How many barrels would the world's oil supply fill?

[Pythian_Habenero]

I was in a discussion earlier that prompted this question. The idea behind it is that, since the world will run out of oil eventually anyways, people fed up with the endless purchases of wasteful vehicles could start buying and storing the world’s crude oil supply, sticking it in barrels and burying it somewhere out of the way where its unavailability would force humankind to research methods of transportation that do not use up irreplaceable resources.

But the most pressing question this conversation raised is, of course, how many barrels?

[Fear_Itself]

According to this article, known oil reserves are somewhere over a trillion barrels. But the operative word is ‘known’; we may disvoer vast reserves in Siberia or China that will change that figure radically in the future. Known oil reserves is not a fixed number, and changes as exploration continues.

[Una_Persson]

This article is a bit more scientific I think. It gives the mean value of expected recovery as being about 3 trillion barrels. It also has pretty graphs, for people to look at and then forget about within a week.

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

[BlakeTyner]

You know, I just spent a few hours trolling the internet trying to figure out what’s going on with oil.

Basically, depending on where you go, you get the doomsday prophets claiming we’ve arrived at peak production or you get articles in The Economist claiming a near infinite amount of crude for the next century.

The thing is, I STILL can’t make any sense out of it because it seems as though everyone has an agenda. To make matters worse, I’m apparently sitting on the 2nd largest oil field in the United States…something like >6 billion barrels here in East Texas. A drop in the bucket to be sure, but under my Chuck Taylors?

About the only thing that seems to make any sense whatsoever is that we seem to continually stumble into more and more fields. Efficiency seems to be climbing, meaning we can pull more oil out of the ground, and it looks as though we’re finding new fields even before we need them.

IIRC, the Saudis recently said something to the effect of “the world is more likely to run out of uses for oil before Saudi Arabia runs out of oil.” Blustering? The US, I think, imports most of our oil from Canada, followed by Saudi Arabia.

The logical side of me figures the real answer is somewhere in the middle; no “infinite supply” of oil, but no looming crisis either…does anybody really know?

As I said before, it seems like everyone has an agenda. Do we have any really dependable sources of data?

[RyJae]

There is no dependable data, for every report there is a counter report, but I have not heard of any oil fields found as large as those already discovered. Except perhaps the tar sands in Canada but those are iffy at best using todays extraction methods.
But the optimist put the oil peak 30-40 years into the future, the pessimists think Peak Oil has already arrived. Either way, the era of cheap oil is probably over. Unless consumption drops, not only here but in China as well.

[aahala]

Einstein was supposed to have had a sign in his office that read “not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted.”

There simply isn’t agreement on what’s left, but that’s not what is important.
It’s what can be extracted from that, and there’s no agreement on that either.

One number there is widespread agreement – the world is producting and consuming about 84 million barrels a day this year, an all time high.

[Blake]

@LostGoals

There is no dependable data,…

There are a plethora of dependable data. Una just provided a link to some very dependable data. I can provide numerous others if you wish. People may interpret the data differently but it is not correct to say the data is not dependable.

…. I have not heard of any oil fields found as large as those already discovered.

That statement is as meaningless as a statement can be and still contain genuine English spelling an syntax.

By definition all oil fields found have been as large as those already discovered. How could anyone have already discovered an oil field larger than those already? The largest oil field found is the largest one that has been discovered, and the smallest field discovered was the smallest one that was been found.

Saying that you don’t know of any fields that have been discovered that are as large as those that have been discovered is meaningless.

Except perhaps the tar sands in Canada but those are iffy at best using todays extraction methods.

They have been producing economically for decades. What precisely is iffy about them?

But the optimist put the oil peak 30-40 years into the future, the pessimists think Peak Oil has already arrived.

Can you actually name one of these pessimists who believe that peak oil has arrived? Bear in mind that since you include tar sands in your figures they must be talking about peak oil, not peak liquid crude.

Either way, the era of cheap oil is probably over. Unless consumption drops, not only here but in China as well.

