that oil prices were consistently low during that period. When the market is facing over supply no one spends billions on trying to increase supply. Notice how shortly after prices go up, IE when supply is tight, that suddenly all the companies go gangbusters on exploration and make huge new finds?

This shouldn't shock anyone who knows the slightest bit about how the market works.

[tom_paine]

8. Unfortunately, reality is far far FAR more than simple market forces.

Reality is environment. Reality is the value of the dollar. Reality is the basic truth of Hubbert's Peak and Peak Oil, regardless if it happens in 20, 50 or even in the most laughable fanstasy presented by those who can only see Market Forces and believe it substitues for the whole of reality, 100 years.

The funny thing, Mr. Market Forces, is that let's say the most ignorant of our Market Touters' fantasies comes true, that being the cornucopian view of Abiotic Oil, the burning of limitless oil at "business as usual" increases would kick our environment into the unrecoverable zone in a century or much more likely half or a quarter of that time.

Limitless oil, even if it did exist, is not the answer.

I know quite a bit about how the markets work, and while you are correct in your very very VERY narrow statement, it changes nothing of our situation.

You can adjust the timeline. Is it coming a decade later, a decade sooner, but it is coming.

Limitless oil would be a one-way ticket to the Sixth Mass Extinction.

I know, I know, those who tout the ageless, deathless, and cosmic nature of "market forces" cannot be troubled by minute and irrelevant forces such as the atmosphere or the environemnt.

Market Forces are the most powerful and most significant forces in the universe, aren't they, Mr. Smug Guy?

:rofl: :puke:

Nothing worse than a smug (rhymes with glass-mole) touting market forces.

OK, I exaggerated, there are plenty of things worse, glass-mole, but that doesn't change you or your glassinine, smugly superior comment.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. Gosh, that's a lot!

Glad that's one problem I won't have to deal with¹!

----
¹If I get run over by a bus tomorrow.