Alaska Would Be More at Home in Russia

[Taliesin]

Give us back our damn panhandle!

 

[Cuivienen]

You are simply not factoring in the fact that the Saudis have 260 billion barrels of reserves to your conclusion

Saudi Arabia produces 10 million barrels daily, although that's alot, they can increase production cheaply because their oil reserves are on land.

The problem is that they can't increase their rates drastically. It's physically impossible. It doesn't matter how much oil is left underneath Saudi Arabia; there comes a point, long before even half of the oil is gone, at which oil mining techniques simply will not allow the oil extraction rate to increase without risk of "killing" the field. I'm no expert on the topic, but I know that an overpumped oil field will stop outputting oil at all to even the best mining techniques even if it is still mostly full. The Saudis project their output to rise to 22.5 million barrels a day by 2025, but every single non-Saudi oil expert will tell you that they can't possibly increase their rate past approximately 12 million per day.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Nobody even really knows how much oil they have, they dont allow outsiders to study their reserves.

 

[silver 2039]

If Russia can manage to invade and annex Alaska then good for them. Otherwise keep dreaming.....

 

[Commy]

I fear that if Alaska waas to be given to Russia, then the latter would transfer all of their military personnel and nuclear facilities there.

We could made Alaska non-nuclear and non-military zone

Historically Russia sold the territory.

But we will pay for Alaska from our oil dollars

 

[cgannon64]

America will never decrease its size if it can help it.

 

[marshal zhukov]

The problem is that they can't increase their rates drastically. It's physically impossible. It doesn't matter how much oil is left underneath Saudi Arabia; there comes a point, long before even half of the oil is gone, at which oil mining techniques simply will not allow the oil extraction rate to increase without risk of "killing" the field. I'm no expert on the topic, but I know that an overpumped oil field will stop outputting oil at all to even the best mining techniques even if it is still mostly full. The Saudis project their output to rise to 22.5 million barrels a day by 2025, but every single non-Saudi oil expert will tell you that they can't possibly increase their rate past approximately 12 million per day.

Read this article at Yahoo News, this article is just 5 days old

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051120/wl_nm/energy_meeting_dc_4

"Naimi said Saudi plans to boost output capacity by 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) to 12.5 million bpd by 2009, and later to 15 million bpd, remain on track despite a global shortage of oil drilling equipment and manpower.

He also said he was "as confident as ever" that Saudi Arabia will be able soon to add 200 billion barrels to its existing crude reserves of 264 billion barrels"

Ali al-Naimi is Oil Minister of Saudi Arabia.

You need to get the facts right, I am not making up the stuff I said about Saudi Arabia.

Saudi's oil production is certainly not peaking. But world's production I believe it is.

 

[Taliesin]

That's exactly what Cuivienen was saying: Saudi Arabia's extraction is continuing to increase, according to Saudi Arabia. From what she says, practically everybody else disagrees with this assessment. Surely you see that perhaps the Saudi Oil Minister isn't the most reliable or disinterested source on this question?

 

[marshal zhukov]

That's exactly what Cuivienen was saying: Saudi Arabia's extraction is continuing to increase, according to Saudi Arabia. From what she says, practically everybody else disagrees with this assessment. Surely you see that perhaps the Saudi Oil Minister isn't the most reliable or disinterested source on this question?

You have a mistaken view of the Saudi government, if you think that he would just lie about something that is generates more than 500 million US$ everyday for the Saudi government.
He is no liar, until proven so.

Oil business is serious in Saudi Arabia, because that's worth more than 100 billion US$ annually. Saudi Arabia depends on oil for its existance, speacially the ruling family.

The Oil minister's projections are based on investments to increase output that are already underway. While yours is based on nothing. ( sorry to say that)

 

[Taliesin]

Well, it's not mine, it's Cuivienen's. I was just pointing out that what you said wasn't really a rebuttal to her post.

Cuivienen: everybody except the Saudis says the Saudis have maxed out their extraction rate.

You: that's not true! The Saudis say they haven't maxed out their extraction rate!

I'm not saying the Saudis are lying, precisely, but that they have an interest in interpreting their situation as liberally and optimistically as possible.

 

[fing0lfin]

Alaska is in a different continent, it doesn't belong to Russia, it has never had anything to do with Russia, that's why it was sold to the US.


Plus, why would Russia want another Siberia like region?
Russia needs better access to the sea, not more tundra.

Alaska was never sold to USA. It was hired by USA. For 100 years. By the terms of the treaty it should have been returned to Russia, but USA didn't kept the threaty.

