Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Reuters reports that an onshore oil field, discovered last year near in England, near London Gatwick Airport, is much larger than originally estimated.
According to Reuters;
(Reuters) – A small oil find near London’s Gatwick airport contains much more oil than first estimated, an independent report commissioned by the field’s developers said on Thursday.
London-listed UK Oil & Gas Investments said the report estimated 158 million barrels per square mile could be lying below the site just north of Britain’s second-largest airport, much more than first thought.
Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/04/09/britain-oil-gatwick-idUKL5N0X610520150409
The oil field was originally estimated to contain around 20 million barrels.
The new estimate is good news for local jobs – the oil field obviously has significant potential to provide a badly needed economic boost to the region. Nearby metropolitan areas of London, such as parts of Croydon, and some areas of the surrounding counties, are among the most deprived areas in England.
The oil field is just a short drive from Brighton, one of the most radically green cities in Britain. In 2010, Brighton Pavilion became the first region to elect a Green MP to Britain’s national Parliament.
Delicious irony! What to do now; sell it to the Chinese?
It’s probably just fuel tank leakage from the airport being there so long.
Good one!
I live right in the middle of the Weald basin, about 40 minutes drive from Gatwick. There are already oil wells operating very close to my village. There is one about 15 minutes drive away in a village called Singleton. You would not know it was there.
It is a truly beautiful part of the world. The area is quite extensive from Where Gatwick is to further West than where we are. It will be interesting to see how this pans out and if there is much opposition.
I remember the green hippies arriving in Boscombe when Cuadrilla were exploring. Most of the locals coiulds see them far enough….
Is the UK the next Texas??
Sure looks like it. We and the UK can control the world!!!!!!!! Lol.
Green Oil?
No…Little Green Men in Parliament. Splains alot
There is quite a bit of hype about this find… I’ve seen numbers of 100 Billion barrels mentioned. Somewhat over the top.
The 100 billion barrels refers to original oil in place. The recovery factor for a fractured low permeability zone depends on the rock fabric, oil properties, and the development plan. In this case I assume there will be irrational pressure on activities. Therefore I would say 5 % recovery factor may be a good number. This is in the speculative phase, they are trying to bump up the stock. I wouldn’t expect it to have much of an impact.
I think they are talking about the source rock potential. The Kimmeridge Clay is the main source rock for North Sea Oil. 5% would be a very good recover factor…
According to the company’s most recent filing, there are two strata just like at adjacent older, now far past peak Wytch Field (largest onshore field in Europe. Recovery factors at Wytch are 54% (sand) and 26% (shelly limestone). Wytch Field 2P reserves were ultimately about 500mb. Production peaked at about 100kbpd in 1998. This new discovery is very unlikely to be as large, as the region was rather thoroughly explored by British Gas and then BP. In fact, the current ‘best’ company internal estimate (median probability based on information to date) is 70.6mb 2P reserves. The newer 3D seismic tools enabled identification of additional stratigraphic traps in the two main producing strata, which is what other company filings suggest.
The media hype is, as usual, out of control.
It is only an estimate using ‘modeling technique’ , possible recovery about 3% of total, said an oil expert from Imperial college.
It is my impression that for initial calculations of contingent reserves, 30 – 35% percent recovery is the number that is used.
George, we use the recovery factor which applies to the particular setting. At an early stage like this I like to use two approaches: 1. Analogy. 2. Models, which can range from the use of a simple material balance and fractional flow set of equations, to a very sophisticated 3D dynamic model (these aren’t worth the effort but they impress some managers and financial types).
I haven’t seen the well information, but I’m very good at speculating. If the rocks are fractured they are likely to be somethng other than shale. If it’s fractured and lacks porosity other than in the fractures then the porosity is low. This means it has to be thick. If it’s thick then it probably will perform better if fractured. The natives have very quaint ideas about this technology, so it’s going to be controversial.
Ristvan, this is highly unlikely to be like Wytch Farm. If it were they would have announced it and the stock would be worth about 1000 fold what it’s worth now.
