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Exxon and Russian Operation Discovers Oil Field Larger Than the Gulf of Mexico
An anonymous reader writes The state-run OAO Rosneft has discovered a vast pool of crude in the Kara Sea region of the Arctic Ocean, arguably bigger than the Gulf of Mexico. From the article: "The discovery sharpens the dispute between Russia and the U.S. over President Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine. The well was drilled before the Oct. 10 deadline Exxon was granted by the U.S. government under sanctions barring American companies from working in Russia’s Arctic offshore. Rosneft and Exxon won’t be able to do more drilling, putting the exploration and development of the area on hold despite the find announced today."
Russians dont have more oil...no problem with that.The nice thing about that oil is that it will still be there 5 years from now.
"This is our united victory - it was achieved thanks to our friends and partners from Exxon Mobil, Nord Atlantic Drilling, Schlumberger, Halliburton..."
Time until Republicans start saying "Lift sanctions" 5...4..3..2...1
This is bad news for alt fuels, because it could lower oil prices. But it's good news for weakening the OPEC block further. The only reason the world tolerates the Middle East crazies is cuz of the oil.
It's not so much oil running out. It is the easy oil running out, i.e. oil which has a high energy return on energy input. As humans we like to pick the low hanging fruit first. Coal mining is a good example, we go for the stuff on the surface, then open cast, then dig shafts. Ghawar field in Saudi is an excellent example, it is 150 or so metres down on dry land. You can shift big machines on dry land. Deep water horizon gulf of Mexico is an excellent example too the oil was in deep water, which presents logistical challenges and deeper down meaning more work is required to get it to the surface. The Russian find is 300 or so metres down and thus it is easy oil.
Even the shale gas estimates and the Canadian tar sands estimate etc are being revised downwards. They drill a few test wells, and interpolate and "guestimate" what lies in between. Let us see how this estimate holds up once the investment needed to further develop them are all reeled in and the time pay dividends come up.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
You know that's one well in a potentially huge field, right?
Though 11 days of worldwide energy from one well is impressive in it's own right........
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Wray, a chemist who was in the "bombs and rockets" business for 20 years, was working on the shuttle's cooling system when life took a surprising turn.
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You're going to suck until you stop making up stuff that can be checked withing ten seconds.
Ezekiel 23:20
Of course we're still discovering it. The problem is that we've been consuming it faster than we're discovering more since the mid 80's.
years later and we're still finding the stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Most oil company people don't see it that way, or course. I'm not an oil co. employee, but I sympathize much more with their position than yours. Most of the oil people I've encountered were extremely concerned about the well-being of the planet. But even more significant was the fact that they understood that civilization was riding on their backs, and so they were doing a job that must be done lest we descend into literal darkness.
Producing oil is extremely difficult. Most people simply have no idea. They may look at offshore oil platforms (only when they are undergoing a rare catastrophe, on the news), but not even remotely grasp just how expensive and difficult it is, and how many hard working people it takes to supply the consumers of 88Mbbl/day with the oil that they DEMAND.
Some oil folks with high calibre intellects, have gone off to try to help the process of developing viable alternatives to fossil fuels. Others are just doing their jobs. And the executives are just fulfilling their obligations to their shareholders. They don't make particularly high profit margins. The largest companies do make remarkably large profits on an absolute basis, which people like you think should simply be confiscated from them.
Maybe you and your ilk should just go ahead and try it. And then maybe those oil workers should just stop pumping the oil (not that they'd have much choice, as their company would go bankrupt shortly after becoming not profitable. Then we'll see if you can live in the world that results.
The fact of the matter is that WE buy the oil and WE burn it. No oil company forces us to do so. If you really care so much about the planet, stop buying and burning petroleum, or any utility supplied electricity or natural gas for that matter.
It is actually WE who should be made to pay higher taxes for burning the crap and putting the CO2 into the atmosphere. Or royalties that would get paid back to us creating a much higher REAL MARKET PRICE for oil while not significantly increasing our cost or allowing the money to get wasted by bureaucrats--a concept people might wake up to if only they had the ability to climb out of thier conditioning for even a second to envision some other approaches to price the commons that don't involve the currently failing model of government regulation/corruption and artificial, legislatively created "markets."
Until you do that, STFU!
Have you noticed at all that these new finds are in areas where it is more expensive to extract the oil? Underwater is a lot more expensive than on land. Under the Arctic Ocean? Well, waiting 5 years will probably make it cheaper, as ice heaves are terrible to construct around. Of course, 5 years may not be long enough to clear the ice.
FWIW, I'd bet that there are lots of undiscovered oil fields under deep ocean, or perhaps that you need to access by drilling sideways into the continental shelf. But that's expensive even compared to working in the Arctic Ocean.
Additionally, of course, every gallon of oil we burn increases our CO2 level. That's not just greenhouse, that's also ocean acidification. But you can't measure the damage that is done in any one day...so you don't need to worry about that, right?
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Now we can rest assured that our extinction will happen by the continuous burning of fossil fuels, not by the lack of it!
Lisias@Earth.SolarSystem.OrionArm.MilkyWay.Local.Virgo.Universe.org
Last time it was your boy-wonder, who lifted the sanctions against Russia [nytimes.com]...
Yeah.... but sanctions really only send a message in the moment you apply them... After that they're just blocking economic growth in both countries.
So slowing removing them when nobody is looking is smart move... Then you can reapply them, if it should ever come to that.
As long as Putin is around, it's probably not the last time.
Also it doesn't make sense to carry a grudge forever... Sometimes it's better to just move along.
But right now, Cuba, Iran and North Korea doesn't really care much about what the US says.... because sort of armed conflict (in violation of the UN charter) the US can't really impose further sanctions. Cuba is pretty much the US holding an old grudge, lifting those sanctions ought to be a no-brainer... As for Iran and North Korea who both does have nuclear programs, there are pros/cons to maintaining and lifting sanctions. Maintaining them on North Korea, keeps the country crushed. Whereas Iran has oil that we'll buy either way, so maybe lifting sanctions on Iran would be worthwhile. Just maybe.
Yeah. You know it's almost as if the Russians didn't get a copy of the memo that says we are only permitted to use about 1/3 of the current known reserves.
You know, the memo that notes that if we don't leave the other 2/3 in the ground, we are COMPLETELY SCREWING OURSELVES and our little dogs too, on the climate front.
You know, sooner or later, our current "leaders" are going to be held liable for this criminally insane path they are steering us down with a greed-twisted grin on their faces. I can only hope it is sooner.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?