Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 04, 2024, 10:46 AMNo, Hubbbert was spot on.  All he ever talked about was CONVENTIONAL oil.  The technology to do fracking was around but the inside 'story' of fracking at that time was a secret kept by the oil companies.

Drawing upon Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels as a reference, I note the following.
A) I couldn't find the word "conventional" anywhere in the document, if you happen to know where it is, I would love a page quote?
B) He did however note this: Page 14: "The data in Figure 15 represent the estimated amounts of crude oil initially present which are producible by methods now in use."

These methods being wells, vertical and horizontal, offshore drilling, hydraulic fracturing, and stuff pretty much still being done today, except for one. Canadian tar sands, whereby oil is mined, the only unconventional oil on the planet currently, under Hubbert's definitions. Perhaps ultra-deep could be included, if we wish to split hairs over how deep is related to "now in use"?

And then you said this: "The technology to do fracking was around but the inside 'story' of fracking at that time was a secret kept by the oil companies."

To which I offer this: Mechanics of Hydraulic Fracturing Published by AIME in 1957. More interesting is when it was presented, October of 1956.

Hubbert's explicit knowledge of hydraulic fracturing, including calculating the physics of, as demonstrated here:"The technique was introduced to the Petroleum Industry in a paper by J. B. Clark, of the Stanolind Oil and Gas Co. in 1918, and since then its use has progressively expanded so that by the end of 1955 more than 100,000 individual treatments had been performed."

Hubbert's words, and understanding, not mine.

So in March of 1956, Hubbert is putting his ideas out in Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels in 1956. In October of that same year, he is discussing a practice around for a decade, and in the case of hydraulic fracturing, he has already been studying the physics of it, publishing on it, and it obviously can't be that much of a secret. I will admit that seriously, who reads AIME back then other than knowledgeable folks, but they wouldn't keep their mouths shut and hide it after reading it or seeing his presentation would they? Let alone the thing was being done all over Oklahoma and Texas and whatnot. A secret?

This is a great reference.. detailing both the initial hydrostatic shock technique patented near the end of the Civil War (not quite fracking but close) and the process began in the late 1940's that Hubbert knew about when he wrote his paper. And said reference details 1,000,000 hydraulic fracturing jobs by 1988. So before Colin Campbell declared global peak oil in 1990...he couldn't claim ignorance of hydraulic fracturing to explain his "egg on face" moment either.

No surprises here. Nothing hidden.
Reference

1947
The immediate post-war period saw the birth of modern-day fracking. In 1947, Floyd Farris of Stanolind Oil & Gas began a study on the relationship between oil and gas production output and the amount of pressurised treatment applied to each well. This study led to the first modern day example of hydraulic fracturing at the Hugoton gas field in Kansas which saw the technique used to extract natural gas from limestone.

During this experimental frack, 1,000 US gallons of napalm (gelled gasoline) was injected into the gas producing limestone formation with a depth of 2,400 feet. This was then followed up with a gel breaker to 'frack' the well. Unfortunately, this particular experiment was deemed a failure as it didn't lead to any significant increase in production. Nevertheless, the first modern frack had been carried out.

1949
In steps oilfield services giant Halliburton, which is still a major player in hydraulic fracturing today. In 1949, a patent was issued with an exclusive licence approved for the Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Company. On March 17th that same year, the company carried out the first two successful commercial hydraulic fracturing treatments; one in Stephens county, Oklahoma, and another in Archer County, Texas.

Quote from: K-DogIt would have been irresponsible for Hubbert to speculate about how much fracked oil could contribute.  The technology was known about, but it had not been implemented.

Well, you might not consider someone paying for it to be done 100,000 times not implemented....but it sure sounds like "was only implemented 100,000 times" would be more accurate.

And him being a seminal expert in calculating the geophysics of the process in 1956 because...you know...he had data from 100,000 implementations. Perhaps you disagree that this was a large enough sample size for him to be an expert on the physics of it already?

It is my belief that the "conventional" angle came along sometime when it became obvious that Hubbert's US peak was in the process of being eclipsed. Not being happy with the best predictive example of the peak idea being so easily dispatched with oil from rocks that quite literally were part of the late 1800's development in the US (including the first US natural gas well in 1821), there was a need to find a scapegoat to defend the peak idea, someone not around to defend themselves.

I introduce the seminal geophysicist of his time...the patsy. All in order to maintain his idea, the bell shaped curve. Hubbert predicted the US peak....the idea works! When the "oh shit I don't know dick about petroleum geology!" moment arrives, well, up is down, black is white, 2+2=5, etc etc. Translated into peak speak, conventional oil becomes something no one can define in the way oil is ormally described by industry, chemical enginers, oil field people (API gravity, viscosity, impurities, color and price), and bell shaped curves win!