I see these small companies pump up their stock using truthful but somewhat optimistic announcements. This tells me they are following an ethical path because they don’t want shareholders to sell stock when they are sitting on a potential gold mine. But these finds tend to be much smaller than expected. I also noticed there’s a tendency for geologists and geophysicists (who make a living finding these) to be much more optimistic than the engineers who usually sign off on the official reserve estimates.
It must be all the carbonized bodies of ancient Londinium, burned to the ground by Boudicca ~60AD.
— That oil is gonna be there for a while, well at least until the Islamics take over. They’ll be selling it to us at $100 a barrel after beheading the British aristocracy. Say what… 5, 10 years?
Timely for the change in government.
Ridiculous comment.
20 years.
OOpps the beheadings have already begun- my bad
[ Reply: Fixed link. -ModE ]
have 2 http statements in link
correct link
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/19/two-men-convicted-of-british-soldier-beheading.html
Thank.. sorry about that. I will try to type better next time.
You are missing a colon.
In your link.
But, we’ve come to take your liver:
https://youtu.be/aclS1pGHp8o
Heh, yes I am, but just the right colon. I’m in the hospital recovering from the current surgical standard for dealing with colon polyps on the ileo-secal valve (the portal between small and large intestines). It takes out some 20 cm of colon. On the bright side, I don’t have to worry about appendicitis any more.
And they still use anesthesia here.
So, you have a semi-colon? 😉
Poor chap, not having a colon. LOL.
They’d better not behead me.
Monckton of Brenchley for sale
15% OFF
Would that be like a “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” type of event, with multiple Moncktons of Brenchley nipping at their heels afterwards ?
Scary thought Christopher !
They wouldn’t dare!
If they behead me, I’ll never talk to them again!
Monckton of Brenchley is no doubt as tenacious as Python’s Black Knight, alas with a wealth of brains to go along with the constitution to fight on while just a head!
Well, it is important to get a head and stay a head in any endeavor.
You are top of the list you blue eyed, male, aristocratic, catholic, titled, ancestor of a crusader, white, literate, alcohol consuming (brandy is alcohol), science loving, western scholar. I’d be wearing a tungsten carbide turtle neck if I were you.
Don’t worry, head transplants should be available soon.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/04/human-volunteer-for-head-transplant.html
No Lord M, they wouldn’t dare! But in Australia? On Easter Sunday, a journalist reporting on Prince Harry’s visit, oops, Captain Wales, made a real typo, saying after his Australian visit he would join the Household Calvary.
One of the oil industry’s experts suggested that claims are grossly exaggerated by the publicity machine behind the exploration company, apparently run by someone who had same successes in promoting minor finds in the past but also had many failures. Although shares of the exploration company quadrupled, extreme caution is advised for both investors and anyone else expecting to cash in on this unexpected bonanza.
I was about to say exactly this.
So I urge caution and advise optimism.
It won’t be as good as this reports – but it might still be better than nowt.
I think it is from all the oil drained from all those greasy chips and fish that went down the drain over the past centuries. Obviously there was a problem with the plumbing.
I am happy now that England can free herself from dependence on Scottish oil. Not needing it means they don’t have to work so hard to keep Scotland in the Union.
Looks like fracking oil under Brighton will bring in the roughnecks. I suspect that may sway the next election in climate la-la-land. Roughneck oil workers tend to the conservative point of view. I suggest Greenpeace not try to scale their rigs.
If there is oil under London there is probably oil under Kent. What about under Dogger Bank?
New Ice Age is coming, sea level is is going to fall back, , Dogger Bank is going to be high and dry again, it was never reached by the glaciers. With the Scots rushing southward, buying in advance few plots of the sea floor there it might prove to be good investment. Would you be interested?
🙂
Pique(ant) oil
It will probably even keep Scotland in the UK since Scots would give up “their share” of the english oilfield in case of secession.
