Tampa Prep 2009-2010 Impact Defense File
Ext #1 – Oil Companies Lie
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- Ext 2 – Oil is Still There
Ext #1 – Oil Companies LiePeak theory is false – oil producers estimates are off to drive up prices Steve Connor June 11, 2008 Canberra Times (Australia) HEADLINE: Oil shortage myth: insider tells of dodgy calculations There is more than twice as much oil in the ground as major producers say, according to a former industry adviser who claims there is widespread misunderstanding of the way proven reserves are calculated. It is widely assumed that oil production has peaked and proven reserves have sunk to roughly half of original amounts. But former oil industry man Richard Pike, who is now chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, said this idea was based on flawed thinking. Current estimates suggest there are 1200 billion barrels of proven global reserves, but the industry's internal figures suggest this is less than half of what actually exists. The misconception has helped boost oil prices to an all-time high, sending jitters through the market and prompting calls for oil- producing nations to increase supply to push down costs. Dr Pike said there was anecdotal evidence that big oil producers were glad to go along with under- reporting of proven reserves to help maintain oil's high price. Part of the oil industry is perfectly familiar with the way oil reserves are underestimated, but the decision-makers in both the companies and the countries are not exposed to the reasons why proven oil reserves are bigger than they are said to be," he said. Dr Pike's assessment does not include unexplored oilfields, those yet to be discovered or those deemed too uneconomic to exploit. The implications of his analysis, based on more than 30 years in the industry,will alarm environmentalists who have exploited the concept of peak oil to press the urgency of the need to find greener alternatives. "We should not be surprised if oil dominates well into the 22nd century. Ext #2 – Oil is Still ThereTons of oil exist- disproves the theory Dr.Leonardo Magueri (Senior Vice President Eni Spa) 2003 July/Aug, Foreign Affairs Dire predictions of scarcity go hand in hand with fears about oil security. The truth is that oil supplies are neither running out nor becoming insecure. Today, the average world recovery rate from existing oil reserves is 35 percent, as compared to about 22 percent in 1980. Given current oil consumption levels, every additional percentage of recovery means two more years of existing reserves. This evolution also partly explains why the life index of existing reserves is still growing even though the world is replacing only 25 percent of what it consumes every year with new discoveries and major new oil discoveries have decreased since the 1960s. Today's ratio of proven oil reserves to current production indicates a remaining life of 43 years for existing reserves, compared to 35 years in 1972 and 20 years in 1948. Advances in technology explain the apparent contradiction between fewer discoveries and more oil. Whereas an oil field does not change, knowledge about it does, sometimes dramatically.
Sarah Barmak, staff-Toronto Star June 21, 2008 S The Toronto Star HEADLINE: Oil, oil everywhere? Well, just maybe; An English industry insider says we've grossly underestimated our reserves. Could he be right? Ask him about oil, and Dr. Richard Pike has a rather sunny outlook. Oil and gas, he says confidently, will be around well into the next century. Pike can maintain his optimism because he knows something no one else knows. He believes that a simple mathematical error - the sort made by first-year university statistics students - is causing much of our panic over a worldwide oil shortage. It's an error that oil companies, riding high on skyrocketing crude prices, may want you to believe. "This might be hard for some of your readers to take," he warns. With oil at $132 a barrel yesterday, tensions over gas prices are at a boiling point. But listen, he says: at 1.2 trillion barrels, we have grossly underestimated the world's proven oil reserves. If he's right, we likely have double the amount of recoverable oil that we think we have in the ground, or perhaps even more. The argument is attracting attention at a time when many governments are looking for new sources of oil; U.S. President George W. Bush reversed his long-held position against offshore drilling this week. Skeptics say Pike is just recycling an old argument: that companies underreport reserves on purpose to keep prices up. He claims the problem is more systemic than a few corporations playing with the stats, however. Pike is an oil industry insider, an engineer by training. An employee of British Petroleum for 25 years, he is now the chief executive of England's Royal Society of Chemistry. He explains the world's most epic math mistake patiently, like a vaguely bemused schoolteacher going over a problem with a dull student. He first realized there was a problem two years ago, when he saw alarming discrepancies between figures the oil industry uses to estimate the world's crude and those used by everyone else. Calculating the amount of oil in a field is notoriously difficult, so companies issue a probability figure, called their proven reserves, to shareholders and outside bodies. It represents the amount of oil that has a 90 per cent chance of being met or exceeded by the field's actualproduction (giving it its name, P90). Apparently, no one bothered to let us know that oil companies have long been generating an entirely different number for their own internal use. Not content with the hard certainty of P90, which in practice is almost always exceeded by a field's output, oil companies use more sophisticated measurements to yield numbers often two or even three times as high, helping them decide things like how many wells they drill. Very often, those higher estimates are more accurate. Too bad they don't make it into the public domain. Instead, in order to get a picture of how much oil we have left, international organizations often simply add up the conservative, proven reserve estimates for every field in the world. That's when the real headaches begin. "Because it's a probability-based set of numbers, you can't add them like that," says Pike. "That's completely wrong." Think of estimating oil fields like rolling a pair of dice, Pike says. If youthrow just one die, the probability that you will roll higher than a one is five out of six. But if you throw two dice, the probability that you will roll higher than two - snake eyes - is not five out of six, it's 35 out of 36, since there are 36 different possible outcomes of a single throw of two dice. With two dice, you have a five-of-six chance of rolling not a two, but a four. "It's an interesting case where ... one plus one equals four," says Pike.Sooil is at $132 a barrel all because of ... a math screw-up? That, says Pike, and the fact that oil companies are likely turning a blind eye. "There are some very interesting mind games going on," he muses. Oil companies, particularly those in the Middle East, are happy to let our shoddymath stand if it helps push crude prices ever higher. Directory: files -> documents documents -> North Mankato Taylor Library documents -> In the Red and Brown Water documents -> - documents -> I. Disaster Summary Sheet II. Tropical Cyclones documents -> Cbp and Trade Automated Interface Requirements Appendix: pga december 22, 2015 documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Mobile audio/video recording systems documents -> Cartographic Concepts for Realizing a Location Based umts service documents -> 1/ Background Statistics Human development index rank Download 2.71 Mb. Share with your friends:
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