Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In oil, as in other extractive industries, you have what is called the “R/P ratio”. In the R/P ratio, “R” is reserves of whatever it is you are extracting, and “P” is the production rate, the rate at which you are extracting and using up your reserves.
Figure 1. World annual oil production in billions of barrels (blue line), and years left at that production rate (R/P ratio, red line). Right scale shows the proven oil reserves for each year, in billions of barrels (dotted green line). DATA SOURCE: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2011, a most fascinating Excel spreadsheet. PHOTO Spindletop Hill Gusher, 1901
When you divide the amount you have in reserves by the rate at which you are extracting the resource, you get the number of years the reserves will last at that rate of extraction. Accordingly, I include the R/P ratio in Figure 1 as “Years Left”
A couple of things to point out. First, the “Years Left”, the R/P ratio, is currently more than forty years … and has been for about a quarter century. Thirty years ago, we only had 30 years of proven oil reserves left. Estimates then said we would be running out of oil about now.
Twenty-five years ago, we had about forty years left. Ten years ago we had over forty years left. Now we have over forty-five years left. I’m sure you see the pattern here.
Second, this is only what are termed “proven reserves” (Wiki). It does not include “unproven reserves”, much of which is in the form of unconventional oils such as shale oil and oil sands. Even discounting the unproven reserves, while the rate of production has increased, the proven reserves have also increased at about the same rate. So the R/P ratio, the years left at the current rate of production, has stayed over forty years for almost a quarter century..
Now, at some point this party has to slow down, nothing goes on forever … but the data shows we certainly don’t need to hurry to replace oil with solar energy or rainbow energy or wind energy in the next few decades. We have plenty of time for the market to indicate the replacement.
Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to find a better energy source than oil. In fact, the huge new sources of shale gas will substitute in many areas for things like heating oil, and will burn cleaner in the bargain. And I do think we’ll find new sources of energy, humans are endlessly inventive.
I’m just registering my protest against the meme of “OMG we’re running out of oil we must change energy sources right now tomorrow!!”. It is simply not true. We have plenty of time. We have decades. We don’t have to blow billions of dollars of our money subsidizing solar and wind and biofuels. The world has enough oil to last for a long while, plenty long enough for the market to determine whatever the next energy source might be.
w.
NOTE: Oil figures, particularly reserves, are estimates. Oil companies are notoriously close-mouthed about their finds and the extent of their holdings. The advantage of the BP figures is that they are a single coherent time series. Other data gives somewhat different results. As far as I know the increase in proven reserves despite increasing production is common to all estimates.
Yes, I understand. I can’t quite tell if you misread my post or not. Note that I said “biotic oil production is pure hand-waving”.
Yes, Brian, I did understand your meaning. You’re quite right, biotic or so-called “fossil fuel” theory is nothing but hand waving.
I was just putting out the specific process that has been demonstrated because numerous geologists subscribe to that specific type of process going on in the Earth’s crust — referred to as Fischer-Tropsch Type process.
Brian H says:
December 15, 2011 at 10:54 am
Amusingly, the whole process of biotic oil production is pure hand-waving. Neither in the lab nor on paper nor in computer simulations has a chemical sequence been identified which produces oil from biological sediment. Especially pure high-grades of oil, with all sorts of elements common to biological debris magically excluded.
But the assembly of oils from methane and water under extreme pressure and heat is comparatively straight-forward, or at least feasible.
What we have here is another case of Loud Consensus. The louder, the likelier it’s loopy.
—————
The oil window is well understood. Different grades of oil shows how oil gets formed from biological sources, including kerogen which contains animal lipids.
What is strange is why people are so fixated on an abiotic process when not one field has been identified as having a non-biological source.
Abiotic oil belongs beside AGW in the dustbin of science failures.
James F. Evans says:
December 15, 2011 at 11:32 am
SteveE, if you are familiar with all the evidence for and against abiotic oil then please present specific objections to Peter Szatmari’s paper that I linked to above.
In regards to so-called “source rocks” having “biomarkers”, generally, these consist of contaminants in the oil and organic molecules that have been found in chondrite meteorites.
So called “source rock” have different compositions, you call “maturity”. This is because different deposits have different ages and are subject to different conditions, ie. heat and pressure.
——-
If abiotic was true, then there should be deposits that have biomarkers (from contamination) and others which would not.
