This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Guest Post: Middle East Producers See More Heavy Oil In Their Future
Submitted by www.OilPrice.com
Middle East Producers See More Heavy Oil in their Future
Middle East oil countries should increase production of heavy oil as oil prices remain higher and improved technology makes it easier, those attending an industry conference in Bahrain were told.
Bahrain’s oil minister, Abdulhussain Mirza, told the Heavy Oil World MENA conference that heavy oil reserves in the region were estimated at 1 trillion barrels, or 28% of total world reserves, but historically accounted for little more than 10% of production.
“The vast reserve demonstrates the importance of heavy oil as a future energy source, one that cannot be overlooked and, therefore, companies that position themselves early in the heavy oil business are likely to win the game,” Mirza said, according to local news reports.
Bahrain recently signed an agreement with Mubadala Development, an Abu Dhabi state-owned firm, and Occidental Petroleum of the U.S., to boost heavy oil production in the Awali field, one of the oldest in the region and Bahrain’s only oilfield.
Using advanced oil recovery technology and developing the heavy oil sectors of the field could double or triple its production from 32,000 barrels a day currently, Mirza said.
Heavy crude oil is distinguished from light crude oil because it does not flow as easily due to a higher specific gravity. Oil sands and natural bitumen, which don’t flow at all, are also included in this definition.
Production and refining of heavy crude costs more than recovering and processing light crude. Production of heavy oil from oil sands in Canada’s Alberta province has an estimated break-even point of $35 a barrel, Mirza noted. But Bahrain’s heavy oil could be recovered at a cost of between $8 and $9 a barrel, he said.
Oil prices in recent weeks have fluctuated in a range of $70 to $80 a barrel, which OPEC officials have declared an ideal range.
“Heavy oil will be a savior to the ever-increasing demand for fossil fuels from the developing nations,” Mirza was quoted as saying.
The national oil companies of Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were represented at the Bahrain conference, as well as multinational oil giants Total and Chevron. Saudi Arabia plans to develop heavy crude deposits and to refine the oil for domestic use, saving more of the light crude for export.
Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Middle-East-producers-see-more-heavy-oil-in-their-future.html
By Darrell Delamaide for Oilprice.com who offer detailed analysis on Oil, alternative Energy, Commodities, Economics and Geopolitics. They also provide free Geopolitical intelligence to help investors gain a greater understanding of world events and the impact they have on certain regions and sectors. Visit: http://www.oilprice.com
»
- 3445 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
Pumped out.
Low hanging fruit be damned, huh? The EROEI of sands and heavy oil is much worse than light sweet crude. This is because many places use NG (sands) and water (oil) to get the stuff out. This not only hurts EROEI, but can damage the reserve itself. You would think that advances in technology would help, but the interesting thing about technology is that it depletes oil reserves at a much faster rate, and thus hinders long term supply by said rate but also can collapse the reserve itself.
Good luck Bahrain! See you your oil, and raise you a dollar.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/cause-oil-spill-peak-oil
Nothing surprising here. You would develop heavy oil because you're running out of producible light oil.
"Twilight in the Desert" (nothing to do with vampires, fortunately) discusses this in the Saudi context.
Peak oil is here, and it's entirely possible that peak oil occurred back in 2005. The ride will get bumpier from here on.
Peak oil is here. (2010)
Population bomb is here. (1970)
Global cooling is here. (1980)
Global warming is here. (1990)
Nuclear Al-Quaeda is here. (2001)
The anti-Christ is here. (ca. 999 AD)
Fuck off with your pseudoscientific apocalpyse. The real world is going to be bad enough. No need to invent distracting fantasies to make things seem worse.
google: survivor bias. What you suffer from is some variant of it.
You listed 5 items that didn't happen (although one may argue that the population bomb was delayed by ramping up oil produciton). You ignore the endless predictions that did come true that would have sounded outlandish to the massed before they happened: The housing market did crash, the hollocaust did happen, oil did peak in the U.S.
