Trillions of dollars worth of oil found in the the Outback. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/9822955/Trillions-of-dollars-worth-of-oil-found-in-Australian-outback.html)
Quote
Trillions of dollars worth of oil found in Australian outback
Up to 233 billion barrels of oil has been discovered in the Australian outback that could be worth trillions of dollars, in a find that could turn the region into a new Saudi Arabia.
The discovery in central Australia was reported by Linc Energy to the stock exchange and was based on two consultants reports, though it is not yet known how commercially viable it will be to access the oil.
The reports estimated the company's 16 million acres of land in the Arckaringa Basin in South Australia contain between 133 billion and 233 billion barrels of shale oil trapped in the region's rocks.
It is likely however that just 3.5 billion barrels, worth almost $359 billion (£227 billion) at today's oil price, will be able to be recovered.
The find was likened to the Bakken and Eagle Ford shale oil projects in the US, which have resulted in massive outflows and have led to predictions that the US could overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer as soon as this year.
Peter Bond, Linc Energy's chief executive, said the find could transform the world's oil industry but noted that it would cost about £200 million to enable production in the area.
Shale oil is more costly to extract than conventional crude oil and involves the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking.
This involves introducing cracks in rock formations by forcing through a mixture of water, sand at chemicals at high pressure.
"If you took the 233 billion, well, you're talking Saudi Arabia numbers," Mr Bond told ABC News.
"It is massive, it is just huge If the Arckaringa plays out the way we hope it will, and the way our independent reports have shown, it's one of the key prospective territories in the world at the moment.
"If you stress test it right down and you only took the very sweetest spots in the absolute known areas and you do nothing else, it is about 3.5 billion [barrels] and that's sort of worse-case scenario."
Australia is currently believed to have reserves of about 3.9 billion barrels of crude oil - about 0.2 per cent of the world's total - and produces about 180 million barrels a year.
The latest find, at the lowest estimate, would make Australia a net oil exporter; at the higher estimate, Australia would become one of the world's biggest oil exporters.
Tom Koutsantonis, South Australia's mining minister, said the reserves were deep and remote and it was too early to confirm whether they can be profitably tapped.
"All these things are luck and risk," he said.
"What we're seeing up there is a very, very big deposit If the reserves and the pressure was right over millions of years and the rocks have done the things they think they've done, they think they can extract vast reserves of oil out of South Australia which would have a value of about $AUS20 trillion. (£13 trillion)"
The consultants reports, based on drilling and geological and seismic surveys, did not indicate how easily the oil can be tapped or profitably produced.
John Young, a resources analyst at investment group Wilson HTM, said the reserves were "massive" but the actual volumes that may emerge remained uncertain.
"The numbers are going to be very large, but we really need to move from that [to] the quality of the resource - how good is it, how economic will it be, and that's going to take a significant amount of exploration and appraisal work before the industry's in a position to determine that," he said.
South Australia recently had a setback when BHP Billiton announced it was shelving a £20 billion plan to build the world's biggest open-cut mine at Olympic Dam, which has the biggest known uranium deposit and the fourth biggest copper and gold deposits.
As Mr Koutsantonis, the state's mining minister, said of the latest find: "Whether it's economic to recover or not is still the question South Australia is blessed with abundant resources but there are a few setbacks and those setbacks are that they're remote and they're deep."
If it came to it, I think I'd prefer looking for work in the Outback to, say North Dakota or Alberta. Just for the hell of it.
Soon oil will be as cheap as bottled water. :D
I am glad so much oil is being found in the good guy countries.
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 24, 2013, 03:05:52 PM
Soon oil will be as cheap as bottled water. :D
But what's the cost ?
Quote from: Valmy on January 24, 2013, 04:02:39 PM
I am glad so much oil is being found in the good guy countries.
Well. Australia.
Quote from: mongers on January 24, 2013, 04:07:00 PM
But what's the cost ?
QuotePeter Bond, Linc Energy's chief executive, said the find could transform the world's oil industry but noted that it would cost about £200 million to enable production in the area.
:nerd:
Quote from: mongers on January 24, 2013, 04:07:00 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 24, 2013, 03:05:52 PM
Soon oil will be as cheap as bottled water. :D
But what's the cost ?
