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| Home Front Economy |
| Chevron Drills Down 30,000 Feet to Tap Oil-Rich Gulf of Mexico |
| 2007-08-30 |
| ...a recent discovery by Chevron has signaled that soon there may be vastly more oil gushing out of the ultradeep seabeds — more than even the optimists were predicting four years ago. In 2004, the company penetrated a 60 million-year-old geological stratum known as the "lower tertiary trend" containing a monster oil patch that holds between 3 billion and 15 billion barrels of crude. Dubbed Jack, the field lies beneath waters nearly twice as deep as those covering Tahiti, and many in the industry dismissed the discovery as too remote to exploit. But last September, Chevron used the Cajun Express to probe the Jack field, proving that petroleum could flow from the lower tertiary at hearty commercial rates — fast enough to bring billions of dollars of crude to market. It was hailed as the largest publicly reported discovery in the past decade, opening up a region that is perhaps big enough to boost national oil reserves by 50 percent. A mad rush followed, and oil companies plowed more than $5 billion into this part of the Gulf The real war on terror |
| Posted by:gromgoru |
| #4 waters nearly twice as deep as those covering Tahiti Onoes! I never got to visit. :< |
| Posted by: Thomas Woof 2007-08-30 14:09 |
| #3 I'll believe this is a significant discovery when I pump some of its production into my tank. It's only 30,000 feet below the ocean's surface. Meanwhile on the refining front, a ridiculous controversy over a proposed expansion of an existing BP refinery on the shores of Lake Michigan. The proposal would increase US gas refining capacity by about 0.44% of its total consumption, a very small step in the right direction. The usual suspects have piled on to object to a project already approved by the Indiana EPA. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-08-30 11:11 |
| #2 Makes no difference if your processing [cracking plants] capacity remains the same, as it has for thirty years. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-08-30 10:29 |
| #1 While this was a significant discovery, don't get too carried away by it. It in no way 'proves' 15 billion barrels of future production - it just increases the level of confidence that there might be some commercial production from a new trend, a trend which might contain a number of future fields which might total 3 billion or 15 billion barrels of future production. Lots of 'mights' which will take a lot of time and money to to convert to 'ares' - gas in your SUV. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2007-08-30 10:23 |