Was just discussing this in a GD thread and thought I’d ask here. How were the oil estimates by DOE for offshore reserves made? Some of those areas, afaik, haven’t been explored either at all or in a very limited fashion. How accurate are they? Does the oil industry experts generally agree with those estimates, think they are low or high?
I was doing some google searching but it was hard to find any cites that go into the details of how the estimates were made and on what basis they are disputed. I don’t want to get into the debate aspects of whether or not we should exploit these resources (that’s being discussed in the GD thread), just in how those estimates were made, what they were based on, and perhaps how accurate they may or may not be.
I am interested in this as well. I understand reserve estimates as prepared in accordance with standards of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, which these estimates would not be.