I don't mind ripping up shitty little countries filled with shitty little people and sucking their strategic reserves dry, but there should be more taken into consideration before ripping up nice countries like the West's for it.
People's faucet water igniting and shit, for fuck's sake.
Quote from: Sheilbh on January 24, 2013, 04:09:27 PM
Quote from: Valmy on January 24, 2013, 04:02:39 PM
I am glad so much oil is being found in the good guy countries.
Well. Australia.
A nation entirely populated by criminals is still preferable to the Saudis.
My understanding is that the exploitation of shale oil requires lots of water. Australia is short of that so I'm doubtful that the news is of much importance :hmm:
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on January 24, 2013, 05:05:03 PM
My understanding is that the exploitation of shale oil requires lots of water. Australia is short of that so I'm doubtful that the news is of much importance :hmm:
Yeah, that was my first thought. Where are they gonna get the water to do this?
Can't sea water be used?
Quote from: Tyr on January 24, 2013, 09:05:27 PM
Can't sea water be used?
I think it might be prohibitive if the drilling is not near the sea, even if sea water could be used (I don't know if it can, actually).
Sea water can be used for fracking.
http://www.total.com/en/special-reports/shale-gas/environmental-challenges-201958.html
But Australia's massive. It's just a bit bigger than the continental US and lots of it's a massive desert, or on fire. Depending on where this find is getting sufficient sea water there will be a massive, and very expensive, business.
Looks like the next Chinese passport map's going to include Australia as its territory.
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 24, 2013, 03:05:52 PM
Soon oil will be as cheap as bottled water. :D
Indeed. While your house sits underneath ten feet of water, all the desperate refugee Westernized Asian women of your fair city will head east. FAIR DEAL!
Quote from: Pitiful Pathos on January 24, 2013, 10:19:38 PM
Looks like the next Chinese passport map's going to include Australia as its territory.
The United States should annex Australia for its own protection. This is part of the new American defense "pivot" to Asia as well as entry of women into combat arms.
Quote from: Phillip V on January 24, 2013, 09:30:51 PM
Sea water can be used for fracking.
Lovely. Nothing like adding saline to the water table.
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on January 24, 2013, 05:05:03 PM
My understanding is that the exploitation of shale oil requires lots of water. Australia is short of that so I'm doubtful that the news is of much importance :hmm:
No, shale oil merely requires more water than regular oil and gas production.
Just so you can get the order of magnitude here right.
http://ecowatch.org/2012/water-for-fracking/
Note this is an anti-fracking source and it doesn't compare like to like given that the rate of water usage and this doesn't give a water use per standard cubic meter of gas produced or anything like that. But, using roundish numbers based on the texas numbers you get 10,000,000 liters per well.
Now, so you can understand the magnitude compared to other activities. The USGS (US Geological survey)
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/qa-home-percapita.html
Has water usage at 80-100 gallons per day ~400 liters per day or 140,000 liters per person per year. This is about 71 man years of water usage per well. Given that well can go for 10 years without needing re-completion or re-fracking the rate of water usage is comparable to the personal usage (not total water usage) of the residents of a small town cul de sac for one well or a small apartment building in a city.
Comparing it to beef production.
http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=files/Animal-products
Beef is 15,000 liters per kg. The water usage for one frack is the same as is used to create 667 kg of beef, that is about two cows.
Yes, Fracking a well uses the same amount of water as two cows. Please let this trope die the death it deserves, doubly so since fracking water is usually brackish water unsuitable for farming or drinking or anything other than being dumped.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on January 24, 2013, 03:02:40 PM
Trillions of dollars worth of oil found in the the Outback. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/9822955/Trillions-of-dollars-worth-of-oil-found-in-Australian-outback.html)
If it came to it, I think I'd prefer looking for work in the Outback to, say North Dakota or Alberta. Just for the hell of it.
I've actually mentioned this before. This is in the magical sedimentary center of australia that is covered in Aboriginal Holy sites and other hinderances for operations. All the igneous geology was stolen from the the abbos a century ago for mining as well as the good farmland. They were left with the sedimentary desert, which is precisely what this is. This is where the british tested their nuclear bomb and the british army still has a rocket testing site in that region (region being about the size of france and germany put together mind you). This is the land nobody wanted and the abbos got. When I first got to australia my first question was why nobody was looking in the great sedimentary center and the answer was aboriginies plus that its fucking hot and nobody wants to work out there.
