The Can of (Peak) Oily Worms

Well, the more you look into the whole Peak Oil thing, the weirder it gets.
Two more articles on the "plenty of oil" side of things:

Sustainable oil?

Posted: May 25, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Chris Bennett
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

About 80 miles off of the coast of Louisiana lies a mostly submerged mountain, the top of which is known as Eugene Island. The portion underwater is an eerie-looking, sloping tower jutting up from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico, with deep fissures and perpendicular faults which spontaneously spew natural gas. A significant reservoir of crude oil was discovered nearby in the late '60s, and by 1970, a platform named Eugene 330 was busily producing about 15,000 barrels a day of high-quality crude oil.

By the late '80s, the platform's production had slipped to less than 4,000 barrels per day, and was considered pumped out. Done. Suddenly, in 1990, production soared back to 15,000 barrels a day, and the reserves which had been estimated at 60 million barrels in the '70s, were recalculated at 400 million barrels. Interestingly, the measured geological age of the new oil was quantifiably different than the oil pumped in the '70s.

(continued . . . . )

Then there's Joe Vialls' take on it:

[. . . . .]

Campbell is just the tip of a giant iceberg of academic Peak Oil 'experts' who suddenly appeared en-masse to give you this frightening news, right after President Saddam Hussein suddenly started trading his oil in Euros rather than in US Dollars, a devastating switch with the easy capacity to destroy the US Dollar in less than five years if it was left unchallenged and unchecked.

So these shills [decoys] were carefully positioned to deflect your attention away from the obvious greed and incompetence of the United States Government and its Wall Street masters, and focus it elsewhere instead. Then, hopefully, a few years later down the track when prices start to bounce through the roof, and America has no Euros to buy crude oil, you will blame gasoline prices of $5.00+ per gallon at the pumps on an 'inevitable decline' in world oil production, rather than march furiously on Washington DC with locked and loaded firearms.

Though attacking Campbell and his ilk is not the purpose of this report, his idiot claims can be debunked readily enough. While it is true that nowadays we only officially find one barrel of oil for every four barrels we consume, this is primarily because we temporarily stopped the incredibly expensive process of looking for crude oil when we had already physically established more than two trillion barrels of reserves in known reservoir locations around the world. When those known reserves drop to [say] one trillion barrels we may be tempted to go and find more, but not until then. And while it is true that the production rate from each individual oil well ever drilled has slowly declined over the years, there is a perfectly valid technical reason for this predictable reduced flow rate, which will be explained later.

In order to understand how Russia has left the rest of the world standing in its wake, it is essential to know a little bit about where oil is located, and how it is extracted from the ground for refining and commercial use. It is an enormously complex subject, especially when considering the ultra-deep wells, which should really have a separate category all of their own. Many years ago I was personally involved at the sharp end of two ultra-deep drilling operations [one of them in direct liaison with Russian experts from the Moscow Drilling Institute], and will try to keep this drilling lesson as simple as I can.

[....] see the link for some good diagrams and photos.

Further on he has this to say:

The theory underlying how oil is formed at such enormous depths in the mantle of the earth is not central to this report, because the Russians have already proved its point of origin in absolute drilling terms more than 300 times. Those interested in the exact process should research the archives, where there are more than two hundred Russian papers on the subject. Probably a good place to start would be "The Role of Methane in the Formation of Mineral Fuels", written by by A.D. Bondar in 1967. What is central to this report is the massive advantage that Russia's ultra-deep drilling discoveries and technical achievements give it over the western nations

.
The first advantage I intend to explain is nowhere near as important in global terms as the second, because it is the second advantage that finally drove the Zionist Cabal to illegally invade sovereign Iraq, and thereby bring us all to the very brink of thermonuclear war. However, from where I sit, the first advantage is much more important in simple humanitarian terms, although "humanitarian" is not an acceptable trading process on Wall Street.

As we have already discovered, oil can be produced virtually anywhere on earth, provided the host country can afford the expensive [and sometimes classified] technology, and the massive cost of drilling a well to extreme depth through extremely hard rock formations. But just think what even 20 or 30 deep producing oil wells can mean for the people of a country that has no natural resources of its own, or worse still, for people who have been told by glib western lobbyists that they have no natural resources of their own. Anyone who can prove that the western nations were lying or simply wrong, will become a trusted friend forever. Vietnam is a classic example.

After more than 60 years of being enslaved, pillaged, and raped by the French and then by the Americans, the poor Vietnamese were told officially by American oil multinationals that their country was barren; that western 'cutting edge' technology had failed to find anything to help them recover financially from the mess left behind by American bombs, Agent Orange, and a host of other delightful gifts from Uncle Sam. This of course was exactly where America wanted the Vietnamese to be: desperately poor and unable to take action against their former invaders.

