Oil supply what's the real situation?

[Businessman]

There are 1000 billion in reserves.

So that lot should last 30-40 years at current production
rates. However the price will go up, so consumption and
production should fall. Also they might find more reserves.

The price can only go up in the next decade, unless they
find more supply.

Ofcourse in the short term they can ramp up production to
push the price down but that will only reduce the total
reserves quicker!

The US went into Iraq to secure the middle east, they have
not handed if over to the UN, they want a base from which to
operate incase something happens in unstable Saudi etc over
the next few decades. Like i said there is $20 trillion worth
of oil in Saudi. Paying $300 billion to takeover Iraq is loose change.
Oil is running out and the US has no sizable capacity of its own
and is completely dependant on middle east oil, they cant
leave things to chance.

 

[BCE]

Quote from Samson77:

There are many bright people in this forum can someone please answer the simple question of how much Oil is left in the world and how long it will last us for?

Everywhere I turn I get a different answer does anyone know the TRUTH surely this can't be that hard to figure out given todays technology.

Not to be negative or flipant, but who cares? By the time this question is definitively answered we'll all be dead. We're here to trade QM, light sweet crude oil futures, if we're interested, and should be focusing more on supply and demand which drives the price. And of course this affects the rest of the economy.

 

[Sparohok]

THe 100 Billion was just the Alberta oil sands, and just the amount that can be produced with current infrastructure and economics. There's a few hundred billion more that can likely be produced with forseeable technology at forseeable oil prices. Geologically there are 1 or 2 trillion barrels of total crude oil equivalent, much of which is effectively unrecoverable. You can Google for more accurate numbers, this is just off the top of my head.

Martin

 

[TGregg]

Quote from Sparohok:

THe 100 Billion was just the Alberta oil sands, and just the amount that can be produced with current infrastructure and economics. There's a few hundred billion more that can likely be produced with forseeable technology at forseeable oil prices. Geologically there are 1 or 2 trillion barrels of total crude oil equivalent, much of which is effectively unrecoverable. You can Google for more accurate numbers, this is just off the top of my head.

Martin

Thanks for the clarification. Does "effectively unrecoverable" really mean that, or do you mean unrecoverable at less than say $100 a barrel?

 

[dougcs]

Quote from Sparohok:

THe 100 Billion was just the Alberta oil sands, and just the amount that can be produced with current infrastructure and economics. There's a few hundred billion more that can likely be produced with forseeable technology at forseeable oil prices. Geologically there are 1 or 2 trillion barrels of total crude oil equivalent, much of which is effectively unrecoverable. You can Google for more accurate numbers, this is just off the top of my head.

Martin

My understanding is the easily surface mined oil sands are about 20% of the total or around 400 billion barrels still double Saudi. The deeper sands will require more expensive methods like in situ (basically heating them up in place so the oil is pumpable.)

From what friends in the industry tell me, about half of the deep oil sands are recoverable but the technology is not fully developed and it will be very expensive.

FWIW- I own Canadian Oil Sands Trust and Suncor. The cost of recovery of the surface mined sands at Syncrude runs around $21 per bbl (I think in Loonies). The Syncrude facility produces a premium crude from the sands and gets a small premium over WTI. I don't recall the Suncor economics. Made a lot of money in both of these positions.

Any way you cut it, there is a lot of oil north of the border that sells at a great margin. Plus, production does not naturally decline as do conventional fields. Lots of oil in S. America too, but the political situation there is poor as Chavez does his Fidel imitation.
.

DS

 

[Businessman]

Even though there is enough to last 40 years.
Production slows down as the oil runs out:

2020: 30 billion per year
2030: 25 billion per year
2040: 20 billion per year
2050: 15 billion per year
2060: 10 billion per year

This is quite scary given that demand is likely to increase and
that world population will continue grow too.

 

[max401]

Currently, there is no oil shortage; we don't even refine all of what we buy. The rest goes into storage.

 

[chlawfirm]

In answer to your question in my opinion we have peaked with regard to removing remaining crude supplies. The problem is that with the increased demand from China and India its the old economic basic of supply not meeting demand. Whenever u have this scenerio you have increased prices like we have now.

The problem the world has is finding new alternative sources of energy. Our governments have sat on their hands. We have only 20 years of suppply to meet present demands if things remain the way it is. This is the official figure given by OPEC. Each year the remaining pool of resources is getting smaller. New discoveries of crude are tiny compared to the huge increases in demand. A viable energy source is still decades away.

On the whole it paints a horrible future.

 

[QQQShort]

Another view:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/feature_articles/2004/worldoilsupply/oilsupply04.html

To summarize their comments:

"The future is neither as bleak or rosy as some assert ... In any event, the world production peak for conventionally reservoired crude is unlikely to be "right around the corner" as so many other estimators have been predicting. Our analysis shows that it will be closer to the middle of the 21st century than to its beginning. Given the long lead times required for significant mass-market penetration of new energy technologies, this result in no way justifies complacency about both supply-side and demand-side research and development."

 

[peilthetraveler]

As of 2002 there was 1.025 trillion proven oil reserves on the whole planet. Natural gas there was 161.2 trillion cu. m. We use about 2.6 trillion cu. m. a year. And here is a little bit of info for ya.

Saudi arabia produces approx. 9 million barrels a day in oil and exports a little less than 8 million a day

In the USA we produce 7.8 million barrels a day.