How many wind turbines must be built to produce the equivalent energy output of that potential extractable oil? And what would be their land footprint compared to those few holes in the ground from which all that oil (energy) will flow?
Maybe they can use the wind turbines to pump the oil…
Then use the oil to power diesel pumps to turn the turbines when the wind drops. Every one a winner!!
1500 3 MW Turbines during a service life of 25 Years and a capacity of 28% will provide the equivalent Joules.
But of course, if you factor in thermal losses from combustion — you get about 30% usable energy out of oil — so it would really take about 500.
And the Land footprint is about ZERO if it is offshore.
Whenever I see mention of UK offshore wind I am always struck that the cost is rarely mentioned.
The current strike price is £155/MWh (unit of energy delivered).
Taking into consideration that the actual wholesale cost of electricity is currently £45-£50/MWh.
Additional costs are then accrued due to the unpredictability and irregularity of the supply from the turbines – i.e. equivalent back up gas gen. must be constructed to compensate for lulls in the wind.
And, does cost above does not include the costs of extending a grid connection to Dogger Bank – 125 miles or more from the shore?
Meanwhile, by contrast, Brazil has deals to produce on-shore wind capacity at a cost of about £30/MWh – i.e. five times cheaper. Apparently, they have the land and the wind.
If the purpose of the UK’s spending is to save the planet, then would we not be better funding further expansion in Brazil.
I doubt much of that oil will be economical to produce unless the OPEC and Russia cut production. Knowing the British, I expect massive subsidies to at least open the field as an insurance policy for when the green economy fails or they leave the EU.
Right now USA is the world’s biggest producer of hydrocarbon fuels (for the third year in a row in 2014!).
The total U.S. daily output of liquid and gas energy in 2014 was 54.6 quadrillion British thermal units, an increase of 4.8 quadrillion Btu over 2013.
Russia produced 43 quadrillion Btu, while Saudi Arabia produced 27.5 quadrillion.
The increasing gap results both from rising U.S. production in dense rock formations because of technological advances.
Story at Fuel Fix http://fuelfix.com/blog/2015/04/08/the-u-s-is-still-the-worlds-biggest-hydrocarbon-producer/
1 in gas, with Russia 2. 3 in oil, behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. With crude at $100 and that pace of drilling, US shale oil would have peaked between 2019 and 2021 and would have fallen very sharply therefter because of shales steep decline curves. Since rig counts have been more than halved in 6 months due to Opec’s disciplinary ‘price’ action, expect US shale oil output to fall by about 40% in 18 months, or 1.5-2mbpd, rebalancing supply demand. Iran, Venezuela, and Iraq will be pushing hard to move the price back to $100 to prevent economic disintegration. And those US shale drillers who survive economically will be more cautious. Enjoy the price respite while it lasts. Cause it won’t last long.
Iran, Venezuela, and Iraq will be pushing hard to move the price back to $100 to prevent economic disintegration.
Since when have Venezuela, Iran and Iraq had even an inkling of an economy?
Asybot – Take a look at where California gets it’s oil;
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2014publications/CEC-100-2014-001/CEC-100-2014-001-CMF.pdf
See next post for 2006. (Stupid iPhone )
Asybot – for 2006 5% from Iraq
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2006publications/CEC-600-2006-006/CEC-600-2006-006.PDF
Asybot – sorry 12.5% from Iraq
+1
“The operator …is now focussed on flow testing the Portland Sandstone and Kimmeridge Limestone sections of the well, to establish producibility and thereby seeking to quantify an overall net discovered resource,”
158 million barrels of oil per square mile sounds like an “oil in place” value. It is also a value that sounds like an quantification of a unconventional reservoir awaiting recovery estimates after fracking strategies are evaluated.
Both reservoirs are conventional. I doubt fracking will be employed. It was not needed at closely related Wytch Field.
Drill, baby, drill!
Drill here. Drill now. Drill early, and often!
Its a new peak oil!, but I understand the UK has already committed to reducing CO2. What will they do now?
