Top 10 US States in Oil Reserves and Unemployment

There is a relationship between energy abundance, industrial viability, and productive employment. Energy abundance is necessary but not sufficient for the other two. The list from ibtimes below, allows you to compare oil reserves and employment. US unemployment is roughly 9%.

A better comparison would be between oil production and employment, rather than oil reserves and employment. Proved reserves are estimates that are always subject to rapid upward revision and interpretation. Oil production, on the other hand, is relatively accessible data.

1. Texas

Proved reserves of Crude Oil: 5,006-M bbls

Oil refineries: 23

Unemployment rate, Jan. 2012: 7.3%

Share of jobs supported by Oil and Gas: 14.3%

2. Alaska

Proved reserves of crude oil: 3,566-M bbls

Oil refineries: 6

Unemployment rate, January 2012: 7.2%

Share of jobs supported by Oil and Gas: 10.3%

3. California

Proved reserves of Crude Oil: 2,835-M bbls

Oil refineries: 19

Unemployment rate, January 2012: 10.9%

Share of jobs supported by Oil and Gas: 4.6%

4. North Dakota

Proved reserves of Crude Oil: 1,046-M bbls

Oil refineries: 1

Unemployment rate, January 2012: 3.2%

Share of jobs supported by Oil and Gas: 7.5%

5. New Mexico

Proved reserves of crude oil: 700-M bbls

Oil refineries: 3

Unemployment rate, January 2012: 7.0%

Share of jobs supported by Oil and Gas: 7.5%

6. Oklahoma

Proved reserves of Crude Oil: 622-M bbls

Oil refineries: 6

Unemployment rate, January 2012: 6.1%

Share of jobs supported by Oil and Gas: 14.1%

7. Wyoming

Proved reserves of Crude Oil: 583-M bbls

Oil refineries: 6

Unemployment rate, January 2012: 5.5%

Share of jobs supported by Oil and Gas: 15.8%

8. Utah

Proved reserves of Crude Oil: 398-M bbls

Oil refineries: 5

Unemployment rate, January 2012: 5.7%

Share of jobs supported by Oil and Gas: 4.9%

9. Louisiana

Proved reserves of Crude Oil: 370- bbls

Oil refineries: 17

Unemployment rate, January 2012: 6.9%

Share of jobs supported by Oil and Gas: 15.1%

10. Montana

Proved reserves of Crude Oil: 343-M bbls

Oil refineries: 4

Unemployment rate, January 2012: 6.5%

Share of jobs supported by Oil and Gas: 6.4%

www.livetradingnews.com

Paul A. Ebeling, Jnr. writes and publishes The Red Roadmaster's Technical Report on the US Major Market Indices, a weekly, highly-regarded financial market letter, read by opinion makers, business leaders and organizations around the world.

_ibtimes

Do Oil Wells Re-Charge Themselves?

There have been numerous reports in recent times, of oil and gas fields not running out at the expected time, but instead showing a higher content of hydrocarbons after they had already produced more than the initially estimated amount. This has been seen in the Middle East, in the deep gas wells of Oklahoma, on the Gulf of Mexico coast, and in other places. It is this apparent refilling during production that has been responsible for the series of gross underestimate of reserves that have been published time and again, the most memorable being the one in the early seventies that firmly predicted the end of oil and gas globally by 1987, a prediction which produced an energy crisis and with that a huge shift in the wealth of nations. Refilling is an item of the greatest economic significance, and also a key to understanding what the sources of all this petroleum had been. It is also of practical engineering importance, since we may be able to exercise some control over the refilling process. _Recharging of Oil & Gas Fields

RigzoneOf course we all understand the concept of "repressurising oil fields" using gas injection and other means.

As the oil or natural gas in a formation is produced, the hydrocarbons remaining in the reservoir may become trapped because the pressure in the formation has lessened, making production either slow dramatically or stop altogether.

...gas injection is used on a well to enhance waning pressure within the formation. Systematically spread throughout the field, gas-injection wells are used to inject gas and effectively sweep the formation for remaining petroleum, boosting production.... gas injection can serve as an economical way to dispose of uneconomical gas production on an oil reservoir. While in the past, low levels of natural gas that were produced from oil fields were flared or burned off, that practice is discouraged in some countries and against the law in others.

