An Analysis of Western Hemisphere's Oil Finds

choi

Daniel Yergin, Oil's New World Order. Washington Post, Oct 30, 2011 (op-ed).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/op ... _story.html?hpid=z2

Quote:

Venezuela "had been a reliable petroleum exporter since World War II. But since Hugo Chavez took power in Venezuela, its petroleum output has fallen — about 25 percent since 2000.

"The salt [eg, in Brazil offshore] had rendered unreadable the seismic signals necessary to determine whether oil was there.

"The Western Hemisphere will still require supplies from the rest of the world, but not to the same degree — and certainly nowhere near the growing amounts forecast just a few years ago. The need could fall by as much as half by 2020, which will mean declining imports from the Middle East and West Africa.

"China, which today consumes half as much oil as the United States, could by the beginning of the next decade overtake America as the world’s largest oil consumer. All of this points to a major geopolitical shift, with Asian economies having an increasing stake in the stability of Mideast oil supplies.

My comment:
(a) About two months ago, I introduced a book review on Mr Yergin's new book.
(b) The article talks about "the extraction of oil from dense rock. The rock is so hard that, without those technologies, the oil would not flow. That is why it is called 'tight oil.'"

(i) tight oil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tight_oil
(is a light crude oil contained in petroleum-bearing formations of relatively low porosity and permeability (shales); Tight oil formations include the Bakken Shale)

, which should not be confused with
(ii) shale oil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shale_oil
(subtitle: For crude oil stored in shale reservoirs, see Tight oil)

Quote:

"Shale oil or kerogen oil is an unconventional oil produced from oil shale by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. These processes convert the organic matter within the rock (kerogen) into synthetic oil and gas.

"China (Manchuria) [during Japanese occupation, learning from Germans] produced shale oil in the early 20th century. The discovery of crude oil in the Middle East during mid-century brought most of these industries to a halt, although Estonia and Manchuria maintained their extraction industries into the early 21st century.

(c) Bakken (rock) formation is a big rock mass "underlying parts of Saskatchewan, [left lower corner of] Manitoba, Montana and North Dakota. was discovered in 1953 by a geologist named J.W. Nordquist and named after Henry Bakken, owner of the Montana farm where Nordquist first drilled."
Jerry Langton, Bakken Formation: Will it fuel Canada's oil industry?  There may be as many as 503 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken Formation that runs under Saskatchewan, Manitoba, North Dakota and Montana. CBC News, May 23, 2008.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ ... langton-bakken.html

(i) CBC stands for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Broadcasting_Corporation
(established in 1936; Headquartered Ottawa; Ownership  Crown corporation [state-owned, in other words])
(ii) Norwegian surnames Bakke and Bakken (a variant of the former) are very common in that nation. Bakke is from Old Norse bakki ‘hillside’, ‘bank.'