Peak oil dead? Massive oil field discovered in southern Australia

[Agent11]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-24/major-oil-discovery-in-outback-sa/4481982

233 billion barrels estimated trapped in a massive shale deposit. 233 billion barrels is comparable with Saudi Arabia, would make Australia one of the largest oil exporters on the planet and is estimated to be worth $20 trillion.

I really hope it goes well. Congrats Australia, I think this offsets your chlamydia ridden koalas and man eating wildlife in the worlds eyes.

 

[Tweak155]

Does that mean competition will cause oil prices to drop?? Ha, what am I saying.

 

[blankslate]

OAF?

Operation Australian Freedom...

 

[UberNeuman]

OAF?

Operation Australian Freedom...

Well, they did attack us on 9-11. So we now gotta go give them freedoms.

MERICA!!!!!

 

[EagleKeeper]

Shale oil is not cheap to get out of the ground

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Looks like there will be money to be made by American manufacturers of gas turbines, compressor, separators, and other equipment related to the oil industry.

 

[michal1980]

Is their peak oil? yes.

do we know what that peak is? not yet

That doesn't mean oil will be cheap. It just means were not running out anytime soon.

 

[michal1980]

Shale oil is not cheap to get out of the ground

especially in a semi screwed up country like aust.

 

[Patranus]

Shave the progressives throw a fit every time we want to develop our own resources here in America.

 

[IGBT]

peak oil is a eco-KOOK hoax along with all the other ritualistic eco-CRAP.

 

[Jaskalas]

Shave the progressives throw a fit every time we want to develop our own resources here in America.

Australia has their own anti energy extremists. The warmist cult is global.

 

[Svnla]

It is not easy to get out of the ground. It is very costly plus you need a lot of experience plus water to get oil/gas out of the shale. We are having problem with water down here for the Barnett (TX) and Haynesville (LA) shales.

it could cost up to $300 million to prepare the site for production.

"We've got something in excess of a billion-dollar market cap... but the issue here isn't just capital. It's the expertise to unlock the acreage as well," he said.


Shale oil is more costly to extract and more controversial than conventional crude and involves fracking, in which water is pumped in to break up the shale.

Australia government is planning to have carbon tax for oil/gas and mining companies.

 

[Franz316]

peak oil is a eco-KOOK hoax along with all the other ritualistic eco-CRAP.

Is that why world oil production has been on a plateau since the mid 2000's despite a record investment in exploration and number of wells being drilled?

It doesn't really matter whether you're an 'eco-kook' or not(god forbid someone actually cares). Oil will become more and more expensive as it gets harder to remove from the ground.

 

[Strk]

Is that why world oil production has been on a plateau since the mid 2000's despite a record investment in exploration and number of wells being drilled?

It doesn't really matter whether you're an 'eco-kook' or not(god forbid someone actually cares). Oil will become more and more expensive as it gets harder to remove from the ground.

Some people want to believe all oil is the same.

 

[Via]

I think I read somewhere that it is virtually impossible for oil to ever go above about $175 a barrel for any extended time because that's the price point of extracting oil from coal.

 

[Lithium381]

Does that mean competition will cause oil prices to drop?? Ha, what am I saying.

Maybe not competition right now, but won't it help speculators which control the price?

 

[bshole]

Shave the progressives throw a fit every time we want to develop our own resources here in America.

I've said it once and I will say it again. Those resources aren't going anywhere. Lets use up other countries resources first and keep our powder dry. When they run out, we will still have plenty for ourselves. I can't think of any benefit to us burning through ours as fast as we can. This is a NON-renewable resource. When its used, it is gone forever. There is absolutely no logical reason to use our first when others will let us use theirs.

The real race is to find a sustainable resource that can replace oil/coal before we run out of them.

 

[silverpig]

As has already been mentioned, shale oil is very expensive and energy intensive to extract and refine.

Also, I believe we hit peak oil just after 1990. Peak conventional (read: stick a straw in the ground) oil anyways. Since then conventional oil production has dropped, but overall production is up as we have turned to more exotic sources.

 

[desy]

Nah conventional peak was 2005-2008 in there somewhere
As for Aus? theirs was a while ago

"The Wall Street Journal noted that oil production in Australia has been falling in recent years – last year, the country produced 484,000 barrels a day, a 14.5 percent decline from the prior year -- the lowest level in 30 years, as conventional oilfields became depleted. Meanwhile oil consumption climbed by 5.7 percent."

Shale oil , tar sands are kerogen and bitumen not oil. Peak oil isn't dead its happened and what we are seeing are the ramifications, that being substitutes by biofuels, gas to liquids and these expensive oil like alternatives

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...oil-isnt-dead-an-interview-with-chris-nelder/

Chris Nelder: There has always been a lot of confusion about this point. Peak oil was never about “running out of oil.” The only people who characterized it that way either didn’t know what they were talking about or were trying to confuse the issue. Peak oil has always referred to the production rate of oil — it’s about finding the point where that production rate peaks.

 

[Jeff7]

peak oil is a eco-KOOK hoax along with all the other ritualistic eco-CRAP.

Ahhh, there we go, the kooky quota's been met.

The oil companies aren't stupid, they have to know about this.
At least two have even made mention of it.

The military also doesn't seem to think it's a hoax. (PDF)


Simple math/logic says it pretty well:
- Earth's volume is finite.
- Oil is only found in the upper crust, which makes up a small portion of that overall volume.
- Oil is produced more slowly than we use it, and our consumption rate is increasing.
Therefore, we can be expected to run out at some point in time, unless we reduce or stop consumption of it.
We'll of course reach a point of diminishing returns long before sucking all the wells dry, where it will only continue to become more and more expensive to extract the remaining deposits - that point of diminishing returns is the "peak."

The easy deposits have been found and exploited...because they're the easy ones to find.
The ones that are left, like the shale deposits, are more expensive to extract the oil from.


Much like helium: Right now, we dig it out of the ground - it's mainly found with natural gas deposits. Once released into the atmosphere, it rises to the very top, where random thermal collisions allow the atoms to bleed off into space. So there's also a "peak helium" problem, though it tends not to get much attention; most people only know helium as something that's useful for party balloons and blimps.

Now, we could send spacecraft out there to round up those atoms and bring back some helium. It'll be ludicrously expensive though, likely trillions of dollars and several decades to get enough to fill a single small balloon.
Or we can use fractional distillation to get it out of the atmosphere. Problem is, it's extremely rare in the atmosphere, because of its tendency to escape from the planet. So again, it would be extremely expensive.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Not in the hands of misogynist stone age tribes? That's the good news to me!

 

[charrison]

Is that why world oil production has been on a plateau since the mid 2000's despite a record investment in exploration and number of wells being drilled?

It doesn't really matter whether you're an 'eco-kook' or not(god forbid someone actually cares). Oil will become more and more expensive as it gets harder to remove from the ground.

Right now oil production in the US is back to 1990( or before) levels because of horizonal fracking. This tech is mosty used only in the US right now and it will have significant impacts on production where it is used. These shale formation exist all over the world, not just the US. This tech is more expensive, but is generally profitable above $60/barrel. Drilling costs are also falling as the industry gets better with this tech.

 

[lothar]

I expect Australia to reveal another carbon/mining tax.

 

[sandorski]

Best Case scenario would be that it is delayed. The only way it could be dead is if they discovered that Oil was constantly being produced deep in the Earths Crust in mass quantities by some natural process which was constantly being fed adequate materials to keep things going in perpetuity. Which would likely get disturbed by greedy people, thus killing the process.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

We need to get away from that crap. It's expensive and diverts investment into alternatives.