There is certainly shale oil and gas there, geology says so. Geology also says that there is little conventional oil and gas in that region as well. But, on the plus side, they've been fracking wells in queensland for 40 years at least, so the people and technology is there (and I've met most of the guys who will be doing the work). I say good for them.
Thanks for that Viking, I will do some further reading on the subject so that I can get the facts clear in my head.
The intellectual dishonesty (or is it simple innumeracy?) of the media never ceases to amaze me, I'm annoyed to have been caught out by them yet again...........should know better.
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on January 25, 2013, 04:31:27 AM
Thanks for that Viking, I will do some further reading on the subject so that I can get the facts clear in my head.
The intellectual dishonesty (or is it simple innumeracy?) of the media never ceases to amaze me, I'm annoyed to have been caught out by them yet again...........should know better.
Given the numbers I kept thinking I had an order of magnitude error, but I re-checked it a few time. Fracking a well takes less water than raising two cows for slaughter. Given the eating habits of roughnecks I am also tempted to suggest that feeding the rig crew for the duration of the fracking job probably consumes more water than the fracking job itself.
I run on the assumption that it is both innumeracy and dishonesty. Innumeracy means that people are not immune to blatant emotional bullshit, that emotional bullshit convinces them to join a side. Once they have joined a side then they are willing to lie, cheat and steal to achieve their goal. The confirmation bias will mean that they pretty much only believe what confirms their preconceptions and disbelieve what disconfirms it.
Quote from: Sheilbh on January 24, 2013, 09:44:25 PM
But Australia's massive. It's just a bit bigger than the continental US and lots of it's a massive desert, or on fire. Depending on where this find is getting sufficient sea water there will be a massive, and very expensive, business.
Can't use sea water out there. Piping sea water to the location is problematic, not to mention pointless since not much water is really needed. They will truck the water to the location. The water is not drinking water so it's not really depriving anybody of water.
So the problem is basically that there's not enough water? :shifty:
Oil? They already have uranium.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on January 25, 2013, 03:47:59 PM
So the problem is basically that there's not enough water? :shifty:
There is more than enough water, just no infrastructure to get it there. Nicole Kidman's family alone runs 200,000 cattle out in the middle of butfuck nowhere - thats enough water to frack 100,000 wells for the numerically deficient.
But fracking takes too much water!!! (We really need a devil smiley.)
Quote from: Phillip V on January 24, 2013, 11:33:53 PM
Quote from: Pitiful Pathos on January 24, 2013, 10:19:38 PM
Looks like the next Chinese passport map's going to include Australia as its territory.
The United States should annex Australia for its own protection. This is part of the new American defense "pivot" to Asia as well as entry of women into combat arms.
Bring back SEATO.
How much will be extractable of that 233bbn? I'm sure it will be more than the 3.5bbn on the low end, but how much more? Can we extrapolate from American and Canadian experience?
It's all extractable Timmy. It's a question of extraction cost.
This won't mean a thing when the oil asteroids hit Earth orbit.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 25, 2013, 04:25:27 PM
It's all extractable Timmy. It's a question of extraction cost.
yes. Which is why peak oil is an economic hypothesis not a geological one.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on January 25, 2013, 04:25:27 PM
It's all extractable Timmy. It's a question of extraction cost.
I didn't ask how much "is" extractable, I asked how much "will be".
Quote from: jimmy olsen on January 25, 2013, 05:09:33 PM
I didn't ask how much "is" extractable, I asked how much "will be".
:scratches head:
If it's all extractable now, I imagine all of it will be extractable later.
Quote from: Ideologue on January 24, 2013, 10:57:36 PM
Quote from: crazy canuck on January 24, 2013, 03:05:52 PM
Soon oil will be as cheap as bottled water. :D
Indeed. While your house sits underneath ten feet of water, all the desperate refugee Westernized Asian women of your fair city will head east. FAIR DEAL!
The day my house sits under 10 feet of water there will be no East to head to. Indeed more water than is currently contained in all the ice on the planet to melt before such a thing would happen. I wasnt stupid enough to buy down on land that might get flooded.
Quote from: Ideologue on January 24, 2013, 10:57:36 PM
Indeed. While your house sits underneath ten feet of water, all the desperate refugee Westernized Asian women of your fair city will head east. FAIR DEAL!
