Oil is getting harder and more expensive to extract. That is a fact. If we don't work harder to get it, we will run out sooner. That's the same fact.

In the early days, the consumers were near the producers. Now that the low hanging fruit has been picked and the new sources are in remote locations (relative to civilized world). Transportation (logistics and $$$) to the consumer becomes a BIG factor.

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MB-less

In the early days, the oil was relatively close to the surface and in actual pools of liquid. Now it is mostly not that way. Getting it to the surface and into a usable form costs more than shipping it halfway around the world.

The oil "pools" were short lived, soon they had to drill for it. There are seepages to the surface, along faults and outcrops, but in insignificant quantities.

We have drilled over a million wells in the U.S. since the very beginning. In Saudi Arabia, they have drilled less than 1000.

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MB-less

I didn't know that the numbers of holes were so different, but I do know that we can't make money pumping oil out of the ground at $20/bbl, but they can.

It seems like unlikely that the earth could create such a complex compound way down deep. The hydro-carbon nature of oil is similar to the hydro-carbon nature of plant material. Not sure how much hydrogen is available way down underground.

I do recall that they long lost Botnst didn't find the 'earth produced' theories to be too plausible. FWIW.

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If the earth can produce complex compounds above ground, why not down deep?

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82 Mercedes 300CD 252k......slow ride

82 mercedes 300 SD...mi Unknown
83 Mercedes 300D ????ksniff..gone too
84 Mercedes 300D 148k........SOLD
85 Mercedes 300TD 386k and holding some one elses project

Their lifting cost is low. Very low. They have a few, big wells. Lucky guys.

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MB-less

Back to the original post, hydrocarbons are produced from decaying plant and animal matter, but you need pressure, temperature, and time. It has been duplicated in the laboratory so anybody saying plant/animals are not the source are nuts.

You need the source rock to generate the hydrocarbons, mostly shales, the hydrocarbons migrate into reservoirs such as sandstone and limestone and others, and must be held in place by a structural or stratigraphic trap, otherwise it dissipates into unobtainable quantities.

The fact that old wells start producing is not new. But don't be fooled, these wells are barely seeping. When you produce a well you create a pressure sink around the wellbore. Over time the reservoir equalizes and more oil/gas flows to the low pressure around the wellbore. This is most pronounced in water drive reservoirs where the hydrocarbons have been extracted faster than the aquifer moves and finally it catches up, sweeping more towards the wellbore.

It could be possible hydrocarbons are produced deep, but nobody can come up with even a theory of the process. So it is someones concept at the moment.

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MB-less

I didn't know crude oil could be produced in a lab. Do you have any more information? Links?

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That article didn't say crude oil was produced. Merely that "components of heavy oils" were produced, whatever that means.

- Peter.

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"crude" oil is distillated into all the various oils, gasoline, tar and so fourth so I would assume that heavy components are simply the longer hydrocarbon chains commonly found in "crude"

Unless something changed radically over the last millions of years, then oil should still be in the formative process somewhere. There is still lots of organic matter around. But according to standard wisdom, all the available oil was created long, long ago and then the process stopped for some unknown reason.

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1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
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2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible
1999 Toyota Tacoma

"Deep oil" is crack pot science dismissed log ago. "Texas oil wells refilling!" yeah right, I got a dry one right here I can sell ya, just wait, it'll fill back up, I promise.....

There is evidence some natural gas might be perculated up in this manner, but we have oil shale to show us all the intermediate processes, and it's all packed in compressed sea mud. Coal and oil, one from land, one from ocean deposits, lots of corelations, and the coal is full of fossils and plant imprints. We also pull out all kinds of micro-fossils in the drilling cores, they all correlate to the same periods, world wide. The 'Sweden" thing alluded to was a well know bust-out.

You might try telling that to the LSU geology folks, and the oil company that just brought in a huge deep well in the Gulf....