..psst...did you know that Hubbert, around 1936....predicted US peak oil to happen by 1950? I say psst because we should keep it a secret, because as it turns out...he wasn't right then either. I wonder why no peakers seem to know this? Takes away from the credibility of th 1970 call? This guy found it, and put it in his book. Mason Inman's book. The only other person that I've ever seen find this info other than a petroleum geologist from the USGS giving a presentation at a AAPG conference mentioning it in Tulsa in 2012, where he mentioned it.

Quote from: K-DogThe graph shows what will happen if oil is extracted by conventional means only. 

I'm more than happy to accept that as true. As soon as you find Hubbert making this distinction, because I quoted earlier his caveat. "producible by methods now in use" circa 1956. Canadian oil mining and perhaps really deep offshore would be the only "not conventional" oil on the planet. Horizontal wells date back pre-WWII, hydraulically fracturing just post WWII, offshore was happening post WWII, I mean, mining is about the only one I can think of that isn't "conventional". But hey, if you've got the quote from Hubbert, I'll buy in pronto. I'm not going to be accused of misrepresenting what the guy said or wrote.

Quote from: K-DogThere was no fracking in Hubbert's time.

Well, I think we both know better now.

Quote from: K-DogLook at this graph and compare the values for 2008 before fracked oil became a thing. 

You mean, 1949 when hydraulically fracturing became a thing, and was done 100,000 times before some of us were born? I would also offer this...the EPA referenced the USGS which back in 2015 was already telling folks that 2/3's of ALL hydraulic fracturing had happened in the 20th centuy...NOT the 21st. And those pesky scientists, how did they know that hydraulically fracturing was happening before Hubbert wrote his 1956 peak oil paper when no one else seems to?

Quote from: USGSApproximately 1 million wells have been hydraulically fractured since the technique was first developed in the late 1940s (Gallegos and Varela, 2015;IOGCC, 2002). Roughly one third of those wells were hydraulically fractured between 2000 and approximately 2014.

Page 4, right side, top, located here.

Could be that we're talking REAL scientists, descendants of the line that include Hubbert himself!

Quote from: K-DogHubbert was not far off at all. Hubbert was right.  When the graph was drawn there was only one kind of oil.  Current raw numbers mean nothing without a qualification about what kind of oil is being talked about.

There are dozens of types of oil. Have been since before Hubbert was born probably. Described in all the appropriate ways. You haven't mentioned ANY of those characteristics for "coventional" other than how how deep it is?

You can say Hubbert was correct. It's a free country. You just can't point at his chart and say the answer there compared to amount of oil being produced today is a match. You can't put "conventional" in his mouth either...unless you can? A link to anything he said or wrote would work of course.

You can say that 0.6 billion barrels is the same number as 4.3 billions barrels....but I dunno....  0.6 = 4.3? I don't think I need to ask my first grade teacher who taught me some math once if this is a true statement or not.

Quote from: K-DogI watched a video about a rod-line pump jack that is likely the last one being used in Oklahoma yesterday.  It puts up a barrel and a half per day.  It is the  last pump jack on a rod line that once had three or four other pump jacks. 

We called them shackle lines, once upon a time. I can take you to some woods along the Ohio Valley where a friend of mine runs 20 of them all wire roped together to a central prime mover in a shack  where he runs a gasoline engine to move all the lines to pump the wells. Oil was in the Ohio Valley long before hilljacks from Ohio and West Virginia and Pennsylvania moved to Oklahoma and began finding it for them.

Quote from: K-DogThe oil is conventional oil about 450 meters down. 

Do you have a chart or something from Hubbert that shows a chart at which depth conventional ends and everything else begins? Because that Canadian tar sand mining is all shallower than 450 meters, and there is no way it is conventional. According to HUbbert's definition of what he was adding up and what he was adding up in the future, circa 1956. Which doesn't use the word "conventional", but I've already quoted him so I won't do it again. So perhaps Hubbert put out a depth chart somewhere I'm not aware of?

Quote from: K-DogThat is the only kind of oil Hubbert was ever talking about.

Well then a single reference of him saying which oils are conventional, and how shallow they need to be could clear this all up! People say all sorts of things on the internet (remember the Mayan calendar thing?) but if the man himself made this distinction, well then it is a done deal!

Quote from: K-DogPerhaps someone will ride up on a horse in fifty years and the pump jack will be clanging away.

Wells on grandma's old property, shale wells both, vertical and hydraulically fractured, are still producing these 46 years later. The shackle lines I mentioned previously? Handed down from grandfather to grandson. My buddy is 65 or so now. OG oilfield he is. I think the wells date back to post WWI and pre WWII. Shale oil as it turns out, migrated to some shallower sands, the wells were "shot" (hydraulic shock is another way to think of it, the 1865 patented technique mentioned above)somewhere back pre-WWII. Quite common in the area.