The World Has 53.3 Years of Oil Left

fool.com ^ | June 22, 2014 | Matt DiLallo

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Last time I checked we had 150 years of proven reserves left and potentially 100 years more.

The Obama economy will probably stretch this to 350 years.

[El Laton Caliente]

The progressives have preached peak oil for 100 years now. It is always 20 to 50 years in the future... and will be for the next 500 years. After that we might have something to worry about. Oh, except for a planet size moon with lakes of methane... lol

[Praxeologue]

Everyone tells a different tale, depending on their investor PR strategy, within the bounds of the Securities Act. The Fool pulled together a group of contradictory numbers with no explanation.

Here is just a small example. Pioneer, the largest acreage holder in the Spraberry/Wolfcamp field, estimates 75 BBoe recoverable from S/W alone. That would make S/W the largest field in the U.S. At the same time, they estimate the Bakken to have around 9 BBoe recoverable. Earlier this month, Continental, the Bakken's largest leaseholder, estimated 32 to 45 BBo (not BBoe) recoverable from the Bakken/TF.

Whom should we believe?

Does EOG hold its cards and underestimate? Is Continental fairly neutral? Do smaller companies tend to hype this overheated investor market? Who are best at using experience and technology to reduce costs and increase recovery?

[ckilmer]

Everyone tells a different tale, depending on their investor PR strategy, within the bounds of the Securities Act. The Fool pulled together a group of contradictory numbers with no explanation.

Here is just a small example. Pioneer, the largest acreage holder in the Spraberry/Wolfcamp field, estimates 75 BBoe recoverable from S/W alone. That would make S/W the largest field in the U.S. At the same time, they estimate the Bakken to have around 9 BBoe recoverable. Earlier this month, Continental, the Bakken’s largest leaseholder, estimated 32 to 45 BBo (not BBoe) recoverable from the Bakken/TF.

Whom should we believe?
.................
You’ve hit on the central story of the next 12 months or so.

It looks like the land purchases 3-4 years ago were something of a crap shoot. That is, none of the companies had perfect visibility on what lay on their purchases except that they had fairly good prospects for oil.

I think that EOG, judging by their drilling do not have greatest parcels in either the bakken or permian basin. Their very best lands are in the Eagle Ford. As well, it looks like they have found a couple of very good prospects in the rockies.

On the other hand Pioneer acts and sounds like they have best land in the Permian basin but not so much elsewhere.

Continental acts and talks like they the best lands in Bakken and their pushing steadily into some very good parcels in the woodford cana fields in oklahoma.

That much is known. As well its plain that production is going up nearly parabolicly in the baaken, eagle ford and now so in Oklahoma and colorado. We also known that the eagle ford and the bakken —at least the top 3 layers of the bakken plus the top layer of the three forks formation— have been optimized/derisked so core labs business in both fields has been falling there.

Core labs business is still rising in the Permian basin. As well the number of wells being drilled there is rising. So We should see the same thing in the Permian basin. That is, we should see steeply rising production —especially if they’re sitting on 75 billion barrels of commercially accessible oil. We should see much steeper rises in oil production—given all the activity in the Permian basin than we are currently seeing.

So far we have not. The Permian is showing that its a good to great oil field but not the wild thing that papers have been talking about for the last year.

On that however, the jury is still out. We just don’t know.

That’s the big story of the next year.

Is the Permian basin a wild thing?

(Now of course a lot of this also depends on technology which seems to rapidly evolving as well.)

So stay tuned.

[thackney]

False, biotic oil formation is the basis for the people that find and produce oil around the world.

Abiotic oil theory only produces money from gullible people and occasionally governments.

[American Constitutionalist]

And in another 40 to 50 years technology will improve to the point where that hard to get oil ? won't be so hard to get at ?
And a added bonus ? so to will the technology in gasoline engines, and other forms of transportation in efficiency and reduce the demand for petroleum.

[American Constitutionalist]

How about 53.3/4 years.

[nuke rocketeer]

Another consideration against the fossil theory is that oil and especially gas have been found very very deep. Deeper than tectonic processes could take organic materials in the time since life began on this planet over 500 million years ago.