:lol:
CC's house is basically halfway up a mountain. If it's under ten feet of water, things have gone so wrong that everybody is going to feel it.
A flash flood could still do it.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on January 25, 2013, 04:17:52 PM
But fracking takes too much water!!! (We really need a devil smiley.)
For this I will refrain from posting the Jimmy Olsen cross dressing article I found.
QuoteLooks like the next Chinese passport map's going to include Australia as its territory.
:lol:
...
:hmm:
Surprised they haven't included the US really given the crazy Zheng He fans.
Quote from: Phillip V on January 24, 2013, 11:33:53 PM
Quote from: Pitiful Pathos on January 24, 2013, 10:19:38 PM
Looks like the next Chinese passport map's going to include Australia as its territory.
The United States should annex Australia for its own protection. This is part of the new American defense "pivot" to Asia as well as entry of women into combat arms.
It'd be better for all concerned for Australia to annex the US :contract:
Mad Max anyone?
Quote from: Viking on January 26, 2013, 12:11:27 AM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on January 25, 2013, 04:17:52 PM
But fracking takes too much water!!! (We really need a devil smiley.)
For this I will refrain from posting the Jimmy Olsen cross dressing article I found.
Lies! All of it! Libelous defamation!
Answer the question counselor! How much oil will the Australians be able to extract from this formation?
Quote from: jimmy olsen on January 26, 2013, 08:31:51 AM
Quote from: Viking on January 26, 2013, 12:11:27 AM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on January 25, 2013, 04:17:52 PM
But fracking takes too much water!!! (We really need a devil smiley.)
For this I will refrain from posting the Jimmy Olsen cross dressing article I found.
Lies! All of it! Libelous defamation!
Answer the question counselor! How much oil will the Australians be able to extract from this formation?
He already said "all of it" twice, dumbass.
Viking said nothing.
Yi answered, but I wasn't talking to him. Viking doesn't play semantic games, so I'm sure if he answers the question he'll actually answer the question I asked.
Define oil company.
:lol:
Quote from: The Brain on January 26, 2013, 02:03:45 PM
Define oil company.
Somewhere I used to work, but as gone to ruin since I left; But still employs Viking. :)
Quote from: CountDeMoney on January 24, 2013, 04:18:11 PM
People's faucet water igniting and shit, for fuck's sake.
you do know it is a myth, right?
Quote from: viper37 on January 26, 2013, 02:19:30 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on January 24, 2013, 04:18:11 PM
People's faucet water igniting and shit, for fuck's sake.
you do know it is a myth, right?
CdM gets his science from Matt Damon. ;)
Quote from: viper37 on January 26, 2013, 02:19:30 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on January 24, 2013, 04:18:11 PM
People's faucet water igniting and shit, for fuck's sake.
you do know it is a myth, right?
A generation from now, when everybody's giving birth to mongos and GORKs, the environmental impact will all come out.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on January 26, 2013, 02:02:18 PM
Viking doesn't play semantic games
Fuck you gimpy.
All of the oil found is extractable with current technology. It finally dawned on me that what you're trying to ask is not how much of the oil is extracted but how much of it will be extracted. The answer to that is it depends on the price of oil.
That's not me playing semantic games, that's you not knowing how to use basic English vocabulary.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on January 26, 2013, 03:32:57 PM
Quote from: viper37 on January 26, 2013, 02:19:30 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on January 24, 2013, 04:18:11 PM
People's faucet water igniting and shit, for fuck's sake.
you do know it is a myth, right?
A generation from now, when everybody's giving birth to mongos and GORKs, the environmental impact will all come out.
My shareholder value will have increased however.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on January 26, 2013, 08:31:51 AM
Quote from: Viking on January 26, 2013, 12:11:27 AM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on January 25, 2013, 04:17:52 PM
But fracking takes too much water!!! (We really need a devil smiley.)
For this I will refrain from posting the Jimmy Olsen cross dressing article I found.
Lies! All of it! Libelous defamation!
Answer the question counselor! How much oil will the Australians be able to extract from this formation?
The article says
QuoteIt is likely however that just 3.5 billion barrels, worth almost $359 billion (£227 billion) at today's oil price, will be able to be recovered.