That’s seems to be another meaningless statement.

You have seen highly reputable figures saying that even in the worst 5% of projections we have at least 15 years, you acknowledge there are many who say that we have 40 years before a peak, yet you claim that the era of cheap oil is probably over. What does that even mean? What defines ‘cheap’? And why would consumption not drop if the oil becomes less cheap?

It seems an awful lot like a prediction that the drought probably won’t break unless it rains again. It’s guaranteed to be correct but it is devoid of any real meaning as presented.

[RyJae]

@Blake

There are a plethora of dependable data. Una just provided a link to some very dependable data. I can provide numerous others if you wish. People may interpret the data differently but it is not correct to say the data is not dependable.

No dependable means just that dependable

Royal Dutch/Shell Group’s overstatement of its proven reserves of oil and natural gas by 20 percent

Link
Countries as well as companies have a big reason to lie about the proven reserves.

That statement is as meaningless as a statement can be and still contain genuine English spelling an syntax.

Not really

By definition all oil fields found have been as large as those already discovered. How could anyone have already discovered an oil field larger than those already? The largest oil field found is the largest one that has been discovered, and the smallest field discovered was the smallest one that was been found.

Nice way to mix up words but the facts here

Saying that you don’t know of any fields that have been discovered that are as large as those that have been discovered is meaningless.

But its not meaningless look below at the oil fields is Ghawar for more information.

They have been producing economically for decades. What precisely is iffy about them?

The sand has to be strip-mined, two tons of it for each barrel of oil. Dump trucks the size of mini-mansions haul 400 tons in a single load, in beds heated during the subarctic winters so the sand doesn’t freeze into a giant blob. Next to the mine, the sand goes into the equivalent of giant washing machines, where torrents of warm water and solvent rinse out the tar, or bitumen, leaving wet sand that is dumped in tailing ponds.

Even then the bitumen is not ready to be piped off to a refinery like ordinary crude. To turn it back into crude oil, the operations either cook it in cokers, where temperatures of 900°F (500°C) break up the giant tar molecules, or heat it to lower temperatures and churn it with hydrogen gas and a catalyst. The result is a clean, low-sulfur crude—“beautiful stuff,” says Camarta.

But producing it is not so pretty, he acknowledges. “This really is a big, big project,” Camarta says of Shell’s four-billion-dollar mine and plant, which opened last year. “It has a big footprint too, and we don’t hide that—a big environmental and a big social imprint.”

Sounds iffy to me. With the using natural gas and all to heat all that. With a decline of natural gas occuring as well.

Raymond James & Associates finds that “Natural gas production continues to drop despite a 20 percent increase in U.S. drilling activity since April 2003.”55

Can you actually name one of these pessimists who believe that peak oil has arrived? Bear in mind that since you include tar sands in your figures they must be talking about peak oil, not peak liquid crude.

That’s seems to be another meaningless statement.

You have seen highly reputable figures saying that even in the worst 5% of projections we have at least 15 years, you acknowledge there are many who say that we have 40 years before a peak, yet you claim that the era of cheap oil is probably over. What does that even mean? What defines ‘cheap’? And why would consumption not drop if the oil becomes less cheap?

Oil industry officials say there are still promising regions that have not been fully developed, including areas of Alaska and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the U.S. that are currently off limits. But they generally agree that the days of major new finds of cheap oil are over.

link

It seems an awful lot like a prediction that the drought probably won’t break unless it rains again. It’s guaranteed to be correct but it is devoid of any real meaning as presented.