Please show us a field that does not have a biological chemical marker.
JimF says:
December 15, 2011 at 11:20 am
@JeffK says:
December 14, 2011 at 9:01 pm
“…Sorry, don’t buy it….”
I know. You’re a candidate to buy the Brooklyn Bridge.
For those who like gases and fluids being generated out of the Earth’s interior, go check out the genesis of diamonds. Some fun stuff there (and a mighty blast of CO2 into the atmosphere over time).
———-
You mean this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHPOp69SO9E
What is significant is kimberlite pipes dont occur today, havnt since the precambrian.
James F. Evans says:
December 15, 2011 at 11:32 am
In regards to so-called “source rocks” having “biomarkers”, generally, these consist of contaminants in the oil and organic molecules that have been found in chondrite meteorites.
————————————————————————————————————
This thread just keeps getting better. Biomarkers are not contaminants, they are part of the oil. They encompass a large range of molecular structures and are basically fossils on a molecular scale. For example , the presence of oleanane, a compound found in flowering plants will tell you the source rock is no older than Jurassic when flowering plants evolved. You won’t find it in Bakken oil. Botryococcene will tell you the source is botryococcus algae from non-marine laccustrine sediments of Tertiary age. It is found in much of the SE Asian oil, including the granite of Bach Ho field. (I have a nice Russian seismic line here on my desk showing the laccustrine sediments in direct contact with the fractured granite horst).
These hydrocarbon compounds are not found in meteorites, they are not formed by fischer tropsch, they do not leak from tectonic rifts, they are formed by plants, trapped in sediments, are a component of oil.
Development of oil formation theories and their importance for peak oil
http://www.tsl.uu.se/uhdsg/Publications/Abiotic_article.pdf
Conclusions
Petroleum formation has been discussed since prehistoric times to the present day. In many ways, the current biogenic and abiotic theories may be seen as greatly improved and rigorous versions of their historical predecessors. Concepts and explanations have matured over hundreds of years and been continuously strengthened by new scientific investigations. Scientific support and theoretical arguments can be derived for both biogenic and abiotic oil. From a production perspective, it is the commercially extractable amounts of oil that matter. Biogenic petroleum geology has been superior in terms of locating reservoirs, which has given rise to the oil era and the present petroleum-powered society.
In comparison, abiotic theory has not been able to provide vast amounts of commercial reserves. The Siljan Ring drillings failed at finding a commercially interesting deposit, even though new attempts are going to be made in the future. Abiotic theory sometimes claims success in places such as Vietnam, Dniepr-Donets Basin and Eugene Island, but those deposits can also be explained by biogenic petroleum geology. The lack of a clear and irrefutable success in locating abiotic petroleum in commercial quantities is problematic. Until such examples are found, abiotic petroleum will likely remain a relatively ambiguous concept. However, certain groups do not agree and claim that commercial accumulations have nothing to do with fossil remains (Kenney et al., 2001).
Abiotic petroleum formation theories are largely irrelevant to the debate about peak oil, unless it is assumed that the most extreme version of the abiotic oil theory, namely the ―strong one‖ is a reality. However, such spectacular claims necessitate comprehensive and convincing evidence. In what might be a reasonably realistic version of the abiotic theory, massive abiotic oil discoveries and their rapid development would be able, at most, to postpone the date of the peak by some years or decades in the weak case, but it would not be able to remove the notion of an ultimate production peak at some time. Peak oil is a matter of extraction rates and flows, not oil formation theories. People that do not understand this difference should not be allowed to advice policy makers or plan for the future in the light of peak oil and the importance of natural resources for the continued well-being of mankind.
Discussion
Discoveries of significant abiotic oil reserves would naturally postpone the global oil peak, if they can be put into production fast enough. However, the important point is whether those hypothetical undiscovered abiotic oil formations can be drilled and emptied fast enough to replace the decline from depleting fields currently in production, as peak oil is about flows.
The decline in existing oil production has been determined to be about 6% (Höök et al., 2009), being equivalent to a new annual production requirement of 4-7 Mb/d just to keep current production levels constant. These are figures that are well established from observations and widely spread within the petroleum industry and related agencies and organisations. Such numbers put certain perspectives on the flows that are needed for sustaining world oil production. A hypothetically vast reserve base has little to do with the likelihood of significant future production since production is dependent on many more factors than just geological availability. It is the size of the tap that matters, not the size of the reserves.