...Gas Injection, Gas Lift & Gas Miscible Process
Although the terms are sometimes interchanged, gas injection and gas lift are two separate processes that are used to increase production. While gas injection is a secondary production method, gas lift is a type of artificial lift.

Artificial lift is another way to increase production from a well by increasing pressure within the reservoir. The main types of artificial lift include gas lift and pumping systems, such as beam pumps, hydraulic pumps and electric submersible pumps.

While gas injection is achieved by injecting gas through its own injection well, gas lift occurs through the production wells. In gas lift, compressed gas is injected down the casing tubing annulus of a production well, entering the well at numerous entry points called gas-lift valves. As the gas enters the tubing at these different stages, it forms bubbles, lightens the fluids and lowers the pressure, thus increasing the production rate of the well.

Furthermore, a type of EOR employed on a well in the tertiary production process, a gas miscible process can be used to increase production. The difference in this recovery method is that the gases introduced into the reservoir are not naturally occurring. In a gas miscible process, carbon dioxide, nitrogen and LPG are injected into the reservoir. _Rigzone Gas Injection

Most of the oil in existing wells remains underground, waiting for people to become smart enough to retrieve it. Better enhanced oil recovery techniques will inevitably be developed to extract more and more of the residual hydrocarbon -- until it is no longer economical to do so. Then the remaining oil will wait for further developments.

Thomas Gold argues (here and here for example) that oil wells are charged and re-charged with new oil & gas from below. He claimed that most new hydrocarbons are generated deep in the crust, rising into geological traps at several different depths for particular parts of the crust. That is the abiogenic theory of hydrocarbon production, which is supported by astronomical data and by lab data simulating conditions in the deep crust and upper mantle.

Rapid charging of oil fields -- such as is suggested here -- would require deeper secondary reservoirs under pressure, feeding into the primary reservoirs as they are depleted.

There is another way in which oil & gas fields are re-charged -- via the biogenic production of oil & gas. But biogenic production via geologic heat and pressure is generally a much slower method of re-charging than Gold's abiogenic method. But it inevitably occurs all the same. Biogenic oil is a renewable resource, but it is renewable on a different time scale than humans generally use.

And yet, there is a way in which biogenic oil can "rapidly" recharge a depleted oil field. In the case of multiple communicating oil reservoirs at different depths, heat, and pressure, a deeper biogenic reservoir could re-fill a more superficial reservoir at variable rates, depending upon a number of factors. Oil & gas migrate upwardly, when given the opportunity. In this case, instead of "turtles all the way down," it is "oil & gas reservoirs all the way down." ;-)

Biogenic Oil FormationThis image illustrates the conventional idea of biogenic formation of oil. Imagine it taking place over and over again, during the 3 billion + years that photosynthetic life has been converting CO2 into various biological carbon polymers, layer stacked upon layer etc etc . . . . .

Abiogenic Hydrocarbons Forming in the Mantle

This image illustrates the likely abiogenic formation of hydrocarbons in the upper mantle. These hydrocarbons then can migrate upward into the crust, and become trapped under impermeable minerals. Abiogenic hydrocarbons almost certainly mix with biogenic hydrocarbons.

Abiogenic hydrocarbons are also modified in various ways by deep crust microbial populations. In other words, the predominately short-chain abiogenic hydrocarbons from the mantle can be converted to longer chain hydrocarbons on the way up.

Finally, there is the ocean crustal tectonic activity which feeds a constant supply of partially processed organic material to the deep crust and mantle via constant subduction of ocean crust beneath continental crust. This is a slow but steady pipeline which supplies feedstock for production of oil & gas on a constant basis. The Earth's huge gas hydrate resource likely owes a great deal to this tectonic process.

A Basic Understanding of Oil

The creation of oil, gas, coal, and kerogen is an ancient process, which has taken place over the eons ever since photosynthetic life first occurred in the oceans and seas. For example, did you know that the Alberta oil sands area was once part of a prehistoric sea?

Alberta's oilsands are in an area that was once part of a prehistoric sea and have yielded several important marine reptile fossils. _CBC.ca

Oil creation is a renewable process, but over quite a long time span. Gas is made more quickly and more ubiquitously under the seabed than oil, and is becoming so cheap and common as to be thought of as a nuisance in many locations.

But it is crude oil about which such a fuss has been made for the past 100 years or so. And a well educated person should know more about crude oil than he is likely to find in the media or on the doomer sites. This embedded book by oil insider Leonardo Maugeri is likely to fill a lot of holes in the oil education of most ordinary people.

