BP oil leaked so far wouldn't fill Superdome

[ChumpDumper]

It helps your trade 'balance sheet'. I know that the price of oil is set on an open market...funny that the globe uses capitalism but individual countries reject it...neither here nor there in this discussion. American oil means less money we have to spend buying oil overseas. It's a product, like entertainment in the form of movies and music ( pop culture is Americas biggest export in case you didn't know that . This is why there is so much yelping going on with intellectual property in countries that steal it. CHINA being the greatest offender ) or cars or anything else. Either you make it or you buy it from someone else.

You act as if the US currently uses all the oil it produces.

[DarrinS]

People don't realize this either. Foreigners can own in America. We are one of the few countries that doesn't have a lot of limits on that. Foreingers can't hold majority stake in a news orgaization for example. That's why a Saudi owns 49% of Reuters. He can't own the majority. But you can influence with 49%. There is no limit to real estate they can own. An American, for example, can't own property on the Mexican coast. Yet, Mexican citizens can buy homes or business's on the US coast. Or anywhere else. We are the least protectionist nation in the world. The problem with China for example, is you can go over there as a corporation and invest and make money but you can't get your money out. In the US, you can make money in the US if you're a foreigner, and then invest or send your money anywhere you want. You make US dollars in the US, it's yours to do with as you please. That is not true everywhere else.

Never would've guessed that.

[ChumpDumper]

People don't realize this either. Foreigners can own in America. We are one of the few countries that doesn't have a lot of limits on that. Foreingers can't hold majority stake in a news orgaization for example. That's why a Saudi owns 49% of Reuters. He can't own the majority. But you can influence with 49%

Reuters is based in the UK.

A Canadian company controls 53% of it.

[ChumpDumper]

I believe a Saudi owns 7% of Fox News though.

[Sec24Row7]

This spill will be nothing in the long run. Much much worse things were done in the early days of the oil industry... millions of barrels of oil were stored in unlined pits for collection...

When they were drilling the yates field they were skimming 2000 barrels a day off of the Pecos river...

You mentioned the 11 million barrel spill...

You have to look really really hard to find evidence of those.

Fact is... bacteria works on oil pretty darn quickly in hot environments...

That is why Valdez was so bad... and why this isn't going to be if they get this thing over with in August.

Still sucks... a lot... but the sky isn't really falling.

[ChumpDumper]

That's why a Saudi owns 49% of Reuters.

Seriously, where did you get this?

[Nbadan]

surfs Up~

[Winehole23]

This spill will be nothing in the long run. Much much worse things were done in the early days of the oil industry... millions of barrels of oil were stored in unlined pits for collection...

If old newspaper archives are online by now try "lagoon fire" as your search terms. That happened too.

When they were drilling the yates field they were skimming 2000 barrels a day off of the Pecos river...

I believe it, but the damage, non-earth changing though it was, was probably untold. Did we have influential enviros back then? Were Texans of a scientific bent measuring the impact?

Fact is... bacteria works on oil pretty darn quickly in hot environments...

Uncontroversial. Warm climate *results* get eaten faster.

So effing what?

Does that help you sleep better at night or something?

That is why Valdez was so bad... and why this isn't going to be if they get this thing over with in August.

Appeals to reason, but I fail to see the substrate for your hopes that BP will resolve the matter promptly.

Still sucks... a lot... but the sky isn't really falling.

Who said it was?

[Winehole23]

You mentioned the 11 million barrel spill...

You have to look really really hard to find evidence of those.

Has anyone looked?

[Winehole23]

Seriously, where did you get this?

If it's not PFA maybe word just overheard it at a party or something.

[rjv]

While I agree with the overall point that yeah, it's a big ocean, it's still a lot of oil. Oddly, it's a curse and a blessing. ANWR was thought to hold 3 billion barrels and they just found 2/3rds of an ANWR ?