And there is the issue of Agenda 21 and the call to make the UK “sustainable”.
They have to simply lock the oil up in order to keep the egg off their face.
Economic lemmings are what we are being turned into.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.rogerfromnewzealand.wordpress.com
Croydon is “amongst the most deprived areas in England'”. So says the Croydon Advertiser. I don’t think so. Parts of it are rather tatty but the vast majority lies within the London commuter belt and contains mostly what is known as Middle England (plus a lot of top end earners). Move out south towards Gatwick and the “deprivation” almost disappears. As a lifelong local resident, I should know.
If this story has any substance it won’t be long before all those non-deprived property owners gang up to resist any exploitation of the resource. They’re sufficiently wealthy to prefer to pay for energy dragged out of some other poor bugger’s back yard.
Copse old soul, you are spot on.
Parts of Croydon are still emerging from the benefit-dependency cycles enjoined by previous governments – rather tatty, indeed.
But there will be entrepreneurs from London Road, I’m sure.
But many parts are pretty decent.
Some are posh – say the Webb Estate in Purley (Purley at large was the stamping ground of Steve Wright’s [fictional] Mr Angry of Purley).
A lot are upwardly-looking decent wage earners; as you may have noted, I’m in shipping, but my neighbours include local government officers, a train driver, a former chip shop proprietor, a journalist, a lift engineer, and a civil servant or two.
Re the NIMBY tendency suggested – if they’re not fracking (per : – ristvan April 9, 2015 at 2:07 pm ), I suggest that opposition will be largely limited to those with viridian fairies at the bottom of their gardens.
Auto
I haven’t spotted the Horse Hill drill site Google Earth, but it may be too new.
If it’s as close to Gatwick (where I was stuck for a week after 9/11) as suggested, horizontal drilling from the airport might take care of the NIMBY types.
I didn’t say all of Croydon was deprived, some parts are quite genteel. However there are parts of Croydon and the surrounding counties which IMO are as bad as the Croydon paper claimed.
Eric W
‘Genteel’ – your word.
Not sure I’d use that word . . . . .
Auto
As it is the UK, an unholy alliance of ecoloons and born again soviets (Greenpeace and Gazprom) will work unceasingly to delay any development of this oil.
As it is the UK – remember they are the people with the world’s most insane national energy policy – the first commercial barrel of crude oil will be at least a decade away.
As it is the UK, the amount of time and money spent/wasted on the permitting processes and subsequent appeals will be epic. This, in turn, will result in draconian regulatory production procedures, deliberately designed by their ecoloon authors to sabotage extraction economics.
And tHat’s if the Conservatives are voted back into power. If it is the bureaucracy-obsessed, left wing, opposition Labour Party in power, then allow for at least another 15 years before the first commercial oil production.
The greenies will do their level best to stop all development of this oil, after all they have never been the slightest bit interested in real economics or national prosperity.
We have an energy policy?
Why was nobody told?
Forgive me for not noticing.
I assumed that installed capacity was dished out via a lottery system and a hotline to the Kremlin.
Why so pro-Conservative? Ed Miliband didn’t put a wind turbine on his roof.
There is no reason to think the Tories will be more rational than Labour – who still have a heritage of support for coal mining from the strike of ’84/5
Greenprom and Gazpeace.
Sorted. With no government [i.e. taxpayer funded] subsidy
Auto
Pro-conservative? – Note the small c.
There are six main political parties in the UK, five have a policy of energy poverty (including the conservatives) and one has an energy policy.
Why is future energy supply not the principal issue in the UK election only four weeks away?
Answer: ” I can spend more tax dollars than you,” is the only issue used to try and attract voters at the moment.
As an observer of UK politics, I can assure you that the not-conservatives are as ludicrous as all the others,
MCourtney: In the end, Cameron didn’t put a wind turbine on his roof either – the planners turned down his plans. But then, Miliband – responsible for the CC Act (and Bryony Worthington) was responsible for all the bloody windmills and solar farms we now suffer. I guess that’s the definition of collectivism: we all have to suffer.