Not to mention that the Roman empire collapsed, the British empire collapsed, the Soviet Union collapsed, "Red China" became de facto capitalist/fascist, etc. Had you predicted any of those things just 10 years before they occurred you would have been labeled a nutcase. (Of course, a tiny handful of people did predict those things - and far more than a tiny handful are now observing peak oil [it's no longer really a prediction, any more than forecasting at 1:30pm what the weather was at 1:00pm]).
I mean hey, if we want to talk about bad predictions, where's my rotating space hotel, my moon base, my colonies on Mars, flying car, cities under the oceans, atomic powered car, world without poverty, end of cancer, conquering of disease, etc.???
well said
Yes, and for every true prophet who gets an accurate vision of the future, there are 1000 nutters who sling the latest politico-scientific theory against the wall just to see what sticks.
Very fashionable these days to carp on about so-called Peak Oil. It's great for sounding intelligent and informed at cocktail parties and the like. But it has no firmer grounding in empirical science than the Martian colonies, flying cars, or rotating space hotels you mentioned above.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY
Wow. That is some really eye-opening material. Thank you for sharing it.
Honestly, I will have to re-evaluate some of my dearly-held notions and preconceptions about resource consumption and population growth.
In the past, I have tended to assume that the problem of declining oil supplies would be solved through the introduction of replacement energy sources (primarily nuclear, with a helping of "green" energy sources to supplement). I gather from Dr. Bartlett's lecture that this is just another form of kicking the can--the core problem is overpopulation and the mathematically-dictated strain that it places on the environment.
At any rate, thank you again for sharing the video.
No, thank you for showing that all it takes is for someone to be shown the truth. I hate to do extra body work, but I would like to point out here that nuclear has one of the worst EROEIs due to almost infinite storage costs.
Anyway, glad you had the red pill. See you at the top of the mountain.
Do you have any good links to data on EROEI of nuclear as compared to other sources?
Thanks.
You kinow whats funny? I thought I posted this video in my comments below! Good on ya mate!
Well, believe whatever you want, but you're clearly a fool.
Peak oil isn't exactly a new idea - it's been a theory since the 1950's. You know, back when plate tectonics was barely accepted? Oh wait, you probably wouldn't.
Wow....a theory since the 1950's?
It must be true.
Gravity = just a theory
Relativity = just a theory
Germ theory of disease = just a theory
Thermodynamics = just a theory
Atomic structure of matter = just a theory
I much prefer to count angels dancing on the head of a pin. And I read goat entrails when I want to know how to make important decisions.
You're aware that every single well in the history of wells has eventually peaked, aren't you?
Or is it that you're just fking stupid?
Meh, not if you believe Saudi Aramco claims and take them at face value with no questions, no digging, no SPE papers etc....
:)
On a more serious note, glad that megatoxic seems to have looked at new (to him) information and gained some understanding. Peak oil isn't happy and fun, and there are other carrying capacity issues to consider, but it's better to know about what may be coming than just play ostrich.
google: mass hysteria. What Peak Oil freaks suffer from is some variant of it.
I'm under no illusions about how ugly things are going to get over the next few years (or decades). But there is no need to invent apocalyptic fantasies about the end of "fossil fuels" to embellish an already darkening future.
Google mathematics man:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQd-VGYX3-E&feature=channel
Then give some evidence for your case against peak oil!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All I see from you are strawmen arguements.
You give NO evidence for your case. All strawmen arguments. You are a Utopian, so what do you believe exactly? Feel free to quote freedman, palast, and Huber...none of whom are geologists!
"There are four oil fields in the world which produce over one million barrels per day. Ghawar, which produces 4.5 million barrels per day, Cantarell in Mexico, which produces nearly 2 million barrels per day, Burgan in Kuwait which produces 1.7 million barrels per day and Da Qing in China which produces 1 million barrels per day."
