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Old 09-13-2009, 10:10 PM
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Emmerich Emmerich is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Dallas
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This idea has been floating around for years along with conspiracy theories about how it has been kept secret by the major oil companies etc, etc.

I can guarantee one thing about the Russians - they lie. We have to trust them when they report their reserves. In the United States, we invented the oil industry, in Pennsylvania and West Virginia back in the day. Do you know how difficult it is to get accurate data from the Appalachian states on their historical production figures? Unbelievably difficult. So trusting the Russians (or any third world country) is unwise. In the parts of the world unfriendly to us, we try to ESTIMATE how much they produce but tracking tankers by satellite. They have no record keeping, filing requirements, SEC regulations, reserve guidelines....

The deep oil stories fall apart once you start to analyze the logistics of drilling 25,000 foot wells. ALmost all deep wells that produce are gas wells. Oil will not flow from that depth unless the reservoir pressure is HUGE. And if it does, friction losses in the tubulars will eat you up. And you can't use artificial lift either. Rod pumps are good to about 12,000 feet, submersibles to about 14,000. 25,000 - forget about it!

And when all else fails, ask how much the well would cost. And there are only a handful of rigs in the world that can drill that deep. When you get into high pressure and temperature, things go bad fast. My company drilled a 33,000 test in Oklahoma in 1974. Took a year. Cost $7 million. Liquid sulphur flowed in the wellbore and solidified on the way up, end of story.

And you have to figure out WHERE to drill. I am not sure if seismic can image that deep or not.
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