A Place to Stand

  The oil price hit $83 & is falling fast. Not nominally the equivalent of the $30 of a decade ago but factor in inflation and the falling $ and Yes it is.

   40 years ago we were threatened with the oil running out by 20 years ago. Instead more is being shipped of the stuff than ever.

   As ever it is technological progress combined with the total refusal of our political classes to recognise it.. We find ways of utilising shale oil commercially; we find ways of extracting shale gas; we are on the edge of finding ways of using methane hydrates; we can make unlimited cheap , safe nuclear power; we are on the edge of being able to use "cold fusion"; to grow unlimited oil from algae; to build solar power satellites.

  And now, almost unnecessarily, the Russians have found a new oil field able to supply the entire world for 2/3rds of a century.

I learned last week about another oil shale play that dwarfs it. It’s called The Bazhenov. It’s in Western Siberia, in Russia. And while the Bakken is big, the Bazhenov — according to a report last week by Sanford Bernstein’s lead international oil analyst Oswald Clint — “covers 2.3 million square kilometers or 570 million acres, which is the size of Texas and the Gulf of Mexico combined.” This is 80 times bigger than the Bakken....
No wonder. The geology of the Bazhenov looks just as good if not better. Its pay zone averages about 100 feet thick, and as Clint points out, the Bazhenov has lots of cracks and fractures that could make its oil flow more readily. The couple of test wells that he cites flowed at an average of 400 barrels per day. That’s in line with the Bakken average.
This Siberian bonanza might be news to most of us, but it’s old news to Big Oil. The conventional oil fields of Siberia have been producing millions of barrels a day for decades — oil that originated in the Bazhenov “source rock” then slowly oozed up over the millenia. From the looks of it, geologists have been looking at the Bazhenov for more than 20 years.
It’s only in the last five years that the technology and expertise has been developed that will enable drillers to harvest it. Lukoil‘s president Vagit Alekperov said a year ago that his company was also experimenting with the shale.
Analyst Clint figures that it won’t be hard for Big Oil to export their shale-cracking techniques to Siberia. They will be challenged, however by summer weather in Siberia, which softens the ground enough to prevent drilling for much of the season. If Russia can get its act together to deploy 300 drilling rigs to the play, Clint figures Bazhenov could be producing 1 million bpd by 2020....

If Harold Hamm is convinced the Bakken will give up 24 billion barrels, a play 80 times bigger like the Bazhenov would imply 1,920 billion barrels. That’s a preposterous figure, enough oil to satisfy all of current global demand for 64 years, or to do 5 million bpd for more than 1,000 years. Rosneft, says Clint, has already estimated 18 billion barrels on its Bazhenov acreage. Either way, it looks like they’ll still be working the Bazhenov long after Vladimir Putin has finally retired and the Peak Oil crowd realizes there’s more oil out there than we’ve ever imagined.

  Meanwhile our own government is deliberately lying to pretend that simply allowing the exploitation of our own shale gas fields could get us out of recession.

    What a bunch of corrupt, lying, thieving, totalitarian, fascist parasites they are.

   And here is an article by Tory MEP Struan Stevenson bemoaning the refusal of the Scottish government to consider shale gas as nearly 1 million Scots households (NB households not individuals) are in fuel poverty. Once again Holyrood prove that when it comes to lying, thieving, totalitarian, fascist parasites they always endeavour to be the most totalitarian.

HT Al Fin