It’s absolutely absurd to claim that the counties around Gatwick (ie Surrey and Sussex) are amongst the most deprived in England. This is stockbrokerland. Such a line undermines the post.
Colour me unsurprised that a Child Poverty Action Group would report that “it’s even worse than we thought”. The alternative is saying job done boys we can close up shop. That’ll never happen. Of course there are pockets of relative poverty everywhere but this sort of hyperbole is daft.
Deprived? Or depraved?
In the minds of green-leaners across the UK: “It’s worse than we thought”………
Hi ho Hi ho, its off to Wussex we go- trouble down pit son…
This is a perfect set up. Drill and pump the oil out of this new field. Build a new oil refinery right next to Gatwick. Refine the oil into jet fuel and pump it directly into the 787s. Eeezy peezy.
I thought that by 2020 all planes leaving the UK were going to be solar powered.
And here I thought it was 2021, you guys have really sped up the program!
Indefatigablefrog
Sir,
No, they’ll be run by wind power, off lo-o-o-ong leads . . . .
[And diesel gennies when the wind doesn’t blow – but still those leads . . .]
Ohh, Mods – I suppose, for the avoidance of error – /Sarc
Auto
That’s just the “out-of-the-box” “blue sky” thinking that Britain needs to prevent a recurrence of the terrible floods which we have hysterically blamed on climate change for some bizarre reason.
Well done. A lucrative job as a govt. advisor awaits, no doubt.
Yes indeed, for airplanes, wind power with the wind blades doing double duty as props, connected to rubber bands, is far more efficient then solar.
Don’t forget some petrol for the rental cars.
This is Steve McIntyre’s specialty isn’t it? … Analyzing hype surrounding finds.
This is just the oil company trying to talk up its share value.
Oil companies listed on the Stock Exchange have to be very careful in their public statements, which is why this report was commissioned from a set of independent auditors who came up with the resource estimates (158 million per square mile and 1.3 billion total or something like that). The only number which came out of UKOG themselves is the estimated recovery factor, which they have given as 5-15% based on similar geology in other countries and the statement that there are ‘natural’ fractures in the rock structure so fracking will not be needed.
As such, I think it is a pretty reasonable statement. Certainly a major addition to the resources estimated in the UK (same order of magnitude to the North Sea fields) and with a recovery factor of 5% it would make a significant impact on UK production (50% of current daily production was bandied about, but that was probably a journalistic back of the envelope).
Combined with new finds in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea in the past 12-18 months, resources (remember, resources are not reserves until production starts) in Western Europe now stand higher than they were at the start of the oil boom in the 1970’s. With recovery technology marching on it would not be unreasonable to expect another 50 years of production at current levels. Not the Middle East or North America, but significant nonetheless.
Rob, a gentle correction. OIP ‘resources’ are NEVER fully produced. In the very best oil fields (Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, with tertiary recovery) 65% become producable reserves (TRR) at any price. In the average of the about 11500 fields that supply 85% of the worlds oil, 26% and declining. In the past half century, all the oil techology in the world (CO2 injection to reduce viscosity, lateral wells to increase contact surface, … ) has increased that number by only 25% (info from BP geologists). With hundreds of $billions at stake annually, do not think that oil recovery stones have been left unturned. They haven’t. See my energy essays for references.
Well there’s a turn up for the books. I was born in Croydon, south London. This is great news for the region, however, there are issues. Transport for one, there are severe bottleneck, as well as Green “activists” and “NIMBYism”. It’s a very densely populated area of the country.
I am sure we will see attempts to shut it down much like in Hampshire where anti-fracking protests are full-on trying to stop fracking. Not that the “activists” know fracking in Hampshire has been conducted since the 80’s.
Not sure what sort of Geology sites under Gatwick, but it could be chalk. Most of the length of the south coast is chalk all the way down to Poole and beyond.