The Age Of Oil

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"The Age of Oil" by Leonardo Maugeri is a basic-level primer on the various facets of the modern petroleum age, from past, to present, and to future. It is best to start with basic history and basic supportable facts. Then, if you wish to go out on a limb, at least you will have a solid foundation from where to start.

Where oil comes from, and a hint of where new oil may be found

Looking at changes in atmospheric concentrations of O2 and CO2 over time is another way of noting the underlying biological processes involved in making the plants and microbes that go into making fossil fuels.

Oil shale sediments were deposited on large lake beds in the US western states:

Lacustrine sediments of the Green River Formation were deposited in two large lakes that occupied 65,000 km2 in several sedimentary-structural basins in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah during early through middle Eocene time....The warm alkaline lake waters of the Eocene Green River lakes provided excellent conditions for the abundant growth of blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) that are thought to be the major precursor of the organic matter in the oil shale. _geology.com

How old is the oldest oil? No one knows, since it hasn't yet been found. But some oil has reportedly been found in rock that was billions of years old. Photosynthetic life has been around almost 3 billion years, so that provides for a lot of oil creation in deep rock layers.

Geologists usually don't bother looking for oil in very ancient (Precambrian) rocks for two reasons:

Conventional wisdom insists that oil is derived almost exclusively from organic matter, and additional conventional wisdom assures us that life was exceedingly scarce on earth billions of years ago.

Any oil that was created billions of years ago would have surely been destroyed by intense pressures and high temperatures over the eons.

Yet, Precambrian oil in commercial quantities has been found in formations up to 2 billion years old (in Siberia, Australia, Michigan, for example). While some of this oil might have migrated in-to the Precambrian rocks from younger source rocks, some of it does seem indigenous and, therefore, ancient.

...Now, three Australian scientists (R. Buick, B. Rasmussen, B. Krapez) have discovered tiny nodules of bitumen (lumps of hydrocarbons) in sedimentary rocks up to 3.5 billion years old in Africa and Australia. These bitumen nodules were formed when natural hydrocarbons were irradiated by radioactive isotopes that coexisted in the ancient rocks. Futhermore, these African and Australian rock formations were never severely deformed or subjected to high temperatures. The possibility exists, therefore, that some of the earth's oldest rocks may contain substantial oil reserves. So far, no one has seriously looked for oil in Precambrian rocks because of the two preconceptions noted above. _Science-Frontiers

The planet has gone through a large number of cycles over the past few billion years. Unless you can go back through time and trace the large numbers of optimal areas for oil, gas, coal, kerogen, and bitumen formation which have come and gone, come and gone, come and gone -- and been hopelessly changed and disguised by ongoing geologic processes -- you may be easily persuaded that almost all the fossil fuels have already been found.

The "abiotic oil" concept is not discussed here because the concepts behind biotic oil are difficult enough for most people to understand. And most hydrocarbons produced in the mantle by abiotic processes are shorter chain hydrocarbons, as you might find in "wet gas." Biotic and abiotic hydrocarbons tend to mix in the crust and follow much the same routes of migration upward in many cases. But if you want a good example of quick renewable hydrocarbons, the abiotic variety might qualify.

Ancient Oil and Mass Extinctions: Can We Connect the Dots?

Expansion to Extinction Over Last 540 Million Years
Mass extinctions have played an important role in the evolution of Terrestrial life. With each mass extinction, the way is cleared for the spread and adaptation of surviving species, and for the emergence of new species. But that is not what we will talk about today.

Recent findings in geochemistry have called into doubt some of the pet theories of climate scientologists scientists concerning acid oceans and mass ocean extinctions. Here is the abstract from the paper in PNAS:

Periods of oceanic anoxia have had a major influence on the evolutionary history of Earth and are often contemporaneous with mass extinction events. Changes in global (as opposed to local) redox conditions can be potentially evaluated using U system proxies. The intensity and timing of oceanic redox changes associated with the end-Permian extinction horizon (EH) were assessed from variations in 238U/235U (δ238U) and Th/U ratios in a carbonate section at Dawen in southern China. The EH is characterized by shifts toward lower δ238U values (from -0.37‰ to -0.65‰), indicative of an expansion of oceanic anoxia, and higher Th/U ratios (from 0.06 to 0.42), indicative of drawdown of U concentrations in seawater. Using a mass balance model, we estimate that this isotopic shift represents a sixfold increase in the flux of U to anoxic facies, implying a corresponding increase in the extent of oceanic anoxia. The intensification of oceanic anoxia coincided with, or slightly preceded, the EH and persisted for an interval of at least 40,000 to 50,000 y following the EH. These findings challenge previous hypotheses of an extended period of whole-ocean anoxia prior to the end-Permian extinction. _PNAS

