U.S. Oil Reserves

They may have been talking about oil shale in which there are large deposits in the US. Enough if extracted to last 100 yrs at the present consumption rate of the US. The extraction of oil from it is costly process. Until the price of a barrel of oil reached about 60 dollars it was not cost effective to extract. When it did reach that point the equipment need was not in place. Whether any of the oil companies are working on it is questionable. It is not like drilling an oil well where production can be realized in months. There has also been criticism as to how healthy the process is to the environment.

See reply to JMAN

Thanks

oilcan13

oilcan13,

I believe that there are two different things that you are referring to:

The US has a "Strategic Petroleum Reserve" (SPR) of approx. 700 million barrels of oil.

It is the largest stockpile of government owned crude oil in the world. The SPR was established in after the 1973-74 arab oil embargo of the United States.

You can get up to date info on current SPR volume at: http://www.spr.doe.gov/dir/dir.html

In addition to actual crude reserves, the US has a huge petroleum resource - There is an enormous quantity of petroleum that is stored in rock, specifically shale. There is an estimated 2 trillion barrels of petroleum stored in oil shale deposits in the US.

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/reserves/npr/npr_oil_shale_program.html

This 2 trillion barrel estimate does exceed the estimated 1.2 to 1.5 trillion barrel worldwide "proved reserve" of crude oil.

The problem is extracting usable petroleum from the shale in an economically feasible method.

As foreign oil prices soar, hopefully more R & D will go into exploiting this resource, along with other alternative energy sources, to make the USA more energy independent...

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Just my $0.02...

I know of what You speak. This was not the oil shale(of which many of My friends invested in back in the early seventies) nor was it the strategic reserve held by the govenment. This was oil that supposedly could be conventionaly drilled for.

oilcan13

My .02 worth. The OPEC community was flooding the market with oil to lower prices so that all those that were investing money in alternative energy solutions would loose their shirts. Once the price of crude is low, as it is now, there will be no profit motive for alternative energy solutions. Shale oil production, Wind generators Tidal energy forms are all more expensive to produce than oil power again. I believe once the investors have been burned, the price of crude oil will go back up again. And then the investors will be more reluctant to risk loosing money again. Meanwhile OPEC collects more money from the world.

OPEC now claims they will cut production in order to raise the oil prices. One of the problems with this is they won't always play fair. If they cut production by 10%, and drive the price up by only 5%, some of the players might get greedy, and still produce the full 100% of oil, and hope th sell it and receive 110% of the money. If they all do this the oil prices do not rise.

There is no honor among thieves

In talking about petroleum reserves, you have to be careful about the probability level. Political spin doctors tend to use the probability that best suits their interests. But, if you want the truth, you have to look at that probability (which is usually not stated in press releases and political blogs). Here is a link to a pretty good book which is on limited preview. Take a look at pp 91 & 92.

http://books.google.com/books?id=XgL7oXjAkdcC&printsec=frontcover#PRA1-PA91,M1

In addition, the US Dept. of Energy actually has an information service that puts out fairly accurate reports. Warning: You should not view this site while driving or using machinery as extreme drowsiness may occur.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/

Men shut their doors against a setting sun. - Timon of Athens

There is truth to the statements about the oil reserves you mention. The problem with the Dakota reserve is that it is difficult to extract the oil since it is contained within dolomite. Dolomite has a very low porosity, and because of that the oil tends to stay put. Most oil fields are contained in sandstone formations which have a much higher porosity, therefore the oil can flow out of the rocks. Only recently has the horizontal drilling technology evolved to the point that extracting oil from the Dakotas is even feasable. The oil field itself was discovered in the late 50's but only now is it being exploited.

Colorado has issues with drilling on protected lands.

I don't know about the NY and PA oil fields other than what is already been discovered and expolited there.

Thanks; Good answer. I guess when oil hit $140.00/bbl evryone started digging for answers and pointing fingers and as You know the worst place to get info is thru emails. rumors and half truths abound.

As for the supposed field in Pa and N.Y. I got this info thru a news letter called "daily wealth".

