[snort] Yeah, right.
Posted on 10/03/2011 7:32:05 AM PDT by bananaman22
Russia, currently vying for the title of world's top oil producer with Saudi Arabia, claimed that new findings in its offshore Arctic territories have effectively doubled the nation’s energy reserves.
According to numerous Russian media reports, addressing a meeting of the sixth media forum of the United Russia Party on 25 September, Russian Natural Resources Minister Iury Trutnev said that the preliminary forecast is that resources in the Russian Arctic shelf are comparable to those in mainland Russia, adding, “Speaking of long-term planning, these reserves could last 100, may be 150 years, but longer is unlikely. Humanity will eventually have to look for new energy anyway. Recently, we completed 40-year talks with Norway, delineated the gray zone, and now obtained another 5 billion tons of fuel equivalent there.”
Trutnev’s new Arctic reserve claims are buttressed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) 2008 survey, which estimated that 90 billion barrels of undiscovered oil and 1.668 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas lie beneath the Arctic’s waters and ice, representing 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil. Strong oil prices, more advanced offshore equipment and receding sea ice are leading to a growing interest in the Arctic.
Four years ago Russia’s Arktika 2007 expedition took a team of Russian geologists on a six-week voyage aboard the 50 Let Pobedy (“50 Years of Victory”) nuclear icebreaker to the underwater Lomonosov ridge in Russia's eastern Arctic Ocean, which they claimed was linked to Russian Federation territory and contained 10 billion tons of natural gas and oil deposits. The Russian Federation has been busily advancing its claims over its Arctic continental shelf ever since. Just to be on the safe side, Russia has prepared a justification for submitting in 2013 a new claim for the expansion of the borders of its Arctic shelf, according to Trutnev, who told media forum participants, "Important work was carried out this year: our vessels covered a distance of 22,000 kilometers and conducted activities to justify Russia's new claim in 2013."
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has also gotten into the act of national chest-thumping about Russia’s new-found Arctic riches. According to information posted on the Prime Minister’s website, Putin told participants at the second International Arctic Forum, "The Arctic - Territory of Dialogue" in Arkhangelsk on 22 September, “We have already installed one of the world's largest hydrocarbon platforms there. Russia is starting to develop the Arctic shelf and opening a new chapter in the history of Arctic exploration. Very soon it will contain pages on the commissioning of the Shtokman deposit in the Barents Sea and the development of resources in the Kara Sea and on the Yamal Peninsula.”
Seeking to allay the not inconsiderable environmental concerns about the Arctic’s fragile ecosystems Putin added, “All our plans will be carried out in compliance with the toughest environmental standards. A careful, civilized attitude to nature is a requirement of all development programs. Active economic development Full article at: Russia Claims New Arctic Hydrocarbon Finds Effectively Double Nations Reserves
They're always in the last place you left them...
Who has any idea on how much undiscovered oil there might be?
Maybe the Earth creates oil just like it grows trees.
No kidding. Every few months there is an announcement of yet another giant discovery of oil or gas somewhere in the world.
Wonder what people will do to the green nuts when the rest of the world is swimming in oil and enjoying robust economies while the US is stuck in the stone age.
[snort] Yeah, right.
It’s called the abiotic process....the earth creating more oil. Imagine what is under chiner.........
I remember a time when the US would have claimed this area of Earth as either US controlled territory, or as a free area where no nation owns or controls it. Not anymore, we do not even defend land that is defined on maps from invasion.
This if even remotely accurate will send chills through the middle east. OPEC is losing if not already lost its lock on pricing in the market.
With the emergence of “tight oil and gas” in the States, the sands of Canada, the African plays and major discoveries in Norway and Brazil, the biggest problem for the market is maintaining prices high enough to make it worthwhile to go after the oil.
I thought we were going to have to move to windmills, b/c there was no more oil?
“Peak Oil” zealots are deeply saddened.
The date of the predicted peak has moved over the years. It was once supposed to arrive by Thanksgiving 2005. Then the “unbridgeable supply demand gap” was expected “after 2007.” Then it was to arrive in 2011. Now “there is a significant risk of a peak before 2020.”
But there is another way to visualize the future availability of oil: as a “plateau.”
In this view, the world has decades of further growth in production before flattening out into a plateau—perhaps sometime around midcentury—at which time a more gradual decline will begin. And that decline may well come not from a scarcity of resources but from greater efficiency, which will slacken global demand.
Not in the near future. It is the cost of production that gives the lead to OPEC. While figures vary by oil field and country, the costs in the Middle East range from 10-50% of the costs in other areas of the world. When you add in the overhead that the governments and environmentalists add here in the West, you get an even higher search-to-production cost.
Wonder if we can ship some of these Sierra Club, World Wildlife and Earth First types to Russia and the OPEC countries? I'm sure that there would be mutual admiration and respect. /sarc
That hasn’t been discovered yet but an exact figure is due any time now.
Not only this find but Norway just found a field that may contain up to 1.8 billion barrels and the billion barrel Gulf of Mexico find too.
It is the cost of production that gives the lead to OPEC
You’re absolutely correct on cost of oil. We have expensive oil and there’s is cheap and shallow. But, that’s where supply and demand come in to play, there’s plenty of demand to keep everyone happy.
I used to work for a company that had a competitor who had a 10 to 15% advantage on all its competition and they never wanted to use it. They would much rather keep it rolling in so prices in our market always remained steady.
I don’t believe OPEC cares one way or the other or they would have bled us (the world) dry when they had the chance.
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