Yet even oil optimists concede that physical limits are beginning to loom. Consider the issue of discovery rates. Oil can’t be pumped from the ground until it has been found, and yet the volume discovered each year has steadily fallen since the early 1960’s despite dazzling technological advances, including computer-assisted seismic imaging that allows companies to “see” oil deep below the Earth’s surface. One reason for the decline is simple mathematics: Most of the big, easily located fields—the so-called “elephants”—were discovered decades ago, and the remaining fields tend to be small. Not only are they harder to find than big fields, but they must also be found in greater numbers to produce as much oil. Last November, for example, oil executives were ecstatic over the discovery off the Brazilian coast of a field called Tupi, thought to be the biggest find in seven years. And yet with as much as eight billion barrels, Tupi is about a fifteenth the size of Saudi Arabia’s legendary Ghawar, which held about 120 billion barrels at its discovery in 1948. Paul Roberts ☀
Wednesday 14 May 2008
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