The Russians had other ideas and a very different approach. After telling the Vietnamese that the Americans had lied to them, oil experts were flown in from Moscow to prove this startling claim in a no-risk joint venture, meaning the Russians would provide all of the equipment and expertise free of charge, and only then take a percentage of the profits if oil was actually found and put into production. Vietnam had absolutely nothing to lose, and swiftly gave Russia the green light.

The Vietnamese White Tiger oil field was and is a raging success, currently producing high quality crude oil from basalt rock more than 17,000 feet below the surface of the earth, at 6,000 barrels per day per well. Through White Tiger, the Russians have assisted the Vietnamese to regain part of their self respect, while at the same time making them far less dependent on brutal western nations for food-aid handouts.

All of a sudden in a very small way, Vietnam has joined the exclusive club of oil producing nations, and a stream of cynical U.S. Senators and Congressmen have started making the long pilgrimage to Ho Chi Minh City in order to 'mend fences'. Predictably perhaps, the Vietnamese are very cool, and try hard to ignore their new American admirers."

He then describes a method which he claims makes it possible to "ream out" a clogged borehole, one of the reasons for diminishing flow-rates. He says the Russian oil industry makes regular use of this technology, but that shareholder driven western corporation won't because it is too expensive. Cheaper to invade another country with resources easier to get to. It's an intriguing read.

But suppose that's not the whole taco? If the Peak folk are right, thing are going to go right off the rails and a lot of people will die. Try to think of something in your (western, industrialized) life that is not touched by oil?

Going back to Mike Ruppert who was caught saying the following:

Instead of advocating war I oppose it. Anyone who has attended any of my more than 35 lectures in eight countries (more than 15,000 live audience members) will know, of a certainty, that my position on solutions is absolutely clear. I advocate an immediate cessation of all military conquest and imperialism by the US government and industrialized powers; an end to the war on terror.

I advocate an immediate convening of political, economic, spiritual and scientific leaders from all nations to address the issue of Peak Oil (and Gas) and its immediate implications for economic collapse, massive famine and climate destruction (partially as a result of reversion to coal plants which accelerate global warming). This would, scientifically speaking, include immediate steps to arrive at a crash program – agreed to by all nations and in accordance with the highest spiritual and ethical principles – to stop global population growth and to arrive at the best possible and most ethical program of population reduction as a painful choice made by all of humanity.

To quote the article this came from:

I hope that the sharp and sudden increase in heart rate and blood pressure that the words "population reduction" must surely have caused in readers was not too much to handle, and that we can continue and rationally consider the practicality of just what is being suggested by Mike.

The first question that can be reasonably asked is: "What planet has Mike been living on for the past 50 years?"

Please tell me when exactly the wonderful, life-respecting, spiritual beings took over the planet? Was it while I was at the toilet?

Seriously though, can ANYONE imagine Cheney or Putin or Blair or Zhu Rongji, or any other world leader for that matter, who by definition of their position of power have been completely corrupted by that power, suddenly exhibiting "the highest spiritual and ethical principles"? Just about every world leader, including the supposedly "spiritual" ones, have been presiding over mass depopulation for centuries, and they didn’t need any stinkin’ ethics or morals to do it; glee and relish was all it took!

Mike then backpeddles:

From the article quoted above

When Mike was challenged by Victor Thorn of Wing TV about his stance on the depopulation question, he stated that, ideally, the job of depopulation would:

" […] include people of more humane vocations than those of the economists, politicians, and financiers who are currently in charge of most domestic and international institutions".

Sure, we would all like to have those "of more humane vocations" included, Mike, but, last time I checked, it was still the "economists, politicians, and financiers" that were running the show. Better yet, let’s have more humane people make the decisions, not simply those who are in positions where the illusion of humaneness is part of the job description.

Mike continues in this vein with his basic point being that it would be better that the several billion of us that sadly have to "go", be put to sleep by the Dalai Lama than prematurely euthanised by the Nazi Neocons.

Again, really Mike, it’s not much of a choice. Either way you are asking us to make the ‘ultimate sacrifice’ in order to clear the board for the "economists, politicians, and financiers" to just start all over again. THAT is the reality of the situation and it’s time we all grew up and accepted it.
The bottom line with Ruppert is that, while his alarmist, doomsday message is a real attention grabber, his solution to the problem really isn’t a solution at all, and for this reason it would be better if he were to just make his point and quietly sit down.

Yup, this is a disgusting oily can of worms. And it only gets worse.

Blue Ibis