Australian shale oil discovery could be larger than Canada's oilsands ($20 Trillion)

CBC News ^ | Jan 24, 2013 | staff

[Titus-Maximus]

Linc Energy claims to have found rock formations containing more than $20 trillion worth of oil

Brisbane company Linc Energy says independent studies have confirmed a major shale oil source in South Australia's far north, which officials have estimated could be worth $20 trillion.

The company says U.S. consultants have carried out drilling and geological and seismic surveys around Coober Pedy. Linc Energy holds rights over more than 65,000 square kilometres of land in the Arckaringa Basin and started explorations in 2008.

In a statement to the Stock Exchange, the company said reports from U.S.-based consultants indicate underlying rock formations "are rich in oil and gas-prone kerogen".

'You're talking Saudi Arabia numbers. It's massive, it's just huge.'—Linc Energy CEO Peter Bond

The company says up to 233 billion barrels of oil are estimated to be trapped in the shale. Chief executive Peter Bond says even if the amount of retrievable oil is well below that, the discovery is still "bigger than the Cooper Basin and Bass Strait combined".

"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's about 3.5 billion [barrels] and that's sort of worse-case scenario," he said. "So if you took the 233 billion, well, you're talking Saudi Arabia numbers. It's massive, it's just huge."

By way of comparison, the Athabasca oilsands in Northern Alberta contain almost 170 billion barrels of proven or probable reserves.

"We've also spent a lot of time with our own geologists and external geologists trying to unlock what's the best option there. "What it could do is really turn this thing into the next boom, so where you saw coal-bed methane transform Queensland and the gas industry, shale could and

[tatown]

Read the article, the ‘oil in place’ estimates are in there.

[thackney]

Bakken was capable of generating 10 billion barrels of oil.

I read "capable of generating" to mean a production quantity.

Nor do I see the value of estimates prior to 3D seismology, horizontal steerable drilling, etc to have much meaning in comparisons to today's estimates.

Leigh Price was the one that did the real work with sufficient data in the late 90s. There have been other real estimates since then, notably Meissner & Banks; Flannery & Kraus as well as Bohrer. All of those estimates are lower, not greater, values for total oil in place of the Bakken.

[tatown]

Yeah I think the language the author chose to use was not very precise and please note that I’m not trying to argue with you, I am referencing this article simply to show how the total hydrocarbon number (both total and recoverable) keeps going up.

1974: 10 billion bbls

1982: 92 billion bbls

1983: 132 billion bbls

1999: 270-500 billion bbls

Here is another article that articulates it even better:

http://www.undeerc.org/bakken/oilproduction.aspx

[thackney]

1974: 10 billion bbls

1982: 92 billion bbls

1983: 132 billion bbls

1999: 270-500 billion bbls

2000: 32 billion bbls

2006: 300 billion bbls

2008: +167 billion bbls

- - - - - - -

Let us assume you are correct. Even this article states that early data was very limited. The modern studies with current data are not trending larger for oil in place.

[tatown]

2000 is an outlier and the 2008 estimate is North Dakota only.

[thackney]

I guess we see it differently.

Cheers!

[tatown]

The trend is your friend, don’t fight the tape... Lol

~ Cheers!