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.
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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?]
Auto
Latimer A
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.
Auto
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.
Auto
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,”