Thanks

oilcan13

The problem with our reserves is price. Until the $150/barrel becomes standard, it costs too much to go after the reserves. I live smack in the middle of the old Bradford Oil Field, which still has oil in it after 120 years of production. It is in limited amounts, but in many locations. The big flow, easy to get reserves are depleted, but the "stripper" wells, which no one wanted when oil was $30 a barrel, are still there waiting to be drilled and produced. A good "stripper" well produces about 5 to 20 barrel per week. You can go after it with a chemical flood or steam flood (pump into a central well and retrieve at out lying wells) or just be content with 5 barrel per week. To do this, you want the price up around $1oo per barrel or more to cover costs of drilling quickly enough to satisfy your financial backers. This is a business like any other financial under taking, and drilling funds are raised by selling ventures in your drilling program to backers with the bucks who expect a positive return on their money. Most well drilling is not by the Exxon/Mobiles, but by mom and pop ventures with very limited funds like Minard Run Oil. (ever hear of them? They did not make billions on the oil fluctuations this year) No one wants to invest $10000 of capital in an oil venture and have to wait ten years to see an economic return, when the stock market sits waiting to take their money instead. When the cost of oil broke over $100 per barrel there was an imediate rush to drill again. I spend at least 2 hours per day riding in the oil field and know within a 5 mile circle around my house of 25 new wells drilled in September to December. The drilling has subsided again now that oil has dropped too low to be profitable again. Get the price up high enough and the oil will flow again.

I live right on the Southern flank of the oil shale deposits in Western Colorado. The estimates have generally been very high for the amount of oil contained in it. No doubt there is a huge amount of oil in there, the problem has been getting it out of the shale. Attempts have been made over more than 80 years at getting it out starting back in the 1920s. About every twenty years another group comes along with 'new' ideas to try and extract the black gold and have failed. It has always been too difficult and expensive. The amount of energy required to extract the shale oil has always far exceeded the energy retrieved, hence the high market cost of oil needed to cover expenses.

In the late '60s, the government set off an underground nuclear bomb which produced gas and oil (mildly radioactive), the oil was refined locally for the Navy I believe. Again, successful but expensive, didn't go anywhere. Additional attempts in the '70s again produced some results but ended in failure again. Some on going R&D continued on a small scale until the '90s when it again began to grow. Still, mixed results and many questions about environmental impacts, including massive amounts of water needed for the process from the Colorado River.

If all of these 'problems' can be addressed, then we will have a very massive amount of oil available but don't hold your breath, nothing I've seen has been a break through in technology.

Colorado has very large reserves of natural gas but I'm not aware of any very large reserves of liquid oil. There are oil wells all along the foothills on the Eastern side of the Rockies, particularly in the Denver area but nothing extensive.

By the way, the problem with the tar pits in Canada is that the process is also environmentally unfriendly, i.e. dirty and has caused a lot of damage. Those problems can possibly be overcome but there is a lot of pressure to stop the mining until they are better solved.

We need some balance between our needs and the environment's needs. I think we are capable of accomplishing that without excessive cost to either side.

Thank you Wiz, making my point too, in clear details. I just would like to emphasize an aspect of it.

Research is like making babies: no matter how many men you throw at the problem, it still takes at least 9 months. The same is true for new technologies for extraction. Figuring out what might work, trying it, back to the drawing board, try it again. The scaleup is the same. Correcting identified imperfections the same. Any practicing engineer knows that. Only know nothing knowitall Congresscritter believe to pass an enabling legislation to turn on the spigot IMMEDIATELY. Or, that forbidding (even research) will make any of our real life problems to go away.

The other question is, where will crude oil price settle, after the present days unpleasantries shake out. As a reminder crude was $10 and was $150 in the last few years. The cheap one is gone, but I do not believe the high one is realistic either. So, if we settle at a realistic $50, there is a healthy margin for tar sands, and may be a good beginning for oil shale. Coal selling in the neighboorhood of $25/ton yielding a number of barrels (more than one, but I do not know exactly how many)in a Clean Coal program looks quite profitable right there. And going forward from now too.

Two issues are manmade problems "supported" by Congress is drilling on the US continental shelf and nuclear power. No technical problems so to speak, just enabling legislation needed from the infinite wisdom of the Congresscritters.

"Don't the have bread? Why, they should eat cake then!" Maria Antoniette.

Thank You Fellas/Ladies;

This was My take all along I just needed some reassurances from people in the know.

I live in (not real proud) Illinois. We have some oil, a lot of dirty coal but mostly lime stone and corn. Now I feel I can answer My emails on this subject with some authority.

oilcan13

oilcan, and don't forget you've given to the country wonderful, (and honest), politicians!