More information on the study

The suggestion is that the ocean anoxia was secondary to the main extinction event, rather than being the cause. More study will be necessary to validate the isotopic techniques utilised. But this finding cannot but be a disappointment to the politically correct denizens of deep climate scientology science.

But what interests Al Fin know-it-all-o-tologists about this information, is how it may relate to the topic of the production and sequestration of ancient oil. Deep ocean anoxia is not only related to mass extinction events, it is also a component of oil formation in the deep seabed.

Sea bottom anoxia occurs routinely at the mouths of large rivers, where massive sediment routinely buries dead sealife that is constantly deposited on the seafloor. That is why rich oil fields are often found offshore of large river deltas -- either where the deltas are now, or where they were hundreds of millions of years ago.

An ancient oil sleuth must be able to backward-trace the movements of continents and great river valleys, in order to know where to look for such sediment-buried deposits.

Another cause of mass sediment burial of seafloor organic material, is massive volcanic activity. This would be particularly important to an ancient oil sleuth when a group of volcanoes might stay active for millions of years, in the same general vicinity upwind of river deltas or rich upwelling currents.

But in cases of mass extinctions, the large scale deep ocean anoxia occurring at the same time as massive deposition of organic material onto the seafloor, might be a particularly rich time for the initiation of large scale oil production.

When this process occurs over continental crust, the oil can be preserved for a very long time. If it occurs over oceanic crust, the oil may be subducted with the crust into the mantle, where it will likely be converted into short chain hydrocarbons, CO2, CO, and other forms of carbon. The short chain hydrocarbons may return to the crust, and may eventually be recovered economically. Diamond and graphite may also return to depths which allows humans to recover them economically.

Regardless, it is the ancient oil we are interested in. The challenge is to connect the extinction events, the ocean anoxia, and the ancient geographic patterns together, to provide the best guess for the locations of giant oil deposits which might conceivably still exist in an undiscovered, but ultimately recoverable state.

Humans have become accustomed to utilising the easy oil, and are just now getting good at recovering oil from the harsh, deep ocean environments. That is a good thing, because the Earth is 70% ocean-covered.

Still, some the planet which was once covered by oceans is now dry land, and such places -- if they fit the criteria above -- might be some of the first locations to check out.

First published at Al Fin, the Next Level
Postings from Al Fin blog on "Oil from ancient seas"

Extreme Crude: Oil's Impossible Places

Brazil's quest for extreme oil may cost as much as US$ 1 trillion. That is a lot of money to invest in a such a risky proposition -- to retrieve oil that is miles deep underwater. But oil prospectors and producers around the world are on the prowl for extreme crude -- found in places that previous generations would not have dreamed of going.

The hunt for extreme oil proceeds apace in the ultradeep waters off the coasts of Ghana and Nigeria, in the sulfur-laden depths of the Black Sea, under the polar ice caps, and in the gummy tar sands of Venezuela’s Orinoco Basin and Canada’s McMurray Formation (see the related DISCOVER story, "The End of Easy Oil"). The Gulf debacle has shaken national governments, but it has hardly deterred them. Mexico is taking advantage of the fallout from the disaster next door—and the suspension of cross-border prospecting—to buy time for its national oil company, Pemex, which plans to beef up its own deepwater capabilities. A month after Deepwater Horizon exploded, the Australian government reaffirmed its commitment to ocean drilling, putting 31 offshore blocks up for bidding, 17 of them in deep waters. While pundits and regulators issue encomiums to safety, the most noticeable shifts in the “post BP” oil industry are a fat discount on rental rates for offshore platforms no longer needed in the Gulf and the exodus of idled rigs heading to other waters.