For example, vast and already discovered accumulations of non-conventional oil (oil sands, oil shale, etc.) exist and can be used to attenuate decline in existing production after peak oil. However, even with the most optimistic assumptions, a sustained growth rate of more than 10% for non-conventional oil production over the next two decades would be required (de Castro et al., 2009) to make up for the decline of conventional oil. Growth rates higher than 6-7% for non-conventional oil are not expected by either IEA (2008) or EIA (2009) in their outlooks to 2030 and even those rates are probably optimistic.
In comparison, vast abiotic oil accumulations have not been discovered yet and would likely require super and/or ultra deep drillings, which are expensive and take time. Kelessidis (2009) gives an overview of the challenges that deep drilling campaigns must overcome. A major and rapid development of potential abiotic oil formations deep within the crust or even deeper down near the mantle do not seem as a realistic alternative to quickly offset the decline in existing production. Whether hypothetically massive amounts of abiotic petroleum can be brought on stream and reach the world market in time can only be seen as questionable.
There is little doubt that drillings will be done to greater depth in the future but the important question is perhaps how fast such drilling methods can be developed and how cheap they can become. Even if there were sufficiently large abiotic oil reservoirs at great depth, producers must be able to tap those formations and make some kind of profit by selling the extracted oil. Without profit, they will simply become an untapped resource due to technological and/or economical obstacles.
The spectacular claims of the strong abiotic oil theory, that it is capable of refilling existing fields with hundreds of thousands of barrels per day, cannot be seen as anything other than cornucopian fairy tales, at least until they have been supported by observations. Consequently, the burden of proof rests with the proponents of such fabulous pronouncements. We wonder if anyone is prepared to back up such bold claims with any evidence.
Willis misunderstands peak oil with his comment “But to increase the production rate prior to the end of the resource.”
Peak oil is about the peak, not whether the peak can be deferred. The peak will occur at some point and it wont be in 40 years when you simply assume (As the BP report has done) that production rates can be sustained. Do you seriously think that people aren’t already pushing the limits of sustaining oil field production?
Every oil field will experience a peak in its production and if you look across all the oil fields then they will in aggregate display a peak too. It is the peak that matters because after that, production drops off and declining production in a world where growth is essential spells big trouble for us.
Oil’s getting harder and harder to come by
http://peakoil.com/geology/oil%E2%80%99s-getting-harder-and-harder-to-come-by/
David Boleneus says:
December 15, 2011 at 9:37 am
Thanks, David. If you redid your analysis using the latest BP figures, rather than trusting your memory about an old analysis , you’d be closer to reality.
First, Mexico overstated its reserves for years. They stopped doing so in 1998, when their reserve estimates were cut about in half. So we have to reverse out the error in the estimates for the years before 1998. Here are the North American results once that is done.
Note that the Canadian Oil Sands are a huge game changer. Contrary to your claims, the reserves are not decreasing, they are higher than they have been since the dataset began in 1980.
w.
@ur momisugly willis
except oil sands aren’t oil, more like lousy grade coal that has to be turned into oil and economically worse than coal
elbatrop, its actully bitumen. But yes, the “reserves” there is nothing to chear about. Only about 15% ultimately extractable, and too close to break even. Surface mining is 6:1 ERoEI. In situ extraction is much worse, less than half that. But the big problem for the oil sands isn’t the ERoEI, it’s natural gas availability. NG is required to crack the long chains into synthetic oil. The oil sands consumes more NG than all the homes in Canada. And that’s for just 1.5mb/day. The goal is to double that in less than 20 years. Convensional sources of NG has been in decline since 1995. Shale gas will be short lived. So in a NG constrained environment one wonders who will get that NG, homes or the oil sands?
This is is why I took my home off NG and installed a ground source heat pump.
Here’s my problem with the whole “peak oil” deal. Below is the official California report on oil for 1973.
As you can see, peak production in California was in 1968. The text says:
OK, California peak oil occurred in 1968, the figures are crystal clear.
But then we have a later report that says …
Note that there was a second, and even higher, peak in production that occurred in 1986.
