Brazil Oil Finds May End Reliance on Middle East, Zeihan Says

[MADem]

Fire up the SUV Martha, it's fossil fuel funtime!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aBUoYKhu7PWk

April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil's discoveries of what may be two of the world's three biggest oil finds in the past 30 years could help end the Western Hemisphere's reliance on Middle East crude, Strategic Forecasting Inc. said.

Saudi Arabia's influence as the biggest oil exporter would wane if the fields are as big as advertised, and China and India would become dominant buyers of Persian Gulf oil, said Peter Zeihan, vice president of analysis at Strategic Forecasting in Austin, Texas. Zeihan's firm, which consults for companies and governments around the world, was described in a 2001 Barron's article as ``the shadow CIA.''

Brazil may be pumping ``several million'' barrels of crude daily by 2020, vaulting the nation into the ranks of the world's seven biggest producers, Zeihan said in a telephone interview. The U.S. Navy's presence in the Persian Gulf and adjacent waters would be reduced, leaving the region exposed to more conflict, he said.

``We could see that world becoming a very violent one,'' said Zeihan, former chief of Middle East and East Asia analysis for Strategic Forecasting. ``If the United States isn't getting any crude from the Gulf, what benefit does it have in policing the Gulf anymore? All of the geopolitical flux that wracks that region regularly suddenly isn't our problem.''

..... (more at link)....

[Captain Sensible]

1. Watch...

as the middle east begs for U.S. or UN help to stabilize the area after the Oil is gone.

[BeyondGeography]

2. Great news...Just don't tell the atmosphere

[frogcycle]

3. yeah

although if it could actually be possible to advance alternative energy r&d without the pressure of a looming oil shortfall and insane prices, then having a carefully-husbanded supply on our side of the globe would be a good thing. Heck, just the reduction in energy spent shipping the stuff around the globe is a positive.

It won't happen, but if the attitude could be taken that we need to make this supply last forever, like someone in the desert with one canteen of water...
then we can mind our own business and let the folks in the mideast just figure out how to get along - or not - without us.

[BeyondGeography]

4. Discoveries like this could take the pressure off...

if Americans would drop their spoiled child approach to consumption. China and India can still point to us anytime they're criticized; it would/will be, dare I say, a hopeful day when they don't have that leg to stand on anymore.

[MADem]

5. Well, I suppose this will push back the age of the coal-fired Hummer....

:shrug:

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. ...

:evilgrin:

[BeyondGeography]

8. Or the clean-coal fired Hummer...

[UndertheOcean]

7. So this will delay peak oil I gather ?

[MADem]

9. Sure looks that way--they'll be in the Top Seven of oil producers.

China, India and the Russkies can deal with the Middle East! We can buy from our neighbors!

[Subdivisions]

19. Do you have anything to back that up? What do you know

about Peak Oil? What do you know about the state of the world's oil reserves? What information leads you to your knowledge that Brazil's oil finds (lol) are enough to stop the peak in world oil production?

I've been researching the issue every single day for 2 years and I've come to the conclusion that oil production is in decline. How have you come to the opposite conclusion?

[BigDaddy44]

21. Geez, relax

The guy gave an opinion. He's not under oath........

[MADem]

23. If you're looking for a big old fight about Peak Oil, you're barking up the wrong tree.

I could ask the same questions of you, too. What do any of us "KNOW?" We read stuff, sure, but what we read might well be faulty information. I'm basing my supposition, and that's all I'm doing, supposing, on what this article is TELLING us about the size of the find. I certainly haven't hauled my ass to these new discoveries and measured them, and neither have you.

Seems to me that all of these new finds in SA and Cuba, even though they aren't the easily refinable quality we prefer, are "pushing back the day." They may not solve the ultimate problem, but if they exist in the quantities asserted, and producers can get to them, they're forestalling it.

If YMV, well, fine. Please enjoy your viewpoint.