...What keeps Petrobras going is the size of the prize. Just the proven reserves in three different Brazilian pre-salt exploration areas total 10 billion to 16 billion barrels, the largest oil discovery in the Western Hemisphere in three decades. And that may be only the beginning. After drilling 13 more test wells, the experts now reckon that the pre-salt reserves sprawl over an oblong slab of more than 57,000 square miles of ocean—Brazilians call it “the blue beefsteak.” And the petroleum there is not the heavy, low-grade stuff that Brazil currently fetches from existing offshore wells, but light, sweet crude, the prize of hydrocarbons, preferred for jet fuel. _Discover

The microbes which created the oil in the Gulf of Mexico were fed ages ago by the land effluent of the Mississippi River basin Not so long ago -- in geologic terms -- Africa and South America were at hailing distance from one another. With a broad continental shelf between them, and with the Amazon feeding from the west and the Congo and other rivers feeding from the east, photosynthetic and other microbes between the continents fed very well indeed.

Those vast fields are relatively recent in origin, as the Earth thinks of time. It will take some good detective work to track down older, more ancient shelfs and feedwaters. But that is what the spirit of extreme crude is all about. That and going ever deeper, and after ever-tougher game.

Geophysicists have known for decades that plenty of oil and gas is hidden away below the oceans, but they were unable to see it clearly with traditional seismic techniques. Because salt is much less dense than rock, the sound waves surveyors use to scour the depths race through it at nearly three miles per second, twice as fast as it traverses the surrounding rock and sand. When sound waves pass from compact rock in the seabed to the pliant salt below, they kick into overdrive, scattering and distorting the seismic waves. The result is a blurry image that geophysicists compare to a snowy television picture, making it almost impossible to define the true size and position of the salt cap.

To sharpen the picture, Petrobras upgraded its toolbox with 3-D imaging. Traditionally, geophysicists take readings by sending sound waves straight down and straight back, creating two-dimensional pictures of slices of the earth that can be “read” like individual pages. But since salt can blur any given seismic image, exploration crews fired their seismic probe from various angles and then put all the images together to produce a three-dimensional view of the salt block. The technology helped them zero in on an intriguing section of seafloor in the little-known Santos Basin, off the coast of southern Brazil. To confirm the findings, Petrobras’s computer engineers have spent years developing software to correct for distortions—both sound wave reflections and seismic noise—that salt introduces in the readings. After multiple 3-D probes, they had a sense that something big was buried under the salt.

BP pioneered the exploration of oil and gas sealed beneath salt domes under the Gulf of Mexico, and potential pre-salt oil reserves of untold dimensions are currently being mapped along the west coast of Africa in the waters of Gabon, Angola, and Ghana. That area is a geologic mirror image of South America’s eastern flank, the two continents having separated when the supercontinent of Gondwana broke apart some 160 million years ago.

But Brazil may be sitting on the largest pre-salt resources of all, meaning that Tupi may represent both the pinnacle and the end point of this type of exploration. Finding and retrieving all this oil (and the associated natural gas) weighs heavily on the balance sheet. The first pre-salt test well took 14 months and cost $240 million, although more recent Petrobras pre-salt offshore wells have cost about $66 million each. Just operating a rig to drill in the pre-salt can cost up to $1 million a day. Industry insiders estimate that retrieval costs for Brazil’s proven pre-salt reserves could run as high as $1 trillion. _Discover

As geologists get better at finding oil and gas that require newer horizontal drilling approaches, engineers will develop yet newer approaches to finding and producing from even tougher deposits. It is a progression that is demanded by modern day economic and political factors which dominate the price of oil -- rather than by any meaningful or impending shortage of liquid fuels.

Can Hydrocarbons Survive in the Hot, Pressured, Mantle?

The mantle is a dense, hot layer of semisolid rock approximately 2,900 kilometers thick. The mantle, which contains more iron, magnesium and calcium than the crust, is hotter and denser because temperature and pressure inside Earth increase with depth. Because of the firestorm-like temperatures and crushing pressure in Earth’s mantle, molecules behave very differently than they do on the surface. _Source

Earth's hydrocarbons are typically formed when organic matter is trapped in sediments on the bottom of Earth's oceans, seas, lakes, swamps, and bogs. Over a period of time, exposed to varying temperatures, pressures, and anaerobic conditions, the organic matter is transformed into hydrocarbons such as natural gas, peat, coal, and oil of various types.

