Anyone know anything about this. Talking about UK oil and gas, we have:
"The wave of investment is coming to deliver a lot of new production in the years ahead," Oil & Gas UK's economics and commercial director Michael Tholen told Reuters.
A rise in production from next year would be the first since 1999, and could aid the economy's return to growth, which is expected to be one of the main issues in the 2015 election.
But before any recovery, there will be another dip.
And
Britain's production will rise to around 2 million barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2017, up from 1.55 million in 2012, the group forecast.
Investment in the North Sea hit 11.4 billion pounds in 2012, its highest level for 30 years, said the group, and will rise to 13 billion pounds in 2013, continuing its increase from a 2009 trough.
"By 2015 you've got a massive amount of production coming in. They are big chunks of production. That's happening," said Tholen.
New fields such as Total's (TOTF.PA) Laggan-Tormore project and Nexen's (NXY.TO) Golden Eagle development will be key to helping lift production in 2014.
Is this realistic? A rise by about 1/3 seems a lot at this stage of the game,
Peter.
Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the seconds to hours?
North Sea oil and gas production has been falling at about 7-10% a year, since 1999 for the UK and since about 2007 for Norway.
The total has fallen so far, that it is possible for a recent uptick in investment could offset decline for one year, or even register a small year on year increase in production. 2 MMboe/day production ain't going to happen.
Remember Iraq's 12MMbpd of oil by 2020? They are still producing below their 1970 peak at about 3.1 MMbpd.
Maintaining the North Sea's revival beyond 2017 depends on exploration, said the survey, noting that new discoveries were not keeping pace with the reserves going into production.
Britain's part of the North Sea has in recent years been overshadowed by success in Norway, where a string of big discoveries including the Johan Sverdrup field, 2011's biggest find globally, has contrasted with smaller finds in UK waters.
"The real issue is we've been drilling fewer wells," Tholen said, explaining that a third fewer wells were drilled in the period 2009 to 2012 compared with the previous four-year period.
The survey forecast that exploration drilling would pick up this year, rising to 37 wells compared with 24 in 2012, and giving Tholen hope of more discoveries in Britain.
"We're rapidly eating into the cupboard, we need to restock it," he said, noting that Johan Sverdrup was not far from the UK-Norway maritime border.
They're talking up the prospects to encourage more investments. We'll be drilling 37 wells this year compared to the thousands in the US. OK, theirs are onshore and into shale deposits but there's a still quite a difference in prospects. They're balgging in order to get more work.
According to Wikipedia the Johan Sverdrup field won't be going into production until 2018 so any new discoveries in the UK sector won't be likely to affect production until 2020 or later. By then UK production at present will have dropped by almost half again.
The recoverable oil in the Johan Sverdrup field is said to be 1,700-3,300 million barrels which is only 20 to 40 days of current world consumption. That's from the biggest find in 2012! We'll need quite a few of those to keep oil use rising in the future.
Undue optimism IMHO, more exploration is virtually certain to find more oil, they would not spend the money on exploration unless a return was likely. But to find as much as claimed or hoped for seems very unlikely.
An increase in production to beyond that achieved this year or last year seems reasonable,but to surpass the 1999 peak seems very unlikely.
Even if large amounts are found, in the challenging conditions of the North Sea I doubt that production rates would do much more than offset declines in mature North sea fields.
The long term trend is certainly downwards even if there is the odd uptick en-route.
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Please forgive my ignorance of the North sea geology but is there a possible new supply by re-drilling and fracking the declining North sea fields and the trap rocks between them?
vtsnowedin wrote:Please forgive my ignorance of the North sea geology but is there a possible new supply by re-drilling and fracking the declining North sea fields and the trap rocks between them?
BP have been ordering a lot of new pumps from the comany i work for, for use on North Sea platforms.
Persistence of habitat, is the fundamental basis of persistence of a species.
vtsnowedin wrote:Please forgive my ignorance of the North sea geology but is there a possible new supply by re-drilling and fracking the declining North sea fields and the trap rocks between them?
BP have been ordering a lot of new pumps from the comany i work for, for use on North Sea platforms.
Based on the North Dakota experience I'm not surprised. When crude gets to above $150 a barrel I would expect every well in the North sea to be re-drilled at every productive level horizontally in a full circle fan to squeeze it out to the last drop.