Here’s the future scene in Croydon, with some minor modifications – including more trees, and more houses:
They could use some of this in Croydon, NJ, USA too.
Spot on!
Only, Croydon is in Pennsylvania. Croydon, PA was a favorite humor topic for Johnny Carson, (e.g. alligators, rolling up the sidewalks, etc.)
While Croydon residents were fiercely loyal, they were also very proud of their popular place in American humor and quick to join in making Croydon jokes.
There is a Croydon Hall in Middletown, NJ.
Oops, I was thinking of Camden, NJ.
False alarm.
There’s a fish-and-chips vendor at the airport, and that’s where they’ve been pouring out the old grease.
Oops … I see Crispin in Waterloo but Really in Johannesburg beat me to the lard.
Yeah, but we know his beat and he won’t notice, as he’s probably in Yogyakarta, by now.
If he didn’t stop off in Bundanyabba, that is.
Per:
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=33&t=6
“In 2014, the United States consumed a total of 6.95 billion barrels of petroleum products, an average of 19.05 million barrels per day.2 This total includes about 0.34 billion barrels of biofuels.”
========
The way I read it is 19 million barrels per DAY.
Seems like the U.S. would suck it dry in a week.
Unless I’m missing something ?
158 million barrels per square mile, total of 100 billion barrels, of which maybe 15% is economically recoverable.
15% of 100 billion is 15 billion x $50.00/bbl is $750 billion. That’s a lot of wind mills.
I got curious about this 100bb MSM estimate. The OIP for the square mile around the discovery well was multiplied by area of the Weald Basin in which it lies. Complete misunderstanding of how conventional oil reservoirs work. They are discrete, localized stratigraphic traps. They found one. Seismic would suggest its extent, to be confirmed by delineation drilling. And also a misunderstanding about how source rock (shales) in a basin work. Typically less than half will be thick enough with a high enough TOC to be worth drilling. The mighty Bakken shale straddling Eastern Montana and western North Dakota covers about 2/3 of the Wiiliston Basin in which it lies. The 5 producing areas within it cover just 25% of the Bakken area, so about 15% of Williston basin. Conventional oil fields sourced from the Bakken lie only in Eastern Montana, and are less than 1% of the area.
As others have noted, Croyden may have some poor people but they’ll be living in very expensive properties. Whoever owns them will be unlikely to embrace an oil boom. Some of the areas may be deprived compared to the rest of London but not compared to the rest of the UK. The riots they had there a few years ago were more about grabbing free stuff than fighting for human rights.
The Brits have a funny relationship with tax money from oil drilling – people like their government money laundered before they get it. They want no moral taint of dirty business to trouble their spending it.
More than likely all of those “property” owners are really happy today, it is called “insider trading” ( nug nug wink wink).
I don’t know anything about this particular field, but there is nothing implausible about the idea that there might be substantial exploitable oil reserves under England. The authoritative British Geological Survey has identified large shale oil deposits (frackable) under Southern England, to match the large frackable gas deposits under Northern England. This new claim is *not* about frackable deposits, but conventional ones. (The exploration company has emphasised that fracking would not be needed, for obvious reasons. But no doubt the recoverable reserves could be increased by fracking.) The main obstacle to early exploitation of the field, however large it may turn out to be, is that under UK law the owners and residents of the land above petrochemical resources have no share in the rewards. (In general, under common law mineral rights in the UK belong to the landowners, but under statute the petrochemicals belong to the state.) So they have no financial incentive to support development, and obvious reasons to oppose the disruption and its effect on property values. This sorry situation could be changed at a stroke if landowners and other residents were given a meaningful individual stake in the rewards.
Production would be environmentally unobtrusive. Wytch Field ultimately involved only about 100 wells off just 13 drill pads, drilled over 30 years with coproduced saltwater simply reinjected to maintain reservoir pressure. Lots of that famous UK field is overlaid by scenically protected or actual park land. Directional drilling was of course used. Once a well is completed, all else can be screened (wellhead ‘christmas trees’, pumpjacks when needed) or buried (collection pipelines). Piece of cake if production tests pan out. They probably will.