Sediments trapped in oceanic crust (as opposed to continental crust) are subducted into the Earth's mantle after dozens of millions of years -- and exposed to very high pressures and temperatures. Many geologists had presumed that any hydrocarbons that had not migrated out of these subducted sediments, would be destroyed in the oxidising environment of the mantle. But a variety of research over the past several years suggests that not only can hydrocarbons survive the heat and pressure of the upper mantle -- new short-chain hydrocarbons may actually be created within the mantle.

... conventional geochemists argued that hydrocarbons could not possibly reside in Earthʼs mantle. They reasoned that at the mantleʼs depth—which begins between 7 and 70 kilometers below Earthʼs surface and extends down to 2,850 kilometers deep—hydrocarbons would react with other elements and oxidize into carbon dioxide. (Oil and gas wells are drilled between 5 and 10 kilometers deep.) However, more recent research using advanced high-pressure thermodynamics has shown that the pressure and temperature conditions of the mantle would allow hydrocarbon molecules to form and survive at depths of 100 to 300 kilometers. Because of the mantleʼs vast size, its hydrocarbon reserves could be much larger than those in Earthʼs crust. _PDFLivermoreLabPDF

“The notion that hydrocarbons generated in the mantle migrate into the Earth's crust and contribute to oil-and-gas reservoirs was promoted in Russia and Ukraine many years ago. The synthesis and stability of the compounds studied here as well as heavier hydrocarbons over the full range of conditions within the Earth's mantle now need to be explored. In addition, the extent to which this 'reduced' carbon survives migration into the crust needs to be established (as in, without being oxidized to CO2). These and related questions demonstrate the need for a new experimental and theoretical program to study the fate of carbon in the deep Earth,” the expert adds. _Softpedia

Now for the first time, scientists have found that ethane and heavier hydrocarbons can be synthesized under the pressure-temperature conditions of the upper mantle -the layer of Earth under the crust and on top of the core. The research was conducted by scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory, with colleagues from Russia and Sweden, and is published in the July 26, advanced on-line issue of Nature Geoscience. _Geology.com

So far there is no strong evidence that large quantities of economically important hydrocarbons are being generated within the mantle, with subsequent migration up into the crust -- where humans can access them. But it seems quite likely that new gaseous hydrocarbons do migrate from the mantle into the crust -- in some quantities -- and contribute to gas deposits of various types, including methane clathrates.

What is more interesting to me than the abiotic generation of hydrocarbons is the fate of billion year old hydrocarbons of biological origin which find their way into the upper mantle through geologic upheaval. No doubt some of this hydrocarbon will survive as medium chain alkanes, although I suspect most will end up as methane or ethane. Some will get caught up in volcanic activity and be converted to CO2 -- or get ejected into the atmosphere or ocean as CH4. But what is the proportion of each product? How much will end up in a typical oil & gas "trap" in the crust where they can be economically extracted?

We will learn more about that over time. But between the abiotic gases and the truly ancient hydrocarbons that have survived the eons, it is likely that there is far more hydrocarbon in the deep Earth than geologists typically allow themselves to dream.

More: A rare, optimistic view of energy from the NYTimes

The Age of Oil: Just Beginning? Soon to End? Or Both?

Petroleum is thought to have originated mainly from the remains of sediments of photosynthetic organisms which sedimented from ancient seas, and were heated and compressed by geological processes. Assuming that to be true, it is interesting to note that photosynthetic organisms originated almost 3.5 billion years ago. From the chart above, one can note that the Oxygen concentration of Earth's atmosphere rose markedly at about the same time as the origin of cyanobacteria (2.8 gya), eukaryotes (2 gya), and algae (1 gya), respectively.

The higher the oxygen level the higher the rate of sedimentation of photosynthetic organisms, presumably. Note that such sedimentation began to occur nearly 3 gya. Also note that the vast majority of petroleum which humans have begun to tap into, originated roughly 100 mya or more recently. I think you will agree with me that the Proterozoic Era (2.5 gya to about 540 gya) is likely to have been extremely prolific in the sense of laying down organic carbon in sediments.

Now, observe the Tethys Sea in the image (see Tethys Ocean). The Tethys Sea (Ocean) opened about 250 mya and closed about 10 mya. Most of the modern world's known oil and gas reserves lie in the sediments which once underlay the Tethys water masses. Much of this oil and gas is of fairly recent origin, geologically speaking, although some dates back to the early Triassic (250 to 200 mya). It only takes a hundred thousand years or so to make petroleum by natural means, depending upon local geology.

