Quote from: K-Dog on Feb 24, 2024, 06:05 PM

QuoteWhat might it take in your eyes K-Dog, to disqualify the value of a petroleum geologist's opinion?

If they have an advanced degree from an accredited university, quite a fucking lot.

Art has a history degree from somewhere, and a geology masters from Colorado School of Mines. It is a good school. So when as a petroleum geologist, with at least some minor experience with a major, states that when shale source rock can't have any left in it of significant volume in 2011, and folks from lesser schools turn that oil from shale rock into the world's 3rd largest producing source....well...it just seems that 8 mmbbl/d is quite a fucking lot.

Quote from: K-DogThey would have to spew nonsense that can be refuted.  Now answer my question.

Good. Perfect description of Art and the example I mentioned. We can put aside his nonsense about well productivity change until he gets an engineering degree and hope he can use it better than his geology one, like geolgists that can't find 8 mmbbl/d as it is being developed under their feet can be counted on to be able to add or subtract correctly, let alone get the training to be taken seriously by those who do well prpoductivity for a living.


Happy to answer your question. You didn't provide the reference of the answer so I'll fill it in for you. Domestic. And I'll do both price and volumes.

The US is burning through that 8 mmbbl/d = 2.9 billion/yr. Currently US total production has been relatively flat this year, so I will assume first that flat will continue. Oil prices running $80/bbl or so, companies focusing on return to investors rather than growth, rig counts began dropping last spring, been stable for awhile. Flat currently is a good start.

To figure reserves you multiple 2.9 billion X (6-8) to get the approximate amount of produced oil if you stopped drilling new wells tomorrow. So call that 20 billion barrels produced over through mid-century. Figure out remaining area in each of the big oil plays and you're looking at maybe 14 million acres. Take the wells drilled, in the big oil plays anyway, call that 49,000 at 150 acres each and you discount 7.4 million of those acres. So you figure that development of slightly over half the area netted you maybe 7 billion cum, +20 of existing production from them in the future. Lets call the remaining less than that, so another 25 billion. Assuming stable production in the $55-$100/bbl range, and the same type of rampup of new wells to get to the point of replacing the 2.9 that is declining away over the next quarter century, you might be able to sustain the current rate for 10 years of buildup of new, same as the old. Seems reasonable. Presume existing prices though, and then variation becomes a acreage tier issue. You know...stuff geologists know....except for discredited ones. Higher prices have the chance to offset declines and even provide gains in exchange for lower rates later, even at the higher prices. Low prices slow the entire process down, including current rates, but extend a given rate longer. Low prices and slowdowns also have the potential to create another peak at a later point in time. I know....again...?

So the oil that Art claimed couldn't be significant and turned into the 3rd largest oil producing rock in the world (and rocketed the US to being the world's largest oil producer....again) can be sized at about 50 billion barrels, call it twice the size of Prudhoe Bay in place volumes. Just a back of envelope WAG of course.

So the US will be a substantial producer for quite some period of time, with holding oil prices, and no one changing the rules for the producers along the way, always a popular idea among the save the world types.

The bad news is this...US oil prices aren't based on US costs. They are based on international prices, storage and strategic volumes, OPEC proclamations and curtailments, and those are all about geopolitics. So those who don't know dick about oil particulars, like maybe Art, might be better off inventing cool global scenarios, the knock on effects of which can cascade all over US oil prices and the economy at large.