Still, a media tempest in the energy teapot. The big stuff left is Brazil deepwater subsalt, and probably the very difficult Arctic. And non-US source rock shales. All discussed in detail in the energy half of ebook Blowing Smoke.
ristvan
There is a possible field off the Falkland Islands.
One geologist I knew well – now sadly dead – thought it was a super-giant, but in remote, deep, cold, stormy waters [that are also as President Kirchner recently reminded the world, politically fraught, in some eyes]. Exploitable – at a considerable cost.
Not viable at $50/barrel; probably not at $150 – but throw enough money at most things . . . .
Auto, suppose true that a supergiant lies off the Falklands. Means a single field >5bb. Russia has found several around Yamal in northwest Siberia in the past few years. But the worlds discovered producing fields are depeleting at > 5.7%/yr. Compare to Ghawar field alone, the worlds greatest. All the new Yamal/ Falklands/shale discoveries do not change the geophysically certain depletion trend. All laid out now twice, most recently in Blowing Smoke. You got other ideas, sell them to Exxon, Shell, and BP– who would pay a lot.
I’m going to rent out my garden, Exxon, Shell, Mobil form an orderly queue!
This is impossible. My high school teacher lectured my high class very sternly that at the current rate of consumption all known oil reserves would be completely exhausted by the year 2000.
Your teacher was not very educated. Oil and gas will not ‘run out’ for hundreds of years. But there comes a point (oil of all sorts including shale by probably 2020-2025, gas much less certain for a variety of geophysical reasons but perhaps before 2050) when it will not be globally possible to produce more next year than last year. And that ‘production peak’ is when the energy shoe starts to pinch the global economy. Its baked into hydrocarbon geophysics. See the energy half of Blowing Smoke for details.
Ris, What is the total footprint of those 13 pads? How much oil did they produce and how many windmills would provide the same energy. How much area would be required for those windmills. How much plastic, cloth, fertiliser and chemicals would those windmills produce?
ristvan:
Actually, the teacher of Will Nitschke was probably right in saying “all known oil reserves would be completely exhausted by the year 2000”.
Similarly, there is now a finite time of a few decades until all known oil reserves will be completely exhausted.
In fact, it is always true that “at the current rate of consumption all known oil reserves will be completely exhausted” in ~40 years. This is because the oil companies have a planning horizon of ~40 years so they need reserves of ~40 years.
If an oil company lacks resources to obtain ~40 years supply then they pay surveyors to find more. If an oil company has resources to obtain ~40 years supply then they don’t pay surveyors to find more.
Such things are a mystery to ‘peak oilers’.
Richard
GL, for a conventional rig (no fracking) half an acre would do. Best placed next to an existing road and away from other structures. Directional drilling can reach out several kilometers in all directions from one pad, since the reservoirs are said to be about 2000 meters down.
I’m not a betting man, but I am willing to lay ten dollars that it never gets developed. Due to environmental concerns.
Arab sponsored Greenpeace demonstrations in 3 … 2 …. 1 …
Rud Istvan has nailed it.
This is a promoter trying to pump the shares. Proceed with extreme skepticism.
“London, England”?
Everyone knows that London is in England, so why the need to tack on “England”?
(Yes, I know there are one or two small towns also called “London” in places like Ontario, but no-one ever talks about them. Not even in Ontario?)
I never know whether to say UK, England, or Britain – which is it?
Gatwick is in England. England is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland…GB consisting of England, Scotland and Wales. I forget where the Channel Islands fit in!
If the issue concerns England only, then “England” is fine. But “British” for everything that involves the Government or the entire country.
Not forgetting that Wales is a Principality, not a country.
Is Dallas in Texas, or in USA? Same question.
My first passport was headed “British Passport”, the old style. But then the EU “standard” became “GB”. I have three, Australian, British and New Zealander.
