Two notes: This story comes from within the industry.
Two: the point about "The high oil prices and sharply increased upstream spending budgets of most oil companies..." translates into how expensive it is to drill/mine/pump/dig the heavy crude out of the earth and into a pipe-- the term "upstream" means the oil equivalent of a watershed. "Downstream" would be the refinery.
All those extra costs are not just money, but large portions of the other energy already available. This is where the perpetually increasing energy demand to simply try and meet the previously met energy demand and then surpass to meet growing economic demand all comes in. It's all downhill from here, even in Alberta at the "crude-shed" of tar. It's not the amount in the ground/tar/sand that matters; it's how fast you can get it out to try and offset decline in replacement elsewhere. All of those increased energy volumes come from what is considered recoverable around the world, just to get at other recoverable problems, hence the massive *increase* in greenhouse gasses. As such, there is no such thing as addressing climate change so long as we are allowing oil corporations to use the tar sands to offset peak oil. It's simply not possible.
--M
Energy Intelligence Survey Shows World Oil Reserves Are Not Being Fully Replaced
4/16/2007
http://www.hydrocarbononline.com/content/news/article.asp?docid=%7B6E7FC...
New York, NY - The world is currently producing more oil annually than it is replacing with new reserves. That sobering conclusion emerges from a new survey of global liquids reserves published by Energy Intelligence.
In contrast to the gradual rise in global oil reserves that has been reported annually in most surveys based on public sources, the new assessment shows that the trend in worldwide liquids reserves is actually one of stagnation and modest decline.
The PIW Reserves Survey shows global oil reserves declining by almost 13 billion barrels, or 0.9%, over the last two years to 1.459 trillion bbl at the end of 2006 on a "proved plus probably" basis. Global oil reserves are liquid hydrocarbons, natural gas liquids, tar sands and crude oil, that are economically recoverable at current prices.
The PIW survey uses a somewhat broader definition of reserves than the other surveys based on public sources and it applies that definition consistently and systematically across all countries, fully accounting for production declines and new additions.
The main reason for the poor performance in growing reserves is a lack of additions to reserves from new discoveries, which account for 20% or less of additions in the last few years. The high oil prices and sharply increased upstream spending budgets of most oil companies have not yet provided any significant improvement in global additions to reserves, but more time may be needed. For 2006, the big increases in reserves were led by Brazil and Kazakhstan. Among the top 20, only eight countries saw increases last year, while the rest were flat or in decline.
The PIW survey also confirms earlier suspicions about the overstatement of reserves by Kuwait and some other Opec producers. At the same time, the survey also indicates that reserves in Russia and some other non-Opec countries are much higher than is generally reported.
SOURCE: Energy Intelligence
