BP and Shale Oil???

I was discussing peak oil with a couple of friends recently and one said
"Do you know which state has the largest oil reserve?"

I instantly said Alaska. She said

"Nope they just found a lot of shale oil in Colorado"

My argument was that shale oil is not economical to produce! She came back with
"BP just came up with a new way to produce it cheaply"

I didn't believe her but I could be wrong.

Has anyone heard of this???? I couldn’t find any news story on the net.

Try this thread, 3 trillion barrels of oil found in Colorado.

In it you'll find this also.

The production cost per barrel, $10 to $20, makes it competitive with conventional oil in the United States.

source: www.usnews.com...

very interestng stuff....

Originally posted by ConspiracyNut23

The production cost per barrel, $10 to $20, makes it competitive with conventional oil in the United States.

source: www.usnews.com...

They are talking about oil sand there. Why is it every time someone posts questions about the economic feasibility of oil shale I see a link to an article talking about the economic feasibility of oil sands? Oil sands are old-news in Alberta which currently moves a couple million barrels a year and is increasing production every day.

Oil shale will never become economically feasible. By the time the price of oil has risen to point where it is worth extracting oil from oil shale, our economy will already have collapsed because of the price of oil. Every time you see a story talking about oil shale it mentions the same magical technology by Shell that might develop well enough that by 2010 they may be able to start producing oil. Want to bet Shell is just waiting for the oil prices to be high enough to make it all worth trying again?

From that same link provided above:

No end of adventurers have tried to tap oil shale over the past century. The oil crises of the 1970s spurred Exxon to embark on a $5 billion effort [...] but Exxon bled money to bake each barrel out of the shale. Once oil prices fell, the company knew it could never recover its costs. On May 2, 1982 [...] Exxon pulled the plug.

Jon

[edit on 8.3.2006 by Voxel]

Thanks for the correction Voxel

According to stellarx in the other thread, the extraction methods are similar. (Actually you should just reply to him here as this thread will probably be closed for being a duplicate.)

OMG they miraculously found a cheap alternative! Not that they knew all this beforehand so as to squeeze every ounce of dollars out of us to the last minute.

I guess this is why they are proposing a pipeline from Colorado to Pennsylvania to double the supply.




Remember, this pipeline can be used for both NG and petroleum.

Folks, the Rockies EXpress pipeline (REX) is natural gas only. The difference between the mechanics of transport of NG and oil is huge.

More info:www.rexpipeline.com...

Jon

Yeah, the industry has developed a technique of producing natural gas from shale. In fact, they state there are enough natural gas reserves in the Barnett shale (in north/central Texas) alone, which they are now starting to produce, to last another 30 years.

Another interesting note is that in the past, when mining coal, the methane locked in the coal (referred to as coal bed methane) would just be released to atmosphere. Methane is about 20% worse than CO2 in its effects as a greenhouse gas, but is actually a cleaner FUEL than natural gas. So now there is a technique for capturing coal bed methane and using it. Its' aleady being employed in the northeast part of the U.S.

[edit on 8-3-2006 by Valhall]

Originally posted by Valhall
Another interesting note is that in the past, when mining coal, the methane locked in the coal (referred to as coal bed methane) would just be released to atmosphere. Methane is about 20% worse than CO2 in its effects as a greenhouse gas, but is actually a cleaner FUEL than natural gas. So now there is a technique for capturing coal bed methane and using it. Its' aleady being employed in the northeast part of the U.S.

Isn't natural gas almost all methane? How would methane be a CLEANER fuel than natural gas. All fuels are pretty much clean unless they don't fully combust.

Anyway. Nevada has a 9 trillion barrel reserve near the state line of Utah. It is comprised of mostly shale oil. The problem is getting the technology to actually get the oil out of the shale rock. That is the main setback for most of the Oil companies, otherwise they would already be drilling and we would be seeing $2 per gallon at the pump. By the way, scientists at the Whiting BP where my father works say that gas will never go down past $2 a gallon because they need the extra 30 cents to fund the researching of alternative fuels.

Originally posted by Voxel
They are talking about oil sand there. Why is it every time someone posts questions about the economic feasibility of oil shale I see a link to an article talking about the economic feasibility of oil sands?

I am surprised if that happened more than once but great job with the 'drama queen' thing.

Oil sands are old-news in Alberta which currently moves a couple million barrels a year and is increasing production every day.