And that Alaska is in a different continent doesn't matter. Actualy part of Russia is in Europe
And the Hawai islands aren't part of North America, too

 

[Gelion]

^ lol good point Fingolfin I've forgotten about that.

 

[fing0lfin]

I have heard that it was hired at the price, simillar to the price of a racing horse

 

[Gelion]

I have heard that it was hired at the price, simillar to the price of a racing horse

lol well I think the price was somewhat close to a price of 10 steam engines and a few bucks.... doesn't matter now I don't think Tsarist government is around to ask for the treaty to be respected, right?

 

[fing0lfin]

lol well I think the price was somewhat close to a price of 10 steam engines and a few bucks.... doesn't matter now I don't think Tsarist government is around to ask for the treaty to be respected, right?

It's all about power and influence If Russia become top super power, it may 'ask' for the returning of Alaska

 

[Gelion]

It's all about power and influence If Russia become top super power, it may 'ask' for the returning of Alaska

In the next round of the universe maybe..... I surely hope it will not become something like America even if it were to restore some of the power.... we'll see

 

[bhsup]

Alaska was never sold to USA. It was hired by USA. For 100 years. By the terms of the treaty it should have been returned to Russia, but USA didn't kept the threaty.

WHERE did you ever hear a line of bull like that? "Seward's Folly" the sale was called because most folks thought it was a stupid purchase at the time and the Secretary of State at the time who pushed for it was William Seward.

I'll find the treaty and post it here for you to read. There is absolutely nothing in there about it being returned to Russia after 100 years.

EDIT: Two locations for the treaty. Feel free to read either one.
http://www.bartleby.com/43/43.html

Library of Congress scanned images link

 

[Shaihulud]

Oil business is serious in Saudi Arabia, because that's worth more than 100 billion US$ annually. Saudi Arabia depends on oil for its existance, speacially the ruling family.

The Saudi Arabia's monarchy survives on its percieved value to the Western World, even doubts on its near future value can be destabilising.

U.S.A will never give up Alaska or any of its territory.

 

[Cuivienen]

Well, it's not mine, it's Cuivienen's. I was just pointing out that what you said wasn't really a rebuttal to her post.

Cuivienen: everybody except the Saudis says the Saudis have maxed out their extraction rate.

You: that's not true! The Saudis say they haven't maxed out their extraction rate!

I'm not saying the Saudis are lying, precisely, but that they have an interest in interpreting their situation as liberally and optimistically as possible.

Let's get a really good source. Like, for example, one that might even be biased in favor of the Saudis. Al Jazeera, perhaps?

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/80C89E7E-1DE9-42BC-920B-91E5850FB067.htm

Expert: Saudi oil may have peaked
By Adam Porter in Perpignan, France

Sunday 20 February 2005, 10:58 Makka Time, 7:58 GMT


As oil prices remain above $45 a barrel, a major market mover has cast a worrying future prediction.



Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons, of Simmons & Co International, has been outspoken in his warnings about peak oil before. His new statement is his strongest yet, "we may have already passed peak oil".



The subject of peak oil, the point at which the world's finite supply of oil begins to decline, is a hot topic in the industry.



Arguments are commonplace over whether it will happen at all, when it will happen or whether it has already happened. Simmons, a Republican adviser to the Bush-Cheney energy plan, believes it "is the world's number one problem, far more serious than global warming".



Saudi oil peaking?



Speaking exclusively to Aljazeera, Simmons came out with a statement that, if proven true over time, could herald by far the biggest energy crisis mankind has known.



"If Saudi Arabia have damaged their fields, accidentally or not, by overproducing them, then we may have already passed peak oil. Iran has certainly peaked, there is no way on Earth they can ever get back to their production of six million barrels per day (mbpd)."




Simmons believes Iran's oil
production has also peaked

The technical term for damaging an oilfield by overproduction is rate sensitivity. In other words, if the oil is pulled out of the ground too fast, it damages the fragile geological structure of the field. This can make as much as 80% of the oil within the field unextractable. Of course, at the moment, virtually every producer is at full tilt. The most important among them is Saudi Arabia; their Gharwar field is the world's biggest.



One of the first hints that Simmons got over possible Saudi Arabian overproduction was from researching an obscure US Senate committee meeting in 1974.



Field damage



"A whistleblower in Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia's oil company, was first reported in The Washington Post. He had claimed that Aramco had been overproducing the giant Gharwar field and that if they did not slow down, they would damage the reservoirs.



"The committee, which swore witnesses in under oath, produced over 1400 pages of documentation on the subject, it included some specialist advice which advised cutting Saudi production to 4mbpd to maintain production levels."