If you really want to get down in the mud about the topic, maybe this Harvey Enchin fellow, who looks like your polar opposite, at the Vancouver Sun will accomodate you: http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=cf71b688-62c6-464c-ade8-100fe3e955d7&sponsor=

[JCMach1]

10. There was a report last week that the find was SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than what had been reported

Brazil Field Smaller Than Claimed, Credit Suisse Says (Update3)

By Joe Carroll

April 16 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil's Carioca prospect may have 98 percent less crude than a figure cited by the country's oil agency, Credit Suisse Group said, challenging claims that the field is the biggest-ever discovery outside the Middle East... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&refer=energy&sid=ao7d7haWD5A8

[MADem]

15. Dunno .... this article is from yesterday, perhaps Credit Suisse was gaming the markets! NT

[bullwinkle428]

11. When will * give a press conference stating that we have intelligence

that Brazil has WMDs, and is planning on using them against America?

[Junkdrawer]

13. McCain will announce that re: Venezuela ....her Orinoco oil fields puts Brazil's to shame...

...

The other challenge is the exploitation of about 1.6 trillion barrels of extra-heavy oils and bitumen in place along the northern bank of the Orinoco River. PDVSA says that, with current technology, about 275 bn barrels of this oil would be commercially recoverable.

...

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-3272347_ITM

The problem with both is that they are heavy oil deposits offshore. Iraq has upto 400 billion barrels in light, sweet, crude. Getting at Iraq's oil has, however, other problems...

[MADem]

16. Alfonso Queda, and a Brazillion of his Fellow Terrists, must be eliminated! NT

[KharmaTrain]

12. That's Not What Brasil Should Sell Us...

A bunch of "ifs" here. First, is the type of crude. As someone pointed out in a post about Venezuela...the oil in South America isn't of the quality of that we get from other places. It costs more to get out of the ground and refine...especially if its located deep in the jungles. How do you get it out of there? It's years from being developed...just like other "finds"...and only delays, doesn't answer the question.

What we could import from Brasil that would benefit us is how they've turned sugar cane and other crops into alternative fuels. They have over 30 years of experience that could be a blueprint to solve some of our energy problems.

[frogcycle]

14. if it were just sugar cane

but "other crops" includes soybeans and corn, which are poor sources of ethanol, and they are tearing down rainforest to plant the stuff.

Yes, they have a lot of ethanol producction, but we need it to be using sugarcane grown in Cuba, the dominacan, PR, etc. We need to create a sugarcane/ethanol economy that doesn't destroy the rainforests.

Gee, we need an energy policy and a foreign policy. Who'da thunk it?

[KharmaTrain]

17. No Argument Here

Corn and Soy-based ethanol has never been seen as efficient. I remember the first experiements in the 70's and those who did the testing said they'd never put it in their cars. But it sure was a bonus to agri-business over the last couple years.

Yes...sugar cane and i've heard of several other high-yield crops that could provide fuels that could be integrated into a more comprehensive energy policy.

Regarding using the cane grown in the Carribean...I'm for it, ONLY, if it's as a surplus and not at the expense of the local populace.

[frogcycle]

20. next after sugar can is switchgrass

native prairie grass, perennial, drought-tolerant, needs no herbicides or pesticides.

Harvest each fall - use those big hay balers that make the big rolls - and put a fermentation plant pretty much every place there is a grain elevator.

The stuff should be growing in every highway median and cloverleaf, right now, despite lack of processing facilities and the need for breakthroughs in cellulose breakdown technology. It would be taking carbon from the air, and developing a "seed crop" both for seed and sod transplant when the technology is ready. No matter how long it takes to become a primary source (if ever) it would be doing some good just by growing. Hell, if all you did was grow it, bale it, and let it turn to compost, it would be a net plus for the environment.

Instead big business is destroying rainforests and diverting feed crops* to ethanol just to get the subsidies.

*don't get me started on the inefficiency of growing corn and soybeans to feed animals for meat!

[Subdivisions]

18. Bullshit! If you combine the total of all discoveries made

in Brazil, and IF there's actually what they've ESTIMATED, it will supply the world for less than 9 months.

Not to mention that it has already been reported that the finds aren't as large as first expected.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=ao7d7haWD5A8&refer=latin_america

From the article: Brazil's Carioca prospect may have 98 percent less crude than a figure cited by the country's oil agency, Credit Suisse Group said, challenging claims that the field is the biggest-ever discovery outside the Middle East.