But this apparently is not noteworthy in your mind? How can a backwards place like Canada manage it but not the USA? Even those idiotic communist in Russia managed it.... Funnily even tiny little Estonia can somehow keep producing power from shale.

minerals.usgs.gov...

Oil shale will never become economically feasible.

Never is a awful long time and it pretty much makes clear what sort of thought ( and how little) you put into this question.

By the time the price of oil has risen to point where it is worth extracting oil from oil shale, our economy will already have collapsed because of the price of oil.

Which is a completely fallacious argument as money is a artificial creation to help with the exchange of goods. If there is 'cash' flow problems it is because there is not enough money in circulation to meet demands and it has very little to do with the amount of energy required to extract a primary energy resource. If the USA focused on developing these sources ( simply using tax revenue which is very much wasted on obsolete weapons anyways) of energy they could easily become energy independent from the world but since that is not the aim we will continue to hear claims about it simply being 'too expensive'.

Every time you see a story talking about oil shale it mentions the same magical technology by Shell that might develop well enough that by 2010 they may be able to start producing oil. Want to bet Shell is just waiting for the oil prices to be high enough to make it all worth trying again?

Hey it's hardly magical and it does not have to be as Estonia and Canada uses simple old strip mining.

From that same link provided above:

Jon

Which suggest that oil reserves are so massive and extensive ( and cheap to exploit) that you can ship it half way round the world more cheaply than you can get using basic coal mining techniques. Imagine if we put the type of money spent on arms development behind exploiting just shale oil/oil sands.... Look how cost declined in Canada over the last two decades?

www.energyseer.com...

They can now produce from Canadian oil sands at 6 USD/barrel and that's precisely what a barrel cost to produce in most of Russia which is current the worlds largest producer. There is no logical reason NOT to exploit shale oil as drilling in the Gulf of Mexico isn't really cheap either.

www.oiltechinc.com...

Seem to think they can do it.

And a comment i found interesting...

in case it hasn't been mentioned before, Shell isn't the only company that has explored insitu production of oil from shale. During the 70's and 80's OXY completed a prototype insitu retort and operated it successfully. It was the model for a large scale development that was later cancelled when President Reagan killed the Synthetic Fuels Corporation in 1984.

In 1998, I was employed as a consultant to update techno-economic studies for the OXY insitu retorting process. The results of that study showed that oil from shale could be produced in commercial quantities for $30 to $40 per barrel based on a 20% return on equity. At that time, MYMEX prices for light sweet crude were $14 to $15 per barrel.

Obviously, at today's oil prices, even considering inflation the insitu production of oil from shale looks economically attractive.

www.econbrowser.com...

I do agree that this whole business is quite stupid in terms of all the alternatives ( cold fusion&ZPE )but it's certainly not unprofitable under the current energy paradigm.

Stellar

Originally posted by XS207


Isn't natural gas almost all methane? How would methane be a CLEANER fuel than natural gas. All fuels are pretty much clean unless they don't fully combust.

No...it's a mixture of different gaseous compounds. Pure methane burns cleaner.

P.S. And it's TREMENDOUSLY more clean than coal.

[edit on 8-6-2006 by Valhall]

Oh boy shale oil! Can't wait to go to Colorado to see all the brand new strip mines! Shale oil is oil, but you get less milage per gallon, kinda like that corn oil crap ethenal. BP does in fact put these diferent oils and ethanol in their feul and charge you the full price of basic oil... or in other words you pay more for less because you get less millage for your buck.

Originally posted by Voxel
Folks, the Rockies EXpress pipeline (REX) is natural gas only. The difference between the mechanics of transport of NG and oil is huge.

More info:www.rexpipeline.com...

Jon

Vox, I am not saying they aren't building this for gas, which they are, but any pipeline can be used to pump a liquid by just upgrading pumping stations and associated transfer points. I am not trying to start a debate over the proposed use of this system, but just that with the oil shale deposits near those areas, it is quite conceiveable that they are trying to pre-empt the need for liquid petroleum products by building another supply line disguised as an NG line. If the infrastructure is in place, it would be all the more simplified to progress to opening up future oil shale production throughout that area if they had an established line to eastern markets, would it not? Don't tell me that they cannot pump liquids through those lines!

Thanks everyone! That was really infromative. I knew I read somewhere that shale oil is not economical.