Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Earth Power

Exxon and Russian Operation Discovers Oil Field Larger Than the Gulf of Mexico 201

An anonymous reader writes The state-run OAO Rosneft has discovered a vast pool of crude in the Kara Sea region of the Arctic Ocean, arguably bigger than the Gulf of Mexico. From the article: "The discovery sharpens the dispute between Russia and the U.S. over President Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine. The well was drilled before the Oct. 10 deadline Exxon was granted by the U.S. government under sanctions barring American companies from working in Russia’s Arctic offshore. Rosneft and Exxon won’t be able to do more drilling, putting the exploration and development of the area on hold despite the find announced today."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Exxon and Russian Operation Discovers Oil Field Larger Than the Gulf of Mexico

Comments Filter:
  • Oil's well that ends well
  • So what? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by voss ( 52565 ) on Sunday September 28, 2014 @02:57PM (#48015207)

    Russians dont have more oil...no problem with that.The nice thing about that oil is that it will still be there 5 years from now.

    "This is our united victory - it was achieved thanks to our friends and partners from Exxon Mobil, Nord Atlantic Drilling, Schlumberger, Halliburton..."

    Time until Republicans start saying "Lift sanctions" 5...4..3..2...1

    • Why? Exxon isn't the only oil big oil company. There is BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Total SA. Who says those companies won't go into partnership with the Russians? The French recently sold a warship to the Russians.
    • Time until Republicans start saying "Lift sanctions" 5...4..3..2...1

      Last time it was your boy-wonder, who lifted the sanctions against Russia [nytimes.com]... Abandoning American ally Georgia for the sake of Putin's help against Iran. Ha-ha — much good did it do then...

      • by jopsen ( 885607 ) <jopsen@gmail.com> on Monday September 29, 2014 @12:49AM (#48017365) Homepage

        Last time it was your boy-wonder, who lifted the sanctions against Russia [nytimes.com]...

        Yeah.... but sanctions really only send a message in the moment you apply them... After that they're just blocking economic growth in both countries.
        So slowing removing them when nobody is looking is smart move... Then you can reapply them, if it should ever come to that.
        As long as Putin is around, it's probably not the last time.

        Also it doesn't make sense to carry a grudge forever... Sometimes it's better to just move along.

        But right now, Cuba, Iran and North Korea doesn't really care much about what the US says.... because sort of armed conflict (in violation of the UN charter) the US can't really impose further sanctions. Cuba is pretty much the US holding an old grudge, lifting those sanctions ought to be a no-brainer... As for Iran and North Korea who both does have nuclear programs, there are pros/cons to maintaining and lifting sanctions. Maintaining them on North Korea, keeps the country crushed. Whereas Iran has oil that we'll buy either way, so maybe lifting sanctions on Iran would be worthwhile. Just maybe.

        • by dbIII ( 701233 )
          Funny how Libya under Ghadaffi got a get out of jail free card but Iran didn't. It seemed a bit backwards, especially since even Reagan did deals with Iran.
          • Actually any "get out of jail free card" had a very short lifespan. Look at Libya now - and look at Qadafi.

            In fact Libya suffered severely when the USA decided to court Iran when it was building up a coalition against Iraq. It seems very likely that the Lockerbie bombing was an act of revenge for the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes just a few months before. US intelligence agencies immediately blamed Iran for Lockerbie - until the administration decided that it wanted to cozy up to

          • by mi ( 197448 )

            Funny how Libya under Ghadaffi got a get out of jail free card

            It was not "free". In order to "get out of jail", Qaddafi had to acknowledge [cnn.com] Libya being behind the Lockerbie bombing [wikipedia.org], and pay restitution to the victims' kin. That was, what was demanded of him and he complied (shortly after seeing Saddam Hussein being pulled from a hiding hole [wikipedia.org]).

            There was no other "beef" with him — unlike Iran, Libya did not seek nuclear weapons, nor was it providing anything better than "moral" support to any other terro

        • "...Also it doesn't make sense to carry a grudge forever... "

          Although the masters of the universe in Washington, with their short attention spans, will perhaps whimsically decide to raise their sanctions when they decide that Russia has been "punished" enough, Russia will not reciprocate. That's because its sanctions were not imposed out of a sense of grudge or malice, or to "punish" anyone, but in the long-term interests of Russia. The USA and EU have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted, and no matter

        • by mi ( 197448 )

          Yeah.... but sanctions really only send a message in the moment you apply them...

          There, there. "It is complicated"... GP was accusing RethugliKKKans of wanting to end sanctions against Russia in exchange for oil. You seem to be supporting such a maneuver.

          Also it doesn't make sense to carry a grudge forever... Sometimes it's better to just move along.

          Any sanctions imposed in retaliation for a certain deed — such as Russia's invasion into Afghanistan [wikipedia.org], Georgia [wikipedia.org] or Ukraine [theguardian.com] — must last until the deed

  • by Noah Haders ( 3621429 ) on Sunday September 28, 2014 @03:03PM (#48015229)
    Last night I watched There Will Be Blood. I drink your milkshake!
  • It's almost as if Russia was anticipating this all along, and decided that the Crimea is up for grabs. With a leverage this big I'm surprised they didn't chose something juicier. Just saying...

    • by pepty ( 1976012 )
      They get a port and eventually direct access to the gas market for Europe. Not a bad haul.
  • "Rosneft and Exxon won’t be able to do more drilling, putting the exploration and development of the area on hold"

    Who exactly is supposed to be worried this is a bad thing? For the next 10 or 20 years the oil will be more valuable to Russia in the ground as long as they have evidence that it's there.