Now, I know you are saying to your computers, "But Al, if we are only beginning to tap a very small fraction of all the oil that has been deposited, where is all the rest of the oil?"

To which I reply, "Where do you think it is? Floating beyond the orbit of Pluto?" No, seriously, a lot of things can happen to oil deposits over time. Some can seep into oceans and be eaten by microbes. Some can be turned into various types of gas, and escape or be adsorbed by minerals. But most of it is likely to have been buried in the constant geologic upheaval of the planet's layers of rock.

The Japanese and Chinese have recently begun finding significant deposits of oil and gas within volcanic rock. Oil geologists are beginning to look beneath undersea volcanic deposits for submerged oil fields of great potential. The Russians have been finding significant petroleum beneath deep igneous and metamorphic layers for many years. The history of oil formation goes back over ten times farther than almost all of the oil humans have retrieved or located so far -- although drops of bitumen has been found in rocks dated between 2.6 and 3.2 gya.

Australian expert in petroleum geology, Associate Professor Colin Ward of the University of New South Wales, says it's not surprising that algae and other simple life forms existed during this early stage of the Earth's history.

What is significant, is that there are now signs they were producing oil.

"He's found good evidence that the processes that generate oil were active in a very early history," he says.

Rasmussen's discovery may have implications for exploration, Ward says.

"It focuses attention back on very old rocks as a possible places to look for more oil and gases," he says. _Source

So why do I say that the age of oil may be ending soon? Because while it takes 100,000 years (plus or minus) to make petroleum by natural processes, it only takes a matter of weeks -- from start of algae crop to harvesting and processing -- using modern methods. Yes, modern oil made this way is very expensive, but that is because we have just begun learning to create it. Within 20 years, Al Fin energy experts assure me that microbial fuels and energy will be fully price-competitive with petroleum, and rapidly scaling to match production within 30 years.

You may hear a lot of talk about "peak oil" in certain circles. The most likely kinds of peak oil you will see are "political peak oil" from bad energy policy or political conflict, and "peak demand" -- when consumers choose other forms of energy and fuel than petroleum. Peak demand can also occur from economic, or other forms of collapse, which we hope does not occur.

The beginning of oil, the end of oil. Mayhaps both.

Previously published at Al Fin

Vast Deposits of Oil From Ancient Microscopic Organisms Still Untapped

NYTScientists have known for quite a while that most of Earth's oil came from vast numbers of oceanic microscopic organisms -- rather than from dead dinosaurs. From diatoms to micro-algae to cyanobacteria and more, these microscopic life forms thrived on warmer seas and higher levels of atmospheric CO2 than are presently available to sea life. Many of these sea creatures are capable of converting gaseous or dissolved CO2 directly into oils and hydrocarbons of various types, and would cheerfully welcome much higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and in the oceans, if only they could get it.

Geologists scour the planet for the sedimentary basins of ancient seas, in order to find the vast deposits of oil, gas, and other hydrocarbons still waiting to be discovered. Humans may have used perhaps one tenth of exploitable oil deposits, but Al Fin engineers reckon we have used only about one one hundredth. Not that oil is an ideal energy source. Far from it. But we should know that we are quite far from running out -- even while we are discovering how to grow these tiny organisms for ourselves, to produce a wide range of materials, feeds, and fuels at the time and place of our own choosing.

Some of the ancestral waters that made the planet’s oil still exist, like the Gulf of Mexico, while others have long vanished, like the ocean that produced the massive oil fields of the Middle East. The bodies come and go because the earth’s crust, through seemingly rigid, actually moves a great deal over geologic time, tearing apart continents and ocean basins and rearranging them like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle.

The secret of the oil story turned out to be understanding how the bygone oceans, ancient seas and smaller bodies of water produced complex environmental conditions that raised the prevalence of microscopic life and ensured its deep burial, producing what eventually became the earth’s main oil reservoirs.

The clues accumulated over more than a century and included discoveries from geology, chemistry and paleontology. An early indication was that petroleum discoveries were always associated with ancient beds of sedimentary rock — the kind that forms when debris rains down through water for ages and slowly grows into thick seabed layers.

...The process typically starts in warm seas ideal for the incubation of microscopic life. The sheer mass is hard to imagine. But scientists note that every drop of seawater contains more than a million tiny organisms.

Oil production begins when surface waters become so rich in microscopic life that the rain of debris outpaces decay on the seabed. The result is thickening accumulations of biologic sludge.