Well heck I figured a company like Chevron would want you to use oil, for ya know there pocketbooks but would you look at this WillYouJoinUs.com

Saudi Arabia has over 300 recognized reservoirs but 90% of its oil comes from the five super giant fields discovered between 1940 and 1965. Since the 1970s there haven’t been new discoveries of giant fields. The most significant of the oil fields is Ghawar. Found in 1948, the 300-mile-long sliver near the Persian Gulf is the world’s largest oil field and accounts for 55%-60% of all Saudi oil produced. Ghawar’s current proven reserves are 12% of the world’s total. The field produces 5 mbd, which is 6.25% of the world’s oil production. According to Simmons, Ghawar’s northern regions are almost depleted. Two other giant fields, Abqaiq and Berri, also seem to have peaked in the 1970s

http://www.iags.org/n0331043.htm

Ah heck with this just go read this report prepared for the United States Department of Energy, and National Energy Technology Laboratory
link
Or have the doubts explained here.
And this here
And those should answer all your questions. I was able to show that “dependable” is just a word.

Sorry I didn’t answer each question individually but its all in the reports/cites I posted.

[Blake]

@LostGoals

No dependable means just that dependable… Countries as well as companies have a big reason to lie about the proven reserves.

Riiiiiiiight.

So you have one example of undependable data. But that doesn’t in any way address my criticism. You claimed that no dependable data existed. You didn’t simply claim that some data is not dependable, you said that no data was dependable.

Nobody would dispute that there is undependable data in this or any other field of knowledge you care to name. Where I am calling bullshit is your claim that all data in this field is undependable.

That statement is bullshit and you have done nothing to show why the data presented by Una for example is not dependable.

Nice way to mix up words but the facts here

Huh? Would you care to resubmit that in a complete English sentence that makes sense?

But its not meaningless look below at the oil fields is Ghawar for more information.

Double huh? Would you care to resubmit that in a complete English sentence that makes sense?

Sounds iffy to me. With the using natural gas and all to heat all that. With a decline of natural gas occuring as well.

Oh well, if it sounds iffy to you then it’s OK to say it’s iffy in GQ.

No it fricken’ isn’t. You need evidence that it’s ‘iffy’. The fact that it is less energetically profitable than liquid crude doesn’t in any way make it ‘iffy’. It’s a perfectly productive industry that is working just fine using today’s technology, something your own reference supports. Do you have any evidence that says that it is in any way ‘iffy’?

Well heck I figured a company like Chevron would want you to use oil, for ya know there pocketbooks but would you look at this WillYouJoinUs.com

Well I looked and I still can’t make any sense of it. What precisely is the point you are trying to make? You quoted a huge chunk of text but it seems to have no relevance at all to the questions at hand. Can you please tell me what point you intended to make with it?

Ah heck with this just go read this report prepared for the United States Department of Energy, and National Energy Technology Laboratory Or have the doubts explained here And this And those should answer all your questions. I was able to show that “dependable” is just a word.

No, they don’t answer any of my questions. But since you spruik so loudly oin the topic, and since this is supposed to be for factual answers perhaps you would care to answer them for us? Or at least provide quotes that answer the questions.

And if dependable is ‘just a word’ (whatever the hell that means) then why use it? You seem to be implying that it lacks any clear meaning as you used it. That is precisely my criticism. Your comments have no meaning. They aren’t factual answers, they are meaningless opinion.

Sorry I didn’t answer each question individually but its all in the reports/cites I posted.

No, it isn’t.

If you believe it’s in there then by all means quote the relevant sections, but posting links to websites and saying “it’s somewhere towards the back” just won’t cut it. Present the facts that support what you say, don’t publish books and expect people to wade through every word to prove you right.

[RyJae]

Blake since this is GQ I will answer the OP and show this whole question cannot be in this forum as there is no factual answer.

Oil & Gas Journal (OGJ).[1] OGJ estimates that at the beginning of 2004, worldwide reserves were 1.27 trillion barrels of oil

Link

In 1994, the U.S. Geological Survey raised the estimate to 2,400 billion barrels, and their most recent estimate (2000) was of a 3,000-billion-barrel endowment.

