[DanSC]

BRAH BRAH:

It's time to pack your bags because Australia is the place you wanna be...

This was true before you found all this oil.

[N_Fiddledog]

QBC QBC:

It all boils down to profit and greed. Big business is only fueled by profit. They have proven time and time again that the public interest plays a distant second to profit. Only if the appearance of having the public interest as a priority benefits big business do they make it look so.

You're missing the big element here. As I understand it these new estimates are made possible by the introduction of Fracking such as they're now using in the Bakken formation of North Dakota and elsewhere.

Fracking is where these new estimates are coming from. What's stopping it is blocking based on misinformation from the eco-wing.

[Jonny_C]

BRAH BRAH:

Jonny_C Jonny_C:

We'd better get the infrastructure in place to get our oil sands oil moving. The window of opportunity will not last forever.

We probably have 10 years before Australia can build the infrastructure required which makes Keystone vital at the same time this discovery isn't going to slow down operations at FT Mac anytime soon but this could hurt the Middle East. It's time to pack your bags because Australia is the place you wanna be, Crocodiles, Dingo's, Shrimp on the Barbie and Paul Hogan a Movie Star.

If we could get Keystone AND a West-to-East pipeline going, now might be the time to do it.

Call it irrational, but I have a feeling that if we wait too long, either oil will be passé or oil sands oil will be too expensive to develop compared to shale oil or other energy sources. Who knows?

It's not beyond belief that technology will overtake the need for more expensive oil sources. So maybe the time to move oil sands oil is NOW. Get the infrastructure in place now while it makes economic sense.

[QBC]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

QBC QBC:

It all boils down to profit and greed. Big business is only fueled by profit. They have proven time and time again that the public interest plays a distant second to profit. Only if the appearance of having the public interest as a priority benefits big business do they make it look so.

You're missing the big element here. As I understand it these new estimates are made possible by the introduction of Fracking such as they're now using in the Bakken formation of North Dakota and elsewhere.

Fracking is where these new estimates are coming from. What's stopping it is blocking based on misinformation from the eco-wing.

Fracking is really only used for natural gas. I sell supplies to the oil and gas industry up here in N Alberta. I might be wrong, since I'm no expert on getting oil and gas out of the ground, but they have to fracture the rock that the natural gas is contain in to allow it to be released. No one is too sure just what fracing ins actually doing to the eco system but with all the frac pumpers here in Alberta, they be bustin up a pile a rock.

[Shilo2010]

QBC

I know next to nothing about either mining or drilling however in a video I watched on this oil deposit in South Australia it mentioned that it was unusual in that usually a shale deposit contains solid state oil but that this was already liquid and as such would be extracted using the fracking method.


N_Fiddledog

I am as green as the next guy but not an environmentalist.
Just a normal, RELITIVELY well informed guy in a general sense however freely admit I am largely uninformed regarding oil exploration and extraction.
There is, however an issue here that has small bells ringing in the back of my head. Australia is obviously a very dry continent. Our largest fresh water reserve is the sub artisan basin which is just about dead center beneath Coober Peedy.
Water is the one thing more valuable to an Australian than oil.
Fracking the bedrock above this reserve......Not so sure.

[N_Fiddledog]

That's interesting Shilo. I don't know the details there. Maybe somebody else does.

There was something in the link to the other story embedded above that suggested they go deep. I'm going to guess they're below the water table, but they do seem to need water for the process. How much, I wonder.

QBC that article I embedded said they're going after oil. To be honest I was never sure about the do they just Frak for Natural Gas question either. Still not, but I'll show you two the relevant section, and embolden the passages.

$1:

The reports estimated that 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 rocks. It is likely that only 3.5 billion barrels, worth almost $359bn (€269bn) at today's oil price, could 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 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 £200m (€237m) to enable production in the area.

Shale oil is more costly to extract than conventional crude oil and involves 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.

[Barrels], well, you're talking Saudi Arabia numbers," Mr Bond told ABC News.

"It is massive. 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 worst-case scenario."

Reserves

Australia is believed to have reserves of about 3.9 billion barrels of crude oil – about 0.2pc 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, the county 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.

The consultants' reports, which are based on drilling and geological and seismic surveys, did not indicate how easily the oil can be tapped or profitably produced.

Again

http://www.independent.ie/incoming/inco ... 22460.html

[BRAH]

DanSC DanSC:

BRAH BRAH:

It's time to pack your bags because Australia is the place you wanna be...