...“The organics got buried quickly because of the heavy sediment flow,” Dr. Tinker said. “So they didn’t get biodegraded as quickly. You preserved the organic richness.”

He said the flow was so heavy that the growing accumulations keep pressing the lower sediment layers deeper into the earth, forcing them into hot zones where the organic material got transformed into oil. The process involves a long series of chemical reactions that slowly turn life molecules into inanimate crude.

“The gulf has miles and miles of sediments,” he said. “So that gets the source rocks down into the kitchen where they cook.”

The standard temperature for oil formation is between 120 and 210 degrees Fahrenheit.

...Many countries and oil companies are now racing to exploit the geological happenstance of deep coastal waters. Hot spots include offshore areas of Angola, Azerbaijan, Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Libya and Tanzania, while countries like Canada and Norway, which have long pursued offshore drilling, are pushing ahead with new plans. Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm, estimates that global deepwater extraction could roughly double by 2015, the output rivaling what Saudi Arabia produces on land. _NYT

The new offshore oil fields coming on line will rival Saudi Arabian production -- even if the Saudis decide to ramp up their production even higher than at present.

But many more giant fields await discovery until geologists develop better tools to find ancient ocean basins lying beneath subsequent overlaying deposits of seismic and volcanic turmoil. For most of the planet, geologists simply do not have a clue what lies beneath. They will need far better tools than the primitive seismic, electromagnetic, and other tools which currently limit their vision. But those tools are coming. And those vast unknown deposits will be found, if they are ever needed.

Vast Deposits of Oil In the Deep Dark Bottoms

Most of the Earth's crude oil remains undiscovered, deep underground or under the sea. Large oil corporations are tackling deeper and deeper drilling projects -- many of them in the savage environment of the open sea.

From the window of a helicopter 1,500 feet above the Gulf of Mexico, oil platforms look like Tinkertoys in a swimming pool. Dozens dot the horizon stretching south from New Orleans and continuing out as the water deepens and turns a darker blue. Then, about 50 miles offshore, the platforms stop, and for the next hundred miles there's nothing. This is the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, where the ocean floor is 8,000 feet down and covered in a heavy layer of muck. Below that is an ancient salt bed several miles thick, and hidden under that, trapped tens of thousands of feet down, there's oil—billions and billions of barrels of it. And it's all in U.S. waters. _Newsweek

Chevron's Tahiti platform, about 190 miles offshore, first appears as a speck in open water. Even up close, its size is deceiving. A three-level structure sits above the surface, but its 555-foot hull is entirely submerged. At 714 feet tall and weighing more than 80 million pounds, Tahiti is the equivalent of a 70-story skyscraper floating in 4,000 feet of water. The first thing you notice when stepping onto its platform is a high-pitched hum: the sound of thousands of barrels of oil being pulled from the depths and pumped back to shore.

To Chevron, it's among the most beautiful sounds in the world, proof that a decade of investment in deepwater-drilling technology is beginning to pay off for big oil companies like itself, as well as BP, ExxonMobil, and Shell. After a string of hurricanes led to seven straight years of declining oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, a handful of new deepwater projects reversed the trend in 2009. This year deepwater oil is likely to power the first year-over-year increase in total U.S. domestic production since 1991. _Newsweek

The upsurge in US oil production comes in spite of a tight lid the Obama - Pelosi regime wishes to hold over US energy output. The Obama administration is attempting to prevent the utilisation of vast US resources of coal, oil shales, heavy oils, and large reserves of Arctic oil. The "go-slow" policy of the Obama Nuclear Regulatory Commission puts off construction of new nuclear plants for many years and decades. The Obama EPA is attempting to cripple US use of Canadian oil sands. Altogether, a policy of "energy starvation" and a kneecapping of US industry.

US crude oil is just a drop in the bucket compared with all the crude oil in the world. And all the crude in the world is just a drop in the bucket compared with all the unconventional fossil fuels out there. And all the fossil fuels in the world are just a drop in the bucket compared to all the potential fission energy available. And all the fission energy in the world is just a needle in a haystack compared to all the fusion energy in the world.

And then there is solar and geothermal. All of that, without even leaving the mother planet. Just think of what is out there in the vast darkness of space.

Big oil bets at sea

Chevron Tahiti to record depths

More on Chevron Tahiti

More on the big picture of Gulf of Mexico oil drilling