Link

BP’s oil statistics – the industry bible – indicate some 1,047 billion barrels of proved reserves

Link

OPEC places the world’s proven crude oil reserves at around 1,100 billion barrels

Link

The average EUR – of 75 estimates provided by oil companies, consultants, academics, government agencies and other institutions during the past 50 years – is 1930 billion barrels. Of the 75 estimates, the USGS is one of only two that exceed 3000 billion barrels.

Link

So as you can see you will need a lot of barrels. But there is no factual answer that is dependable.

[Una_Persson]

The average EUR – of 75 estimates provided by oil companies, consultants, academics, government agencies and other institutions during the past 50 years – is 1930 billion barrels. Of the 75 estimates, the USGS is one of only two that exceed 3000 billion barrels.

Scientifically speaking, it would be interesting to note how many of these 75 estimates were from recent times (at least post-1990), and what the actual sources were. An average of out of date and questionable data, for any measure, is of limited value.

And the USGS does not give just one value at 3000B barrels, they in fact give a wide range of potential quantities within a confidence interval. When this is mapped versus expected consumption and production rates, the result is a wide range of potential years for the peak - from 2030 to 2075 in the mean case, and looking at the extremes, from 2021 to 2112 (no oil for the Priests of the Temple of Syrinx…) People want to focus on one number, and they look to the average. But I think the confidence interval and its development seem to be on a sound basis, except for the qualifier that they might, and I stress might, be relying a bit too much on historical experience with “dead” fields that were able to be brought to life again, or to have their life extended by new technology and new drilling/production techniques.

[RyJae]

@Una Persson

Scientifically speaking, it would be interesting to note how many of these 75 estimates were from recent times (at least post-1990), and what the actual sources were. An average of out of date and questionable data, for any measure, is of limited value.

And the USGS does not give just one value at 3000B barrels, they in fact give a wide range of potential quantities within a confidence interval. When this is mapped versus expected consumption and production rates, the result is a wide range of potential years for the peak - from 2030 to 2075 in the mean case, and looking at the extremes, from 2021 to 2112 (no oil for the Priests of the Temple of Syrinx…) People want to focus on one number, and they look to the average. But I think the confidence interval and its development seem to be on a sound basis, except for the qualifier that they might, and I stress might, be relying a bit too much on historical experience with “dead” fields that were able to be brought to life again, or to have their life extended by new technology and new drilling/production techniques.

Yes the USGS gives a “dream” number a “hope” number and the “reality” number that people want to ignore. Using the Monte-Carlo simulations, they have been effective in making numbers up, unsupported even by the very people who pump the stuff out of the ground.

With 95% confidence, the USGS predicted discovery potential shown by the yellow curve. They then made wildly optimistic predictions which they gave a 5% chance of being correct, shown by the blue line. Using Monte-Carlo simulations, they derived the green line which they described as the ‘mean’ or likely discovery potential between these two extremes

Graph
If the USGS or anyone can explain the 1980’s huge leap in oil reserves in the OPEC nations, I would love to see it, and a bonus if the can explain how those reserves haven’t dropped in two decades.
WillYouJoinUs.com is a nice place to go see, its Chevron’s website, seems like they may be preparing the world for it.
Imagine the Enron scandal increased by thousands, if tomorrow the Government is forced to announce we are on the down slope of the curve, the heads of all these oil companied will be wanted on stakes. Chevron is only protecting there ass…ets
Fraud in stating reserves is known, and until those can be figured out, there is no accurate article with the correct amount of oil.

In addition to issuing a third cut in its oil and gas reserve estimates, Royal Dutch/Shell this week demoted chief finance director Judy Boynton.

In a statement to the Stock Market, the company announced that it would “recategorise” 4.35bn 4.35 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) of reserves at the end of 2002 - a reduction of more than 22% on the reserves originally reported. Shell also said 2003 reserves will fall by 500m BOE.

Link

One of the main reasons is that in the 1980s OPEC decided to switch to a quota production system based on the size of reserves.

The larger the reserves a country said it had the more it could pump.

The more it could pump the more money it could make.

As a result in 1985 Kuwait revised its reserve estimates by 50% overnight.