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/ghawar.htm
The numbers are a bit outdated (2008) and lower by now but doubling 32'000 barrel a day is a drop in the bucket, not more.
WAY out of date.
Cantarell is at about 500kbpd now.
It literally crashed from 2.5 to .5 in the span of a few years. One year, it had a 34% YoY production decline. It wasn't even close to 2mbpd in 08 either.
I am aware of the decline, my point is to illustrate relative sizes.
In a reasonable time I did not find a quotable link for current figures.
Yea, not like they have a choice really... As Marc faber pointed out in that video posted earlier, some geologists are still arguing if we have reached peak oil or not (what the economists think is irrelevant), but everybody agrees we are using far more oil than is being found.
The trouble with the heavy oil is it's not only expensive to extract but also more expensive and difficult to refine.
Heavy or even sour crude costs far less per BTU than oil shale, tar sands, wind, solar ...etc. The world will be mining coal and refining heavy and sour crude long after we are all dead. It will require some scam like a carbon to alter reality in the short term. Of course when you expend more energy than you net, the scam falls apart. The real reason for a carbon tax is to limit the growth of the developing world as well as provide a source of funds for the elite. It will be Enron to the 10th power...
Yes, most likely, and I say this as a firm believer in peak oil. Many people have a strawman concept of peak oil that one day all the wells will suddenly stop flowing and we'll instantly be in the stone age. That's fantasy and no reputable oilman or geologist has ever claimed that. Peak oil, in reality, means that our rate of production has peaked and therefore there will be progessively less oil available, on a daily production basis, than there was before the peak. Assuming oil demand and population continue to rise, which are pretty reasonable assumptions, peak oil will nonetheless be somewhere between a severe problem and devastating.
This seems fairly plausible too. I'm sure many people supporting a "carbon tax" have good motives, but they are probably mostly the naive sheep who don't fathom the myriad ways that they get fleeced, screwed, and slaughtered. I think it would be very good for the world if we quickly reduced consumption of fossil fuels and production of CO2, but I also think that most governmental and international schemes for such reductions have had anything but pure motives.
Dig into the T Boone Pickens "plan". What a scam. It requires the US taxpayer to pay to upgrade every large diesel vehicle to run on Nat gas. The cost will be $50 - $100K per vehicle. What is unmentioned is that Nat gas prices will only go up when all these new users come on line. Old T Boone also wants huge subsudies to build out his wind farm and pay for the power lines required to hook his boondoggle up to the grid. Left unsaid is the requirement to invalidate all zoning and environmental laws to get this done.
Look at discoveries peak in the 60s.
Oil production per capita peaked in 79. Population grew far faster that energy production, suggestive of overshoot.
If world production cliffdives like Cantarell, all hell will break loose. Don't worry, you won't live long enough to get ground into peonage.
But, again, low EROI fields mean that there isn't anything out there that produces a better return.
Aggregate economicalness rises, peaks, and declines; this is the way of things.
Sorry broke the fourth rule, couldn't help it.
June 8, 1967 – Deliberate Massacre of US Sailors on USS Liberty by our closest ally
in the middle east ,
GUESS WHO ???????
( " our special relationship" )
I WANT A DIVORCE !!!
3 HOUR COMBINED AIR & SEA ATTACK
IN BRIGHT FULL SUN , WITH BIG AMERICAN FLAG VISIBLE TO ANYONE !!!!!!!!!!!!
Tags:
DEBKAfile — a propaganda spigot that has known connections to Mossad -- reports that Weekend at Bernie bin Laden (you know, the guy that died back in Dec '01 as reported in all media around the world except the US media controlled concentration camp) has been hiding in Iran for the past 5 years under full Iranian protection (I know, I know, but try convincing Fox’s sheeple brigade that it’s pure bull shinto). To make it worse, Turkey's Erdogan (Israel’s enemy du jour given his firm stand on the flotilla massacre) is also said to be in cahoots. The stage is set: A blanket blitz of Tora Bora II...