This was true before you found all this oil.

That's true my G/F's 18 year old moved there after the new year.

[BRAH]

DanSC DanSC:

BRAH BRAH:

It's time to pack your bags because Australia is the place you wanna be...

This was true before you found all this oil.

That's true my G/F's 18 year old moved there after the new year.

[BRAH]

Jonny_C Jonny_C:

BRAH BRAH:

Jonny_C Jonny_C:

We'd better get the infrastructure in place to get our oil sands oil moving. The window of opportunity will not last forever.

We probably have 10 years before Australia can build the infrastructure required which makes Keystone vital at the same time this discovery isn't going to slow down operations at FT Mac anytime soon but this could hurt the Middle East. It's time to pack your bags because Australia is the place you wanna be, Crocodiles, Dingo's, Shrimp on the Barbie and Paul Hogan a Movie Star.

If we could get Keystone AND a West-to-East pipeline going, now might be the time to do it.

Call it irrational, but I have a feeling that if we wait too long, either oil will be passé or oil sands oil will be too expensive to develop compared to shale oil or other energy sources. Who knows?

It's not beyond belief that technology will overtake the need for more expensive oil sources. So maybe the time to move oil sands oil is NOW. Get the infrastructure in place now while it makes economic sense.

Keystone will work our Obama isn't stupid enough to bow to these Hypocritical Anti Keystone Protesters..

[bootlegga]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

So it was big oil that started the "Peak Oil" scare then, was it?

That's odd, because that's not the impression I got.

I'd argue that the fact that we are developing shale oil deposits is a symptom that peak oil has occurred/is occurring. Hubbert, who developed the theory in the first place, probably would too.

Fifty years ago, the industry wasn't interested in shale oil and only wanted to get the easily drilled and easily refined oil out of the ground. Now that most of those sources are either not producing like they used to (like the Western Canadian Basin, North Sea, etc) or belong to countries who won't let them operate there (Saudi Arabia for example).

The problem with peak oil is that we in the West have no way to accurately measure many countries reserves (Saudi Arabia again), because they guard that info like the US guards its nuclear secrets.

Because of this, it's very possible that one day, Saudi Arabia will say, "Uh, sorry, it's all gone" and we'll suddenly be short the 8-9 million barrels per day they currently provide. That would result in massive price shocks around the world -although it is a worst case scenario.

Even if their productions gradually shrinks like everyone else's does, making up that gap will get harder and harder because producing oil from the oil sands/shale oil is very expensive and requires massive investments of capital and time before they start producing product.

[DrCaleb]

QBC QBC:

No one is too sure just what fracing ins actually doing to the eco system but with all the frac pumpers here in Alberta, they be bustin up a pile a rock.

A pretty good program on the subject, just aired last week:

http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/episod ... round.html

[BartSimpson]

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

QBC QBC:

N_Fiddledog N_Fiddledog:

So it was big oil that started the "Peak Oil" scare then, was it?

That's odd, because that's not the impression I got.

It absolutely was the oil companies who started that. You think the tree huggers know what oil has been discovered or whats left in existing deposits? Or do you actually believe that the big oil companies have your best interest at heart and are honest about what would drive their 200 to 300% profits down? The oil companies "leaked" that info and the dumbest of the dumb ran with it.

You know...you might have a point. Not the one you think you have, but there are questions as to what side of the argument Big Oil is on.

First though the argument against what you're saying. If Big Oil controls the media message as you suggest, you would think they'd portray themselves better. If Big Oil started the Peak Oil scare why was it people like me and Bart from the Global Warming skeptic side arguing against it? Where were we getting our info? If big oil also runs global warming skeptic info (as often claimed), was big oil financing the message both for and against Peak Oil?

On the other hand big oil does have a verifiable history of being schizophrenic with their messaging. The recent anti-frakking, Matt Damon film was largely financed by Mid-East oil interests. AL Gore swears it was OK to sell his Current TV to oil interests in Qatar, because they share his mind-set. This is one of the few times I'm not certain Al is lying. Big energy has donated to Suzuki. Exxon has flipped back and forth from financially backing both sides of the argument. BP and Shell backed carbon offset plans.

My best assumption from all that is it's complicated, but Big Oil as masters of the message in its entirety doesn't sound credible. Unless you're saying Big Green is all a masterful manipulation of Big Oil. I'd like to hear how that one works.

Pretty shitty of Lemmy to neg rep you for this post.