This proves that a) we cannot tell the peak until after it has occurred, and b) there may well be a second peak that is higher than the first …
That’s why I pay little attention to the myriad claims of “peak oil” this and that. There is no law that says that an area has to have one and only one peak. As California has proven, production can peak, and then fall for some years, and then peak again. Which one is the real peak, and how can we tell when it is reached? The folks in California in 1973 thought they’d seen the peak in 1968. New discoveries, new technologies, and the opening of previously closed areas can all have a huge effect on production.
w.
elbatrop says:
December 15, 2011 at 2:49 pm
Oil sands aren’t oil … which I suppose is why they call them “oil sands”?
Yes, the oil needs to be extracted from the sand, but it’s not anything like “lousy grade coal”.
Finally, you claim that it is “economically worse than coal”. Presumably you mean that you can make oil out of coal cheaper than you can get it from the Canadian oil sands … I’m sure you can see the difficulty with that nonsense. If you could make oil from coal cheaper than buying it from the Canadians … don’t you think folks would be doing that?
Citations and figures, my friend, would be of great assistance here. If nothing else, you can see where you went wrong.
w.
@ur momisugly willis
no it was just a misinterpretation. not that I was very specific to begin with
Net energy wise or economic leverage wise if you prefer the tar sands are a far lower return than coal of any grade. I only mention this to illustrate how desperate we have gotten to have to resort to mining bitumen and then using natural gas and water plus some refining and then including it with any crude oil production total of any sort. Liquid fuel yes but it isn’t crude oil and it is disingenuous to try to count it as crude oil reserves.
With the scale and volume of liquid fuels the world uses net energy and the quality of the crude oil or source in question makes an enormous difference. 2 million barrels per day of oil sands syncrude is a far weaker net energy situation than 2 million barrels a day of light sweet arab from northern Iraq that only costs $1.50 a barrel to extract. You get hammered by energy content, refining costs, extraction costs and flow rate and this too is one of the ugly realities of peak oil. The alternatives present you with a classic case of diminishing returns.
Willis writes “That’s why I pay little attention to the myriad claims of “peak oil” this and that.”
There is only one peak although the effects of any decline may be felt. They certainly were in the 70s. By paying little attention to it, you’re ignoring the whole issue. Your posts pointing out reserves may make people feel better but are actually irrelevent.
You graph showing flatlining production whilst claiming all is well because of proven reserves are IMO misleading to the issue facing us.
I feel I should write to this too… Willis writes “The folks in California in 1973 thought they’d seen the peak in 1968. New discoveries, new technologies, and the opening of previously closed areas can all have a huge effect on production.”
But the further increase in California’s production out to 1985 didn’t increase the US overall production because the gains in production in California were more than offset by the losses across the rest of the country.
So its all very well to look at a region and declare that an individual increase can happen because hey it can! …with a new find or whatever. But overall the trend is downward.
TimTheToolMan says:
December 15, 2011 at 4:23 pm
Tim, I just gave you a very clear example of a situation where there was a clear peak, one that was the high point for some years.
About twenty years later there was a second, and higher, peak.
So no, there isn’t “only one peak”. Only one of the peaks is the largest, but there can easily be more than one significant peak.
See, here’s the deal, Tim. If we were having this discussion in 1973, you’d be telling me in no uncertain terms that there is only one peak in California oil production, and it happened in 1968 …
Which is why, as I said, “peak oil” is a lousy indicator.
Production has indeed been about flat for some years, and this is an issue. But that has nothing to do with the 1968 “peak oil” in California, nor, for that matter, with the 1986 California peak.
See, I was looking at something else, which is why I didn’t even mention peak oil. This is whether we need to replace oil right away with some renewable or other, as lots of folks claim. The data says no, whether or not oil has peaked.
w.
jrwakefield says:
December 15, 2011 at 3:07 pm
Shale gas will be short lived
Really? Do you have data from the hundreds of organic shales available? (we’ve only drilled a few) Data on refracs? (a refrac can be a good as the first, with no new well required) Do you have a good idea of how much cheaper and efficient the whole process can get? Some of the blanket statements seen in this thread are absurd.
TimTheToolMan says:
December 15, 2011 at 4:44 pm
TIm, you said that the same rules applied to everything from individual oil fields all the way up to the world as well.
I looked “across all of the oil fields” in California, and no, they didn’t do what you claimed they would do.
Now you are claiming that it might happen for California … but not for the US.
