.. w used to locate oil deposits on land and in deep offshore fields. Two major new sites that are being tapped for oil is the Gulf of Mexico and offshore of West Africa. In the Gulf of Mexico 5.9 million acres off of Alabama and the Florida panhandle will be sold for development by December 2000. Areas around this huge plot have been drilled, but the new developments mean that we need to expand our search and extraction of oil. The seas off the coast of Nigeria (Africas biggest oil producer) is another major site for new development.
Triton Energy made a major discovery on the southern part of a 125-mile long strip of undeveloped oil fields. Technology of drilling in offshore wells has advanced tremendously since 1965 where drills could operate under 300 feet of water. Now Chevron is drilling at 9,000 feet underwater. The major drawback of deep water drilling is that it is very expensive.
Countries that have the ability to produce a lot of oil are held back from selling too much oil by OPEC regulations. In September, Irans output of oil amounted 26.13 million barrels per day (b/d) which was a huge increase from 140,000 b/d in August. Countries that disregard OPEC regulations by producing more oil than allowed to set off industry price standards by selling the oil cheaper to foreign companies which make bigger profit margins and disrupt oil prices. With up coming big oil buying countries like India, which by the year 2001-02 will double its oil imports from the 1998-99 year. With new buyers the trade of oil will become stricter and companies will have closer ties to dependant customers.
In Asia, oil consumption has increased largely because countries are becoming modernized with new industries and economic prospects. Usage of oil has jumped by 50% in Asia and by one third in Latin America. By 2010, world oil demands will have risen by 60% or more. With our oil in more demand and the supply of oil decreasing, there will be serious repercussions in world economies. The biggest question in the oil industry is How long will the oil last? Many believe that our supplies are almost gone and others believe that we will never run out of oil.
The world has never run out of a major resource because technology has found a substitute or preserved the resource before depletion. This is news tending to give hope to the life of oil, and perhaps top oil geologists like Colin Campbell are wrong, but not very likely. Historical evidence suggest that oil will be around for as long as we need it. The world will never run out of oil, not in 10,000 years. Says M.A.
Adelman, a top oil industry researcher. The Energy Information Agency of the Department of Energy said, The fact is that estimates of the amount of oil in the Earth have been increasing for the past 8 years. The Department of Energy also estimates that tar sands in Canada and extra heavy oil deposits in Venezuela contain the equal amount of about 1 trillion barrels, which is slightly more than all the oil ever burned. Colin J.
Campbell an Oxford trained geologist with his colleague Jean H Laherre presented a paper titled The Coming Oil Crisis to a conference of the UN International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris last year. The contents of the paper are very firm on the idea that the oil industry will come to a peak in production and oil will run out in a few short years. Colin Campbell and Jean Laherre are both top geologists for Total, Texaco, and Amoco for over 40 years and work in an oil industry think tank called Petroconsultants. The IEA used the views of Campbell and Laherre that between 2010 and 2020 the oil crisis will be in full swing. Campbell explains The production of easily extractable, conventional oil is set to peak around 2005, preceded by a potential spike in crude oil prices. Campbell also states that 1.6 trillion barrels of conventional oil have been found so far out of an estimated 1.8 trillion barrels of ultimate recoverable reserves.
The paper continues with facts like that about 90% of oil production comes from drilled oil fields that are over 20 years old, and that these fields cannot be reevaluated to see any more large scale production. The world discovery rate of oil is at 6 billion barrels per year, and annual worldwide consumption of oil is about 24 billion barrels. This means we are using 4 times the amount we are producing and we cannot continue this trend forever. For one barrel of oil offers 10 times the raw power for our uses than it takes to get it. Campbell insists that there are steps that can be taken which will not only buy time, but also allow oil prices to rise in a more gradual and managed way. A solution he suggests is requiring that no country may produce oil above its current annual depletion rate or import production from any country that is exceeding its depletion rate.
The future of life without oil is almost at hand, as soon as we run out countries will fight over the remaining oil fields. The struggle for national prosperity fuelled by energy production will be the rich and powerful countries that have technologies to produce alternate forms of energy. These alternates include harnessing wind energy, hydroelectric power, and solar power. More exploration into these fields will result in new and improved versions of renewable resource power supplies. However alternative energy sources require more energy to get them running than they will ever produce.
The threat of nuclear warfare is scary but can be a reality that plagues all nations involved in an energy crisis. Campbell explains mythical prospects of finding new and advanced ways of extracting oil out of heavy oil deposits like oil shale, and the thick leftovers of drilled wells. It amuses me how our number one industry is the oil industry, and it will be the first major industry or resource to be depleted by over production, and unconventional uses. We have learned to completely rely on oil for transportation, heat, plastics, and many other uses, that when the wells dry up we will not know what to do with what we have created to use oil. Thousands upon thousands of automobiles and airplanes standing idle rotting away in fields for lack of a better use.
The only way we will know what will happen is when we cross that unknowing bridge into the future without oil. Bibliography Bibliography Anonymous; Indias oil imports jump as refineries start up Oil and Gas Journal; Tulsa; 7 Jun. 1999 Vol. 97, Issue 23, 27 Campbell, Colin J.- Laherre, Jean H; The Coming Oil Crisis UN International Energy Agency summit; Paris; Nov 98 Michael Sivy; How Pricier Oil can fuel Profits Money; New York; Nov. 1999 Vol. 28, Issue 11, 39 Perdue, Jeanne M; Alaska Offers 516 Beaufort Sea Tracts Petroleum Engineer International; Houston; Sep.
1999 Vol. 72, Issue 9, 9 Rizvi, Sajid; Time for Stable, not Higher, Oil prices United Press International; 28 Sep. 1999, 1 Srodes, James Oil Alarm drives Giants Merger, Finance Week; Johannesburg; 20 Aug. 1998. Vol. 76, Issue 33, 22 Taylor, Alex III, Oil Forever, Fortune; New York; 22 Nov.
1999 Vol. 140, Issue 10, 193 Tom Stewart-Gordon, Denver Reemerging as a Key U.S. Independent Oil Center, The Oil Daily; 23 April 1992, 1 Current Events.