I want to get it plugged so we can start celebrating. That's a of a find and there's more where that came from. The GoM has a load of oil. Deep water drilling, if done right, is safe. The Brazillians are drilling in deeper water than that and producing oil. This was a human error and apparently, an error in method used specifically by BP to contain costs. Fix that, and move on. Our trade imbalance is waaay to high to just sit on this.

the british government is subsidising that drilling off of the coast of brazil. the UK trade ministers underwrote loans taken out by the Brazilian state-run company petrobras in 2005 in order that rolls royce and other companies could contribute to the building of the giant P-52 platform.

that platform is now operating 125km off the coast in 1,798 metres of water. the 14-page environment report prepared by the UK's credit guarantee department made no mention of blowouts or the equipment needed to prevent them. and the ministers edited out all ECDG's comments assessing the risks involved in deep-sea drilling in the atlantic.

the oil and gas reservoirs of the campos basin are considered some of the most hazardous in the world to access, pushing offshore technology to the limit. the P-52 rig replaced one that exploded and sank due to human error in 2001, killing 11 people.

[Wild Cobra]

This spill will be nothing in the long run. Much much worse things were done in the early days of the oil industry... millions of barrels of oil were stored in unlined pits for collection...

I don't know. There is a slim chance it could get very bad. If something I heard through the grapevine is true, this could be the largest reserve ever tapped, and unstoppable as well.

[RandomGuy]

I don't know. There is a slim chance it could get very bad. If something I heard through the grapevine is true, this could be the largest reserve ever tapped, and unstoppable as well.

The Saudi reserves are larger, to my understanding. I would have to re-find the articles where it talked about that, but that is what I remember reading.

[Wild Cobra]

The Saudi reserves are larger, to my understanding. I would have to re-find the articles where it talked about that, but that is what I remember reading.

No way to know for certain, is there.

[Winehole23]

the british government is subsidising that drilling off of the coast of brazil. the UK trade ministers underwrote loans taken out by the Brazilian state-run company petrobras in 2005 in order that rolls royce and other companies could contribute to the building of the giant P-52 platform.

According to BBC overnight, the US is in talks with Petrobras to loan them money. For what I have no idea.

Possibly related?

[Winehole23]

Link:

[Winehole23]

http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/3633...as+Subsea+Deal

[Winehole23]

http://newsystocks.com/news/3574678

[Winehole23]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...120524166.html

[RandomGuy]

No way to know for certain, is there.

Yes, actually the data is fairly easy to find. I can find it again if you want.

Most major discoveries tend to have formal geology papers written, because they form the basis of "proven" reserve calculations that are very important to the accounting for oil companies and countries.

...or you could actually spend the time to support your statement.

[RandomGuy]

It took me less than a minute to find.

Here is a list of oil fields with more than 1bn barrels of proven reserves:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_fields
The Ghewar field contained/-s a total of about 80bn barrels of proven reserves.

The Macondo prospect, the field that the Deepwater Horizon was tapping:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macondo_Prospect 50M barrels.

Now if what you "heard through the grapevine" was that it was the "largest reserve in history" that means that the professional geologists that measure these things were off in their estimation by two orders of maginitude.

No way to know for certain, is there.

I guess there is.

Why did you not look?

[Wild Cobra]

Yes, actually the data is fairly easy to find. I can find it again if you want.

Most major discoveries tend to have formal geology papers written, because they form the basis of "proven" reserve calculations that are very important to the accounting for oil companies and countries.

...or you could actually spend the time to support your statement.

I'm aware of that. I'm not sure what to believe, but know this. BP hasn't disclosed all the facts they know about the reserve. You know what proprietary information is, right?

[Wild Cobra]

I guess there is.

Why did you not look?

Because proven and actual or estimated are different.

[RandomGuy]

I'm aware of that. I'm not sure what to believe, but know this. BP hasn't disclosed all the facts they know about the reserve. You know what proprietary information is, right?

This is a publicly traded company.

Reserve data is highly important to an oil companies' net worth.

Since the US subsidiary is traded on a public exchange, the reserve data is likely not quite as secret as all that, since management must discuss, per SEC regulations (HA!), things that materially affect the bottom line.

It may be proprietary, but if the reserve were larger by a factor of 100, and larger than the Saudi field, that would have been disclosed by now for those reasons. It would instantly have made BP, as the discoverer/owner of the field vastly rich, by inflating its assets.

Kind of hard for that to sneak under the radar in mysterious conspiracy land, unknown to the rest of the world, IMO. No offense.

[RandomGuy]

Because proven and actual or estimated are different.

They are indeed.

Proven = what is 90% likely to be actually drilled/used

actual/estimated = no body really knows

In that sense, you are correct.

It is also true that we can get some fair idea as to what is there. We might not ever get the exact numbers, but we can get close enough to make good decisions and draw reasonable conclusions.