Currently, at near maximum production, Saudi Arabia is producing about 9mbpd, though recently they claimed they could potentially produce 12mbpd or even as much as 20mbpd. A claim Simmons called "pie in the sky".



"The faster you pull a reservoir, the faster you pull out all of the easy-to-produce oil," explains Simmons. "What happens is that you lose massive amounts of what the oil industry calls oil-left-behind still inside the field. These issues, as you can see, have been known about for years."



Overproduction



"If you look at what Iran is doing, they are actually going to inject natural gas to the tune of 2bcf (billion cubic feet), through a 72in pipe into their Aghajari oilfield. It is a $2bn project. This is in order just to boost production from 200,000bpd to 300,000bpd. In the 1970s Aghajari was producing 1mbpd. It has been overproduced."




In 2004 Shell said it had lost 20%
of its reserves

Simmons also says the same thing happened with the oil company El Paso last year.



"At the same time as the Shell write-off, El Paso realised they had been producing their fields too hard. As a result they had to write off 41% of their reserves." In 2004 Shell first announced it had lost about 20% of its oil reserves.



Another clue came as Simmons discovered a ferocious debate that had been going on inside Saudi Aramco about overproduction.



"The company claimed in the early 1970s that it would be able to produce 20 to 25 mbpd, then by 1978 it was 12mbpd. Now it looks like 9.8mbpd is the maximum," he says.



Precious resource



"Luckily for them, demand quietened down in the 1980s. People thought when they cut production that they were simply trying to drive up oil prices, but in fact they were resting their fields to limit the damage.



"But then came the first Gulf war and they were forced to crank production up again and they have been fighting the problem ever since.



"In 1981 in their own book, Aramco and its World, something they give out to new employees and such, they openly talked about how maximising production would permanently harm their fields and that maximum production could not continue. They thought demand would fall and the fields would be sustained. Unfortunately that has not been the case."



The reasons for maximising production are not always obvious, they can be technical, but also geo-political.



"There is always a balance for producers. Do you want to conserve your fields and produce slowly? Or do you want to be a statesman? Would you rather be a market leader with all that brings, or a smaller, less powerful producer?"



The idea that Saudi Arabia could force its production up to 12mbpd or higher is met with scorn by Simmons.



"This is dangerous stuff," warns Simmons. "If we say they have not peaked and then they choose to further increase production, they will only hasten their field decline, and waste huge amounts of valuable oil into the bargain. And oil, as we are only now coming to realise, is the world's most precious resource."

 

[marshal zhukov]

Well, nice source. @ Cuivienen
Look at this report from the IEA ( International Energy Agency).
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/saudi.html

The report states that Saudis SAID that they are "easily capable" of producing up to 15 million bbl/d in the future and maintaining that production level for 50
years.
I underdestand that the "said" is no guarantee. Nonetheless, apparently 15 million is peak.

Saudi Arabia is the world's leading oil producer and exporter, and its location in the politically volatile Gulf region adds an element of concern for its major customers, including the United States. Saudi Arabia maintains crude oil production capacity of around 10.5-11.0 million bbl/d, and claims that it is "easily capable" of producing up to 15 million bbl/d in the future and maintaining that production level for 50 years. In June 2005, Saudi Aramco's senior vice president of gas operations, Khalid al-Falih, stated that Saudi Arabia would raise production capacity to more than 12 million bbl/d by 2009, and then possibly to 15 million bbl/d "if the market situation justifies it." Falih added that by 2006, Saudi Arabia would have 90 drilling rigs in the Kingdom, more than double the number of rigs operating in 2004.

The report also talks about the depletion rates compensation that are quite scary and quotes your source, proving that the guy is reliable.
I was surpised the read the IEA quoting him.

One challenge for the Saudis in achieving this objective is that their existing fields sustain 5 percent-12 percent annual "decline rates," (according to Aramco Senior Vice President Abdullah Saif) meaning that the country needs around 500,000-1 million bbl/d in new capacity each year just to compensate.
...
Some outside analysts, notably Matthew Simmons of Houston-based Simmons and Company International, have disputed Aramco's optimistic assessments of Saudi oil reserves and future production, pointing to -- among other things -- more rapid depletion rates and a higher "water cut" than the Saudis report.

Being Matthew Simmons an outside source, your source is more credible than mine and therefore if the technology remains the same ( unlikely), you are probably RIGHT about the fact that the Saudis will peak at around 12 million , or less.

Still the Oil Minister of Saudi Arabia is no liar and some credit has to be given to his future production estimates.