Go ahead, read the article at the link. You'll find a tasty tidbit that speaks of the spike in share value for Petrobras after the proclamations of massive finds.

How do you suppose that this:



...can't happen to world oil production? That is the production graph for US oil production. Every single depleted oil field on this planet has a similar production curve. Why does no one believe that this same curve will manifest for world oil production?


Quit grasping at straws and learn to live differently.

[frogcycle]

22. spot on

regardless of how much or how little, the continued combustion of fossil fuels at a pace something like a billion or so times faster than they were deposited is both catastrophic to the planet in returning all that carbon to the atmosphere at such a apace, and of finite duration. It doesn't really matter if there is a 100 year oil supply, 50, 25 or 10. It is FINITE and dwindling and EVENTUALLY somethings gotta give. This generation can bite the bullet and start doing something serious about it, or it can leave an even bigger crisis to future generations.

We can be viewed by future generations as the heroic generation that saved civilization or as a bunch of greedy fuckups. So far we are doing pretty well in establishing the latter as our legacy.

[MADem]

24. Your cite is from April 16. The one I provided is more recent., APR 24. Both from Bloomberg, too.

Now, maybe Bloomberg has idiot editors that don't check these things, but maybe they have checked their facts, and they went with the story because they have confidence in it.

Your irritation and, dare I say, petulance ("Quit grasping at straws and learn to live differently") is misplaced. You have no fucking IDEA how I live, but I can fairly state that I'm more "sustainable" than most.

I saw an interesting article with SOURCED assertions in it, and I posted it. You come at me with an outdated cite from the same publication, all pissed off, like I'm the one who wrote the fucking thing.

For something you want to believe isn't there, it's sure generated a lot of speculation, not the least amongst our old allies over in the sandbox region. Of course, the conspiracy theorists would say the whole thing was a giant ruse to compel the sandbox crowd to play nice for a change, least they find that the new sherriff in town is a less friendly Russian or Chinese one: http://www.metimes.com/Editorial/2008/04/24/us_in_the_arab_world_a_golden_age/5371/

Assume for a moment that Haroldo Lima, the head of Brazil's National Petroleum Agency, is right in his claim that a new offshore oilfield of some 33 billion barrels has been found under the Atlantic Ocean near Rio de Janeiro. Called the Carioca field, it would be the world's third largest. It follows the discovery last year of the 8 billion barrel Tupi field, also offshore, and in February the finding of a massive new gasfield called Jupiter.

Between them, these two new oilfields contain more than double the known U.S. oil reserves. The U.S. currently imports around 10 million barrels a day, half of it from the Western Hemisphere countries of Canada, Mexico and Venezuela. Assume that the remainder could come from Brazil's new fields, which alone would be sufficient to meet U.S. import needs for over 20 years, and some interesting political implications start to emerge.


If the United States can meet all its energy imports needs from its own hemisphere, what would be the effect on U.S. grand strategy, troop deployments and its current role in the Middle East?


A major part of the rationale for the strong U.S. military presence in the Gulf and in the Arabian Sea would disappear. The need to shore up the friendly governments of the Gulf Cooperation Council against the threat of aggression or radical ideology from Iran would be considerably reduced.


The expense of keeping the entire equipment for an armored brigade and an armored cavalry regiment in vast warehouses in Qatar, ready to drive direct to battle once the troops and tank crews fly in, would become questionable. The four large merchant vessels that sit off the island of Diego Garcia, available for swift replenishment of a U.S. Marine Expeditionary Force, might well go home.


America's Arab allies may be ill-advised to count on the presence of U.S. forces being permanent. America's enemies in the Middle East might foresee a day in which the Great Satan boards his ships and goes home, leaving the region to its fate....If the Americans turn away, and India and China rush in to fill the vacuum and secure their access to oil, the Arab world may yet come to look back on the American era in the region as a golden age.

[madinmaryland]

25. How much is a brazilian barrels of oil...

KKarl Rove is giving John McCain his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, we lost three Brazilian barrels of oil."

"OH NO!" McCain exclaims. "That's terrible!"

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as McCain sits, head in hands.

Finally, McCain looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion barrels of oil?"

:evilgrin: