[Coral-List] Help Ban Oil Exploration on the Belize Barrier Reef.

Thu May 5 17:58:20 EDT 2011

There will be a future Peak Oil but probably about $225-250/bbl before alternatives become practical substitue...

Cheap oil for us is one thing - I worked in MidEast where the 2000 cost for loaded crude was $5-10/bbl and prices in tanker was $40+, cost have gone up some but not that much as much is onshore oil...cheap compared to offshore

Technologies for finding and producing marginal oil as "commercial plays" are now practical...Fracking requires very good geophysics studies to find the small frackable deposits - gas, condensate, and oil - Remember that two cutoff wells were drilled to the DeepWaterHorizon bore of 1ft diameter - in 5000+ft water and floating rig...plus 15000ft deep and maybe 5000ft away and both hit the targets - fairly easy with steel casings (magnetics) and geopistion and inertial guidance - "smart drills"

They will be looking for "fields" with "natural pressures" (say 5-10Kft depth) and accessible for say 20 well bores going out 5000ft out from the platform...probably need 50Kbbl/d 20x360 = 360,000,000bbl field x $50/bbl to produce = $??????

Fracking at sea has the same problems as on land - how to catch it in 300-3000ft of open sea water....ships havebeen/are being built for offshore 

Most in the O&G/E&P setor feel that they may be ushed to offshore rather than onhore...but they are drilling onshore as fast as pssible to keep ahead of EPA...but it is very difficult to PROVE it is fracking causing gas at the sink tap....

Tom

--- On Thu, 5/5/11, Ed Blume <eblume2702 at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Ed Blume <eblume2702 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Help Ban Oil Exploration on the Belize Barrier Reef.
To: ctwiliams at yahoo.com
Cc: "frahome at yahoo.com" <frahome at yahoo.com>, coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Date: Thursday, May 5, 2011, 12:50 PM

Tom, I'm not sure what you're saying.  Does NO mean that peak oil will never happen?

While not apparently directly related to coral and the seas, the end of cheap oil has implications.  For instance, the amount of oil possibly off the coast of Belize (or in any other location) will be incredibly small compared even to current world oil production.  This raises the question of whether the environmental risks are worth taking for a tiny bit of oil.  

We would all be much better off (as would seas and reefs) to leave the tiny bits alone, and change our paradigm that oil will be plentiful (and cheap) until the end of time. 

Funny that you should mention "fracking" as a way to extract natural gas.  Take a look at a video posted here -- http://renewwisconsinblog.org/2011/04/28/southeastern-minn-could-become-hotbed-for-frac-sand

Even before you mentioned fracking, I was wondering whether any of the fracking fluids have made their way into the sea and what consequences they may have for reefs and other ocean life.

Extracting oily Canadian tar sands shows another extreme attempt to uphold our oil-forever paradigm -- http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/03/canadian-oil-sands/kunzig-text.html

Ed Blume
Madison, WI

On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 1:30 PM, Tom Williams <ctwiliams at yahoo.com> wrote:

Peak Oil

NO

Anyone in the O&G industry knows better - peak oil production at what barrel price...

At Parsons Corp (Pasadena,CA) we had production and processing projects arranged at various price levels - ancient now - $20/, $25/, $30/, and $35/bbl

At DeepWaterHorizon they were in "Extreme Drilling" or "Unconventional" O&G - mile deep of water = 2000psi, and 15,000ft drilled hole = total BOH 8000+psi   WHAT happens at such pressures - noone knows - is there any coelenterates at that depth - how many investigations have there been...

PEAK oil at $200/bbl will resurrect many fields in US and California as we are experiencing NOW with Hydraulic Fractionation - Fracking for gas and oil and condensate

OBTW costs of products may not change at all, unless the govt starts subsidizing diesel - not gasoline/petro unless Belize gets a refinery...

OBTW most jobs will not go to most Belizeans as offshore work usually goes to the producers team - not general hiring....

Tom

--- On Thu, 5/5/11, Ed Blume <eblume2702 at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Ed Blume <eblume2702 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Help Ban Oil Exploration on the Belize Barrier Reef.
To: "frahome at yahoo.com" <frahome at yahoo.com>
Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Date: Thursday, May 5, 2011, 8:23 AM

Just a factoid (God, I hate that word): U.S. domestic oil production peaked
in 1972.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS2&f=M
Individual oil wells, oil fields, oil producing nations, and the world will
all follow a similar production curve, no matter how hard oil companies try
to tap unconventional sources of oil, such as tar sands.

Ed

On Wed, May 4, 2011 at 4:55 PM, frahome at yahoo.com <frahome at yahoo.com> wrote:

> With all respect, the statement: "It could bring big bucks and jobs to a
> relatively poor country and hopefully  bring down the cost of fuel." seems
> taken
> out from a purely demagogic political debate, a lot more emotional and
> emotionally appealing than the statements being criticized.
>
> Hoping that the cost of fuel will go down when peak oil has been reached,
> or
> will be soon reached, it's quite an interesting expectation (IEA stated
> last
> November that conventional crude oil peaked in 2006).
> Hoping that the involved corporations will share the profit with the poor
> local
> people sounds also quite "naive".
>
> I might be hysterical but I do not feel assured even if they promise me
> they
> won't drill right on top of a coral or my house. Anyway all that is oil and
> pro-conventional-growth based it is for me definitely short-sighted even in
> the
> best scenario and unless overcome quickly it will lead to world wide (not
> just
> Belize) disasters, but maybe I have been reading too much
> post-carbon/post-growth stuff.
> Greetings
> Francesca
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Eugene Shinn <eshinn at marine.usf.edu>
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Sent: Sun, May 1, 2011 7:18:16 PM
> Subject: [Coral-List] Help Ban Oil Exploration on the Belize Barrier Reef..
>
> "offshore drilling in Belize will lead to an environmental disaster
> from which Belize will never recover."
> Now that is as hysterical and emotional as it can get! It would be
> good to get your facts in order before making such knee-jerk
> reactions. Several wells have already been drilled along the Belize
> shelf during the 1960s and 1970s and there were no "disasters" other
> than the fact that they did not find any oil.
> It would be good to know if they (who ever they are) are planning
> deep water drilling or shallow water drilling as was done there in
> the past? It makes a big difference. Of course actual discovery of
> oil might have a large impact. It could bring big bucks and jobs to a
> relatively poor country and hopefully  bring down the cost of fuel.
> You can be sure that no one is going to drill right on top of a coral
> reef. What does a gallon of gasoline costs in Belize? I assume it is
> all transported there in tankers which is well known to be the
> largest source of oil pollution in the oceans worldwide. Gene
> --
>
> --
>
>
> No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
> ------------------------------------ -----------------------------------
> E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
> University of South Florida
> Marine Science Center (room 204)
> 140 Seventh Avenue South
> St. Petersburg, FL 33701
> <eshinn at marine.usf.edu>
> Tel 727 553-1158----------------------------------
> -----------------------------------
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