  • It looks like the date for "peak oil" just pushed out awhile, again.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      9 billion barrels was the optimistic estimate of oil field . World oil consumption is about 88 million barrels per day.
      "Peak oil" just pushed out about 3 months...sorry.

      • You don't have to feel sorry for agreeing with me that the date for "peak oil" pushed out.

        But if you want a proper date for "peak oil" you need to incorporate the other recent finds and reclamations made possible by improving technology. Of course where it gets really interesting is if one of the projects pursuing various forms of hydrocarbon synthesis pays off.

        • by HiThere ( 15173 ) <charleshixsn@NOSpaM.earthlink.net> on Sunday September 28, 2014 @08:48PM (#48016661)

          Have you noticed at all that these new finds are in areas where it is more expensive to extract the oil? Underwater is a lot more expensive than on land. Under the Arctic Ocean? Well, waiting 5 years will probably make it cheaper, as ice heaves are terrible to construct around. Of course, 5 years may not be long enough to clear the ice.

          FWIW, I'd bet that there are lots of undiscovered oil fields under deep ocean, or perhaps that you need to access by drilling sideways into the continental shelf. But that's expensive even compared to working in the Arctic Ocean.

          Additionally, of course, every gallon of oil we burn increases our CO2 level. That's not just greenhouse, that's also ocean acidification. But you can't measure the damage that is done in any one day...so you don't need to worry about that, right?

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by cold fjord ( 826450 )

            If you think that Artic or deep ocean oil is expensive, try going completely without and let us know how expensive that is. Which economy will you ruin, who will you starve, to do without?

            Every tree planted reduced CO2. Are you advocating the planting trees, or just cutting off oil?

            Alternative energy sources and new technology can decrease our dependency on oil, do you back them?

            What is your concern?

          • FWIW, I'd bet that there are lots of undiscovered oil fields under deep ocean, or perhaps that you need to access by drilling sideways into the continental shelf. But that's expensive even compared to working in the Arctic Ocean.

            FWIW, the USGS's estimate for global undiscovered oil reserves puts around a quarter of the total in the Arctic regions. Mostly because until recently it was really, really hard to do exploration work there, so everywhere else got explored already.

        • Peak oil is a mathematical concept. It's entirely impossible to accurately predict when it will happen, and if we're talking about the original definition of it, it already has. All deviation from the Hubbert curve has been expensive "unconventional" oil prospects, and we're *still* outpacing growth of production with growth of demand.
          I don't understand why this is a difficult concept for some people. The math is pretty fucking simple. You can't win. We got all the easy shit. Every time we find a new field
        • Of course where it gets really interesting is if one of the projects pursuing various forms of hydrocarbon synthesis pays off.

          Well shit, when you consider hydrocarbon synthesis (from CO2 or something, I assume) then sure, that solves the problem! If course, it's also irrelevant to the "peak oil" issue since you're not talking about non-renewable fossil fuels anymore. Saying that the "peak oil" is pushed into the future because of synthetic hydrocarbons is like saying it's pushed into the future because of n

    • by Alioth ( 221270 )

      Peak oil isn't about quantity of oil, it's about rate of oil extraction. For example, Mexico's Cantarell field at its peak produced oil at a greater rate than the entire Canadian tar sands despite being around 0.1% of the size of what Canada has. We don't yet know whether the rate of production from this field will do anything at all to when peak oil happens.

  • 1 Billion Barrels (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "The well found about 1 billion barrels of oil..."

    The world uses 86 million barrels per day, so this buys us about 11 extra days. Whoopee Do...

    • Yes, if all other sources of oil disappeared over night and everything can be extracted quickly enough, 11 days.

      Its like saying superman can beat batman with cat woman's dildo. Sounds good but really useless in the real world.

    • by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 ) on Sunday September 28, 2014 @03:57PM (#48015453)

      You know that's one well in a potentially huge field, right?

      Though 11 days of worldwide energy from one well is impressive in it's own right........

    • The well found about 1 billion barrels of oil and similar geology nearby means the surrounding area may hold more than the U.S. part of the Gulf or Mexico, he said.

      That's 1 billion barrels from one well. The grand total could be much larger.

  • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Sunday September 28, 2014 @03:53PM (#48015429) Journal
    Even the shale gas estimates and the Canadian tar sands estimate etc are being revised downwards. They drill a few test wells, and interpolate and "guestimate" what lies in between. Let us see how this estimate holds up once the investment needed to further develop them are all reeled in and the time pay dividends come up.
  • Sorry, Putin and Koch. Time to get the fuck out of our sunlight.

  • arguably bigger than the Gulf of Mexico

    Arguably? You've carried out your own exploration and you disagree about its extent?

    • Arguably? You've carried out your own exploration and you disagree about its extent?

      Here's an argument : The Kara Sea is 880000km.sq of mostly shallow waters ; the GoM is 615000km.sq of deep and shallow water. Both have major rivers draining the interiors of continents into them, bringing in sediment and organic matter. So there's no immediate reason to expect much different quantities of sediment or their yield in barrels oil per km.cu sediment. Therefore, if anything, you'd expect the Kara Sea to be appre

  • Good news! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lisias ( 447563 ) on Sunday September 28, 2014 @11:21PM (#48017117) Homepage Journal

    Now we can rest assured that our extinction will happen by the continuous burning of fossil fuels, not by the lack of it!

  • We barely knew ya.

"The pathology is to want control, not that you ever get it, because of course you never do." -- Gregory Bateson

Working...