Hurrahhhhh we're saved !!

[forfismum]

No more worries about petrol.

Massive reserves at stake in Arctic oil claim

[seven]

I can see that being a enormous scrap to see which country has 'rights' to that oil.

[altyfc]

400 billion barrels? That sounds like an awful lot. How does that compare with other reserves the world over?

[geodome]

That will spanner peak oil theory then!

[arno]

And what damage will be done to the global climate by destroying this region?

[Drachma]

I don't think that this will "save us". It will only delay the day when the war for oil breaks out worldwide (not Iraq).

[forfismum]

And now we have more gas !!!!!!!!!!


Concerns mud volcano now spewing explosive gas

[forfismum]

Some 2/3 of the oil reserves of the USA are still in the ground and it looks like it can be recovered,more later when I get a better linkie than the one I have

[Lisa-Adam]

But how can you save petrol? Do you think a dealer is going to give you profit.

[eclipse]

Let's keep our hats on for the moment, keep a watch at Energy bulletin. For example, there were some truly enormous claims in Brazil recently yet we find this article at Energy Bulletin. Always check a few sources like Energy Bulletin first to see what the experts are saying in reply.

I would LOVE peak oil to be pushed back a decade or so... even with global warming, maybe Biochar could be ramped up to suck Co2 out of the atmosphere. If this IS peak oil right now, and Arctic oil will be incredibly hard to get pumping at speed, then we could be in very, very serious trouble. I personally doubt that even if the Arctic oil is 400 billion barrels that we'll be able to pump it fast enough. It's frozen, dangerous, deep, and a plain bastard to get at. It's hardly the vast Saudi Arabia of "cheap" oil ready to come online and solve these high oil prices.

But back to the claims from Brazil.... as an example of the kind of article I'm waiting to see up at Energy Bulletin on the AArctic.

So anyway, back to the most important source for peak oil news, Energy Bulletin.

Big Oil Strike in Brazil has Tongues Wagging, but We Continue Towards Peak Oil
Pedro Prieto, Tlaxcala via AlterNet
The world press, especially the Western press and specifically the financial press, has jumped all over the headlines of the discovery of a huge oil field in Brazil's continental shelf.

It's a concession within a series of blocks or zones earmarked for exploration, over which very little technical data has been offered and which apparently involve the Brazilian company Petrobrás, the Spanish company Repsol-YPF and the British concern, British Gas. The press in each country involved (an involvement created when the head offices of these enormous multinational firms are in a certain country and have close links with political power in their country of residence) has exulted in the discoveries, as something truly impressive. So much so, that stock markets have experienced significant fluctuations.

Naturally, if verified, it would be the greatest discovery in several decades and would skew, to a certain extent, the observed tendency toward a steady but inexorable decline in the volume of the world's discovered petroleum, while worldwide consumption continues its relentless increase.

... To put the figures in their proper context, something that the financial press tends to blur at its convenience, the maximum supposed quantity of the discovery in Block BM-S-9, known as Carioca, 2,000 meters under the Atlantic Ocean, would represent one year's worldwide consumption of petroleum, well above the 30 billion barrels. This is more or less the result when the 85 million barrels produced as a daily average are multiplied over 365 days.

Also, to clarify the importance of the oil discoveries, certain characteristics must be considered that are not always emphasized by the press, but are essential to achieving an accurate valuation. [quality of the reserves, for example]

... Despite the fact that it is the largest oilfield discovery announced in the past 30 years and has engendered such fierce speculation, oil continues to dance with wolves at levels of $100-110 a barrel, accompanied by explanations from the economic media that would make you laugh if they didn't also make you weep: In February of 2002 a barrel was at $20. And now, as I write, it's approaching $110, more than five times as much. But in the world of flatland economics, there's always an explanation to justify any kind of upward jump as something circumstantial (an explosion in a pipeline, a strike in some sector, off-the-cuff declarations from an oil-producing country's leader, a hurricane near the ocean platforms, a guerrilla attack on some facilities, and so on).

... The comedian Groucho Marx wanted the epitaph on his gravestone to read "Pardon me for not getting up." By way of farewell, I might add that this is what occurred to me when I saw the news about the supposedly impressive oilfield at Carioca.

Spanish author Pedro A. Prieto is Vice President of the Association for the Study of Energy Resources (AEREN) and co-editor of the Energy Crisis website (Crisis Energética - Respuestas a los retos energéticos del SXXI)