It was soon followed by United Arab Emirates, Iran, and Iraq. In 1988 Saudi Arabia became the last to join the revised reserve estimates party, adding a whopping 88bn barrels…

Although previous estimates may have been conservative, what troubles some analysts is that twenty years later, these reserve estimates are unchanged, in fact some have increased.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4681935.stm

[Una_Persson]

I’m a bit familiar with oil reserve estimations (although much more familiar with coal reserves), and while you do point out several cases of inflated estimates and later drawdown, these are a feature of the industry since Drake’s well, and the researchers I work with still tend to think that the USGS mean is not terribly far from reality. Not from the standpoint that they agree fundamentally with the methodology of the USGS estimates, mind you, but from their experience working in the field in many different countries on oil reserve assessments. However, I can’t add any of that to this discussion (in fact, I am prevented legally from commenting at all on Chevron/Texaco’s coal/oil/gas reserves), so let’s say that while I think you make good points about the uncertainty of estimates, I think there has always been considerable uncertainty, and IIRC, post-1918 most industry-accepted estimates of ultimate oil life have been exceeded by reality. That does not add Fact to the current discussion, so please take is as IMO only.

[Ike_Witt]

@LostGoals

Except perhaps the tar sands in Canada but those are iffy at best using todays extraction methods…

This site says otherwise:

In fact, the reserve that is deemed to be technologically retrievable today is estimated at 280-300Gb (billion barrels). This is larger than the Saudi Arabia oil reserves, which are estimated at 240Gb.

That is just stuff easily recoverable now. They also mention that there is on the order of 1.7 - 2.5 trillion barrels that aren’t recoverable using todays technology. As time marchs on and technology improves (and if oil stays insanely high) this will become more exploited - such is the history of the oil sands in Alberta.

[RyJae]

@Una Persson

I’m a bit familiar with oil reserve estimations (although much more familiar with coal reserves), and while you do point out several cases of inflated estimates and later drawdown, these are a feature of the industry since Drake’s well, and the researchers I work with still tend to think that the USGS mean is not terribly far from reality. Not from the standpoint that they agree fundamentally with the methodology of the USGS estimates, mind you, but from their experience working in the field in many different countries on oil reserve assessments. However, I can’t add any of that to this discussion (in fact, I am prevented legally from commenting at all on Chevron/Texaco’s coal/oil/gas reserves), so let’s say that while I think you make good points about the uncertainty of estimates, I think there has always been considerable uncertainty, and IIRC, post-1918 most industry-accepted estimates of ultimate oil life have been exceeded by reality. That does not add Fact to the current discussion, so please take is as IMO only.

Lets be clear, I do not believe the end is near, I am an optimist that believes even us oil hogs in the USA will have to turn to alternatives before it happens.
Though it does look bad when the production is dropping and the demand is rising, and companies that want us to buy oil for them to make money, start websites telling us the end may be near (Chevrons Willyoujoinus website)

I also will not argue that the tar sands have a huge supply, but until they can do it without using the natural gas, or ruining the enviroment, it will not be worth it. Yeah we have oil, but where is the sun?

I also understand your the guru on many energy matters, and I take what you write, up there with the others who write about it in other places.

My only problem are people who flat out deny a oil shortage is likely in the forseeable future.

I would also like to see a geologist paper discounting the so called Hubbert Peak model. It was used with success in the USA and other countries to predict the down swing of oil production, yet the economists and the optimist dismiss it.
I do believe price increases will cause a decrease in consumption but that increase will put most countries into a depression all of course IMHO.

[Pythian_Habenero]

Well. This has certainly been an enlightening thread… but I’ll have to say that this:

@Una Persson

(no oil for the Priests of the Temple of Syrinx…)

was the best part.

Other than that… well, it seems we’re talking three hundred-odd gigabarrels. Cool. The next question, of course, is - are there that many barrels lying around, and if not, how much time and money would it take to make them?