Britain – Great Britain – is the geographic island that has almost all of England, Scotland and Wales [ES&W][alphabetical order] within it. Each has numerous off-shore islands – Isle of Wight, Anglesey, the Shetlands, Orkneys, etc, that are within the political entities of ES&W, but not physically joined to the mainland – even at low tide.
That’s geographically; politically, Great Britain includes [almost] all those islands
As noted, the UK is Great Britain and Northern Ireland; the UK is the proper ‘country name’ in short form.
Bits that are not in the UK include the Channel Islands – Guernsey, Jersey and their outlying islands – which are Crown dependencies, and owe ultimate allegiance to the Duke of Normandy – who is Queen Elizabeth , with one of her secondary titles.
Also, the Isle of Man [and islands, including the Calf of Man] is nominally ruled by the Lord of Mann – also my Sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth.
For added clarity, Gibraltar – reigned/presided over by the Governor General, a representative of the Queen, and can you guess which Queen that is?! – is part of the euro-constituency of South West England, but is not actually part of England or Great Britain, physically or geographically, apart from that one anomaly.
I trust that this – if not strictly clarifying – at least leaves you still confused – but on a higher level!
[Was that Dirac after an Einstein lecture?]
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Dallas is in Morayshire, Scotland.
I’m told that several places around the world were named after this small aggregation – population in the very low hundreds – or one or another of its sons, surnamed Dallas.
Yes, there is one in Texas, and several more in the US, plus others in Canada and Australia.
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Mind you, it isn’t quite as silly as saying or writing “Tokyo, Japan”.
The only city called Tokyo is the one in Japan. And anyone who doesn’t know that Tokyo is in Japan is too ignorant to be worth talking to.
That won’t please the greenie/hippies of Forest Row!
Green apoplexy pleases me.
Why does the Middle East, the North Sea and Texas-to-Inuvik have so much Cretaceous-origin oil?
– (flooded by shallow ocean since sea level rose 265 metres as a result of the newly forming South Atlantic ocean which was not deep, being a new rift valley in essence, so it was shallow compared to the average depth of the rest of the world’s oceans and effectively the average depth of the whole world ocean became 265 metres less deep: ie. the ocean had nowhere to go except up onto the continental shelves and lower elevation continental crusts);
… and not England?
– (which was also flooded by the same shallow sea at the same time).
You do realize that it will take several years to get ONE and One-Half days worth of oil, don’t you?
158,000,000 barrels — if you could extract it all = ~1.5 days at current world oil use
There is zero chance of this being exploited. The do-gooders in the UK rule the roost and not a drop of oil will come forth from around London. I was born in the UK, and the bleeding-heart, hand-wringing do-gooders gave me reason to buy a single ticket and hop aboard a plane to Australia.
between Brighton and London ?? Beware the crops circles and Stonehenge !!
Never seen crop circles between Brighton and London. Hampshire on the other hand, I have. And Stonehenge, also nowhere near Brighton or London or anywhere between. Brighton has become a home to latte sipping green loons who enjoy the daily commute to and from London.
And cue “North Sea Oil” by Jethro Tull<
"Oh, let us pray: we want to stay
in North Sea Oil "
And ‘Something’s On the Move’
“The Ice Mother mates,
And a new age is born”
A child of the doom-mongering 70s when the worst possible scenario was another Ice Age.
Ahhh – wait!
I can live with being a bit too warm – but a bit too cold kills creatures, crops – and, as a sort of silver lining [well – bronze – I think] also kills greenie, watermelon attitudes.
Have a great weekend all.
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Or Hendrix:
“I have lived here before the days of ice,
And of course this is why I’m so concerned,
And I come back to find the stars misplaced
and the smell of a world that has burned.
The smell of a world that has burned.
Well, maybee, maybe it’s just a change of
climate.
I can dig it, I can dig it baby, I just want to see.
So where do I purchase my ticket,
I would just like to have a ringside seat,
I want to know about the new Mother Earth,
I want to hear and see everything,”