This month started with big news from oil company BP, which said it found an oil field deep below the Gulf of Mexico that may hold three billion barrels of oil. That’s a lot of oil–pull all of it out of the ground and it meets nearly three years of global oil needs.
Realistically, though, much less than that is likely recoverable, perhaps as little as 10% or as much as 50%. We won’t know until BP tries.
The find is significant given the fact that for many years the Gulf was considered barren of truly large oil fields, and the reality is that it’s increasingly rare to find an oil “giant.”
A giant oil field is one with at least 500 million recoverable barrels of oil. In the grand scheme of world oil, giants are important–they supply roughly 60% of all oil.
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The problem is there are about 500 giants in the world and the vast majority of them were discovered over 50 years ago.
As a recently published study by researchers at Finland’s Uppsala University found, most of these giants are beyond their peak production capabilities, and facing declining production rates on average of over 6% a year.
The long and short of it is that by 2030 the Finnish researchers believe total oil production from existing fields will fall 50%. That’s similar to conclusions the Paris-based International Energy Agency reached last November.
Even if demand doesn’t change from 2008 levels the world will need to find another four Saudi Arabias to meet demand by 2030, the IEA says.
Of course demand will likely rise over the next 20 years–even the modest 1.6% annual rise the IEA projects means oil demand will be 45% greater than today.
So while BP’s Gulf of Mexico field is an impressive find, it won’t do much to alleviate our fossil fuel troubles.