Why not? California is an aggregate area just as the US and the world are. Why can it happen in California, but not elsewhere? That makes no sense. If it could happen for CA, it could happen for the US.
For example, Canada peaked in 1973, at a bit over 2 billion barrels per day. That peak held for two decades … but then the oil sands came on the market, and now Canada is producing 3.3 mbd, almost twice as much as when it “peaked”.
Again, if we were discussing Canada in 1990, Tim, you’d be the first to tell me about the 1973 peak and subsequent decline … which is why I pay no attention to the concept of “peak oil”. What good is it? You can’t see it coming, and you can’t see it in the rear-view mirror either. So I don’t deal with the concept at all, I see no use for it other than to increase internet disputes … although it’s extremely good at that.
Thanks,
w.
Doug wrote: “Biomarkers are not contaminants, they are part of the oil. They encompass a large range of molecular structures and are basically fossils on a molecular scale.”
False.
How do you explain that some of the molecules that have been identififed and claimed as “biomarkers” are also found in chondrite meteorites?
SteveE and now you, Doug, have failed to respond to this fact.
These so-called “biomarkers” are porphyrins, isoprenoids, and terpines, which have all been found in chondrite meteorites.
The rest are contaminants such as pollen and spores.
Doug wrote: “For example , the presence of oleanane, a compound found in flowering plants will tell you the source rock is no older than Jurassic when flowering plants evolved. You won’t find it in Bakken oil.”
Exactly. You won’t find biolgical contaminants from younger geological ages in oil deposits that come from an older geological ages. But you will find biological contaminants from older geological ages in newer geological ages because the contaminants rise with the oil. Oil is a excellent solvent for biological detritus.
Read this scientific paper: Dismissal of the Claims of a Biological Connection for Natural Petroleum, by Kenny. et al. (2001).
http://www.gasresources.net/DisposalBioClaims.htm
Read it and study the paper and then get back to me with specific objectins to items in the paper.
elbatrop says:
December 15, 2011 at 4:14 pm (Edit)
Thanks for the clarification on your points, elbatrop. Oil sands are classified by everyone on the planet as “unconventional oil”. Now you want to say it is “disingenuous” to call them that … you’ll have to take that up with someone other than me. I and the rest of the planet don’t figure it that way. That’s why they’re called “oil sands”, after all.
Everyone would love to have lots of light sweet crude, heck, most oil companies would love to have it … so what? I’d like to have lots of things I don’t have.
Yes, as you point out, 2 million barrels of oil from the oil sands is (energetically) weaker than 2 million barrels of light sweet at a buck fifty a barrel extraction costs.
But what you are neglecting is that it is about 2 million barrels energetically stronger than no oil sands oil at all …
w.
Doug says:
December 15, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Thanks, Doug. I thought about pointing that out, but hadn’t gotten to it, and you’ve done it very well.
w.
JRWakefield wrote: “The oil window is well understood.”
I already provided examples where the so-called “oil window” was falsified because the oil was found to be over 400 degrees Fahrenheit when the “oil window” theory states that oil will not form or survive in temperatures over 275 degrees Fahrenheit, such as the deep oil found in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Brazil.
JRWakefield wrote: “If abiotic was true, then there should be deposits that have biomarkers (from contamination) and others which would not. Please show us a field that does not have a biological chemical marker.”
The following quoted passage is from The Drilling & Development of the Oil & Gas Fields in the Dnieper-Donetsk Basin, by V. A. Krayushkin, T. I. Tchebanenko, V. P. Klochko, Ye. S. Dvoryanin
Institute of Geological Sciences (2001)
“Bacteriological analysis of the oil and the examination for so-called “biological marker” molecules: The oil produced from the reservoirs in the crystalline basement rock of the Dnieper-Donets Basin has been examined particularly closely for the presence of either porphyrin molecules or “biological marker” molecules, the presence of which used to be misconstrued as “evidence” of a supposed biological origin for petroleum. None of the oil contains any such molecules, even at the ppm level. There is also research presently under progress which has established the presence of deep, anaerobic, hydrocarbon metabolizing microbes in the oil from the wells in the uppermost petroliferous zones of the crystalline basement rock in the Dnieper-Donets Basin.”
http://www.gasresources.net/DDBflds2.htm
There you go Mr. Wakefield.