[Una_Persson]

@LostGoals

Lets be clear, I do not believe the end is near, I am an optimist that believes even us oil hogs in the USA will have to turn to alternatives before it happens.
Though it does look bad when the production is dropping and the demand is rising, and companies that want us to buy oil for them to make money, start websites telling us the end may be near (Chevrons Willyoujoinus website)

I also will not argue that the tar sands have a huge supply, but until they can do it without using the natural gas, or ruining the enviroment, it will not be worth it. Yeah we have oil, but where is the sun?

I also understand your the guru on many energy matters, and I take what you write, up there with the others who write about it in other places.

My only problem are people who flat out deny a oil shortage is likely in the forseeable future.

I agree that there will be a shortage in the forseeable future, and I’ve been amazed that gasoline prices in the US have only just now got to the $3/gal range at some locales. I’m also amazed that as far as my co-workers go from a rough survey, absolutely none of them intend to either change their habits to accomodate the higher prices, nor change the vehicle that they drive. Maybe my co-workers aren’t a representative enough sample of society.

The future over the next 10-20 years may very well consist of ratcheting upwards of prices, timed upon coincident “world crises”, until we get to a point where consumption seriously slows in growth, or even drops.

The tar sands extraction processes are inefficient, but the processes may improve. I’m doubtful they can squeak out too much more net energy efficiency than has been demonstrated, but an engineer who I know is heading up a major effort to expand development tells me that “in 10 years everyone is going to be surprised”. Maybe, maybe not; lots of things surprise me.

The huge bitumen deposits of Venzuela (which, until next year, are still producing some Orimulsion) are much more readily available to be used, however, and my understanding from my contacts in Indonesia is that Venezuela is looking hard at refining their bitumen into marine oil for the burgeoning SE Asian market.

[groman]

We don’t know how much oil is left. We’ll never know unless we disassemble the entire earth. We do not even know it’s not a renewable source(although that’s a pretty damn good guess, abiotic oil or regenerative oil theories are very fringe). We do know however, that gas prices are rising. How do we deal with that?
Well, to put it bluntly, there’s really no internal combustion vehicle choice that would make all that much difference anyway. The best you can get is about 50MPG on a reasonable car, or maybe 70MPG on a motorcycle. Which is essentially the gas mileage you would get 20-25 years ago. The cars are a lot CLEANER now, but really between the 15MPG SUV and the 50MPG Hybrid you migth as well pick something that suits your tastes and is actually comfortable to drive and ride in(we pay premium for first class airplane seats, and we spend a lot more in our cars than planes, so a car, at a bare minimum, has to be as comfortable as first class). Something like the Prius or Civic Hybrid (that offends me in pretty much every single way as a car - slow, ugly, expensive, cheap japanese design, etc.) would seem attractive to me only if it somehow got well over 500-600 MPG, which is blatantly impossible. Why is this the case? Well, the car price, upkeep, insurance, service combined generally account for way more than gas.

Hydrogen cars? Electric cars? Sure, I’ll drive one, everybody will if it’s cheaper than gas. However, they’re not viable until they can compete on the important aspects of cars: I want to be able to stretch my legs. I want to be able to make it from SF to Santa Barbara on one refill/charge. I want to have a selection of vehicles with at least 150KW nominal output. People talk about “Gas Guzzling SUVs” as if they were the cause of all world’s problems. I don’t like them, I don’t drive them, but I see why people do. I just checked, I drove 24K miles in the past year. Yes, it could’ve been cheaper if I drove a smaller, more efficient car. Yes it would’ve been better for the environment. But that’s 24K miles, that’s almost 10% of my life behind the wheel. Do I want to spend 10% of my life in a car that I hate, in a car that makes me feel claustrophobic and unsafe? Would you buy an uncomfortable mattress that caused you back problems even if it was 25 times better for the environment than a regular one?

[groman]

Oh sorry I didn’t realize this was GQ. :smack:

[groman]

Oh sorry I didn’t realize this was GQ. :smack: