Thursday, September 11, 2008

Iara: 4 Billion Barrels



Petrobras Oil Reserves Likely to Swell on Iara Field.

Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, said its Iara offshore field contains 3 billion to 4 billion barrels of oil, its second giant find in a year and enough to supply the country for five years.

The assessment released yesterday is the first estimate of recoverable oil from the discovery announced Aug. 11. Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based company is known, said in January its Jupiter field in the same region contained gas quantities similar to its Tupi area, the largest oil find in the Americas since 1976.

Iara is in the Santos Basin to the north of Tupi, a 5 billion- to 8 billion-barrel field announced in November. If confirmed, Iara and Tupi, which sit in non-adjacent parts of the same exploration block, could almost double Brazil's 12.6 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, according to BP Plc. Petrobras preferred stock gained the most in three weeks.

``It's still a huge field and bigger than almost anything around,'' Ted Harper, senior research analyst with Frost Investment Advisors in Houston, said by telephone. The company manages the equivalent of $2 billion of stocks and bonds, including Petrobras, Harper said.

Iara is operated and 65 percent owned by Petrobras.

7 comments:

  1. WHAT WOULD BE THE IMPACT ON AMERICA'S ECONOMY IF A STRING OF OIL DISCOVERIES WERE ANNOUNCED OFF AMERICA'S COAST?

    The answer is obvious enough, it would have a beneficial effect and have a positive effect on world markets of all types, not just oil markets.

    And the question is not just hypothetical. If the Democratic Leadership would stop blocking offshore drilling, American oil companies would likely be making the same kind of announcements that Petrobas has been making for the last year on a regular basis.

    This would put even more downward pressure on oil prices spurring the American economy and "lifting all boats."

    Oil is part of America's future, let's start making the future right now.

    And decrease America's transfer of wealth overseas.

    Why is the Democratic Leadership so dumb about energy policy?

    If anybody seriously thinks that America is going to "break the addiction" to oil anytime soon, they're wrong.

    By the way, it's not an addiction. Oil has made America the most productive country on Earth and has brought wealth and prosperity to millions and millions of the Middle Class.

    The American Middle Classs was built on reasonably priced oil.

    The Democratic Leadership treats oil as if it's some sinister substance that will harm America's kids.

    Rather, it's oil that helps "soccer moms" take their kids to practice in the minivan, or to band practice or the store to go shopping for the family. What is she supposed to do? Have her kids take the bus or take the bus herself to go shop?

    The Democratic Leadership have their sights set on "killing" the soccer mom and all the values she represents and believes in.

    Why does the Democratic Leadership have it in for "Soccer Moms" across the U.S.A.?

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  2. ANNOTATION OF SCIENTIFIC PAPER

    This is an annotation of a scientific paper by Michael D. Lewan of the U.S. Geological Survey.

    Editorial note: This is an effort to fulfill an agreement made during an Abiotic Oil discussion where the following exchange was had:

    Lab Lemming (an oil geologist): "So in order for an abiotic hypothesis to be more useful than a biotic one, you need to link not only abiotic papers, but also the normal petroleum literature, with annotations showing how your hypothesis explains the migration paths, trace molecules, chemical history, and petrogenesis of traditional oil better than the standard model.”

    Anaconda: "Agreed. Solid edict."

    Methodology: Present quotes from the paper and compare/contrast theories and quality of evidence.

    This annotation is an effort to be faithful to my agreement.

    Experimental Insights on Sources, Amounts, and Kinetics of Thermogenic Gas.

    Michael D. Lewan
    U. S. Geological Survey, Box 25046, MS 977, Denver Federal Center, Denver, CO 80225

    Quote: However, this paradigm is based on intuitive interpretations of limited subsurface data. As a result, a quantitative understanding of sources, amounts, and kinetics of thermogenic gas in the subsurface has not fully developed into scientific concepts that can be applied to the assessment and exploration of conventional- and unconventional-gas resources."

    This passage from Mr. Lewan's paper gives an indication of the objective scientific support for "fossil" theory in general and by Lewan's own admission in his own paper:

    "...this paradigm is based on intuitive interpretations of limited subsurface data."

    Mr. Lewan describes the constraints of his "pyrolysis" experiments:

    "This quandary can be minimized by conducting laboratory pyrolysis experiments as close to natural conditions as possible in order to understand reactions and mechanisms responsible for natural thermogenic-gas generation."

    Lewan fails to provide the temperature constraints of his "pyrolysis" experiments.

    "Pyrolysis" is a fancy word for "heating." It's known that geologists assume elevated temperature is a substitute for time in the laboratory, when conducting experiments on kerogen, since the experimenter seeks to substitute elevated temperature for the millions of years that they hypothesize for catagenesis to be complete.

    (Obviously, they can't sit over the experiment millions of years.)

    Lewan states: "...conducting laboratory pyrolysis experiments as close to natural conditions as possible [is preferred]."

    Yet, making the assumption that elavated temperature is approximate to extended duration of time in the natural crustal environment at lower temperature, which "fossil" theory assumes, is an unsupported presupposition.

    What idea or scientific principle supports Lewan's assumption?

    That's left unstated.

    Again: " ...pyrolysis experiments conducted in the presence of water at the lowest possible temperatures [What temperature?]have proven to best simulate natural petroleum generation."

    How does Lewan know that?

    Let's move on.

    Lewan discusses the kerogen he subjects to pyrolysis. Kerogen is the "source rock" fossil theory claims oil originates from. But that is again a presupposition.

    Here is an oilfield services company glossary definition of kerogen.

    You will notice that the Schlumberger defiition is consistent with Abiotic Theory's explanation of kerogen's origin, as stated in part: "Kerogens have a high molecular weight relative to bitumen..."

    Kerogen is often interchangable with shale oil.

    What is kerogen? The above links go into more detail, but briefly it's a combination of sedimentary minerals, generally around 80%, and heavy hydrocarbons with the atomic weight of C215H330, also, there are residues of organic detritus.

    The main difference between kerogens is whether it has sulfur or not, there are other slight differences that the links can explain.

    Most oil has some portion of this heavy hydrocarbon, although the percentage varies. It's important to note heavy hydrocarbons are more dense than water so sink to the bottom of a body of water.

    Heavy hydrocarbon will "crack"
    into lighter atomic weight oil and gas when it is heated.

    It's a presupposition to assume that kerogen is the source of crude oil because there is an alternative explanation for kerogen's genesis.

    Kerogen is a residue of natural petroleum, not its forebear.

    Shale oil is also a residue of natural petroleum, not its forebear.

    Shale oil forms in roughly the same way that kerogen does per Abiotic Theory.

    Abiotic Theory postulates kerogen forms as sediments at the bottom of lakes or possibly shallow seas. These lakes or seas form in depressions that are the result of rifts and grabens, fracture features of tectonic activity.

    Natural petroleum seeps into the lake, as has been documented in the Dead Sea and Siberia's Lake Baikal. This happens either directly into the bottom of the lake or above the lake within its watershed and then leaches into the lake. The heavy hydrocarbons, C215H330 sink to the bottom of the lake and atomize fairly evenly across the lake bottom with concentration in the deepest portions of the lake.

    Lighter hydrocarbons (including bitumens) seperate and rise to the surface, being lighter than water, then evaporate into the atmosphere.

    Over the course of geologic time this leaves a sedimentary substance that is consistent with what oil geologists call kerogen.

    Mostly sedimentary minerals, some remnant of organic detritus that settle in the lake bottom over geologic time and averaging (it varies) 15% heavy hydrocarbons, C215H330, that when heated in laboratory experiments "cracks" into lighter atomic weight hydrocarbons, including methane as reported by Ewan.

    This alternative origin of kerogen as postulated by Abiotic Theory must be eliminated as a possibility before the assumption that kerogen is a product strictly of organic detritus, which produces oil through the diagenesis/catagenesis process hypothsized by "fossil" theory, commonly known as the "generating Kitchen, can be accepted.

    All elements and characteristics of kerogen are explained by the above Abiotic Theory of kerogen's formation. Heavy hydrocarbons are explained by oil seeping into the body of water as is predicted by Abiotic theory's postulation that hydrocarbons rise up through fissures and cracks including those at the bottom of bodies of water that form in depressions as a result of tectonic activity. Remnants of organic detritus in the sediments is explained by normal watershed collection of organic detritus in the body of water.

    The experiment attempts to quantify Green River shale oil.

    Of course, nowhere is "fossil" theory's diagenesis explained. The process by which organic detritus converts to heavy hydrocarbons with atomic weight C215H330.

    The abiotic atlternative theory's validity would mean that kerogen is not the "source rock" for crude oil's origin.

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  3. Wish I had seen this earlier. Andrew Alden is a clown. Biogenic fossil fuel is a joke.

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  4. EXTRATERRESTRIAL KEROGEN?

    Yes, that's right, substances that oil geologists call kerogen have been found in metreorites and been detected in interstellar clouds and dust around stars.

    But oil geologists are so wedded to kerogen as a "source" of hydrocarbons, rather than a residue of abiotic hydrocarbon formation, that oil geologists are willing to marry up with astrobiologists, which have claimed that meteorites and interstellar medium have remnants of carbon life imbedded in them.

    As per Wikipedia's kerogen entry: "Extraterrestrial material:
    Carbonaceous chondrite meteorites contain kerogen-like components. Such material is believed to have formed the terrestrial planets. Kerogen materials have been detected in interstellar clouds and dust around stars."

    You can't make this stuff up; I'm not kidding. Oil geologists are willing to do scientific "back flips" in order to maintain the pretense that kerogen is a precursor of crude oil. And, of course, astrobiologists are more than happy to have a scientific "ally" to bulster their credibility and promote their interest in the possibility of extraterrestial life.

    (Now, there could be exterrestrial life. But saying extraterrestial life's remnants are embedded in meteorites or interstellar medium, which is subject to extremes of heat and pressure is so far-fetched that one has to question their scientific objectivity, if not sanity.)

    The obvious explanation is simple: Hydrocarbon molecules are so ubiquitous because they form abiotically from two substances carbon and hydrogen that are themselves common in the Universe by virtue of their atomic structures.

    As has been demonstrated on Saurn's moon Titan.

    Let's follow this line of reasoning:

    There is a link on Wikipedia's kerogen entry to Carbonaceous chondrite , which lists the constituents of these meteorites.

    First, let's look at this sentence: "It is thought they have not been heated above 50°C, indicating that they condensed in the cooler outer portion of the solar nebula."

    It's contradictory on it face: If they "condensed" that means they cooled from a high temperature. Does anybody maintain that solar nebula didn't start out very hot and subject to massive strains or pressures?

    Then lets look at some the other constituents of these meteorites: "...the minerals olivine and serpentine are characteristic."

    Interesting, these two minerals are constituents of Earth's mantle and deep crustal interface. Serpentines "have their origins in metamorphic alterations of peridotite and pyroxene."

    This interaction is prominent in Keith and Swan's Abiotic Theory scientific paper, Peridotites, Serpentinization, and Hydrocarbons.

    And serpentinization is the key reaction in Keith and Swan's Hydrothermal hydrocarbons.

    "The mineral olivine (when gem-quality also called peridot) is a magnesium iron silicate with the formula (Mg,Fe)2SiO4. It is one of the most common minerals on Earth, and has also been identified in meteorites and on the Moon, Mars, and comet Wild 2."

    So the constituents of these carbonaceous chondrite meteorites reflects the catalytic reactions among minerals that Keith postulates in his Abiotic Theory. Also these constituents are mentioned in a report of abiotic solid hydrocarbons found in the Syrian Plateau.

    Taking all the scientific evidence into consideration, what is more scientifically probable: Meteorites being embedded with remnants of extraterrestrial life, or meteorites being embedded with abiotic hydrocarbon and its molecular building blocks?

    And when that is considered, what is more scientifically probable: Kerogen is the source of hydrocarbons, or kerogen is a residue of hydrocarbons?

    Oil geologists really screwed up when they hooked into the idea that kerogen-like material in meteorites proves extraterrestial life.

    What it really does is prove that kerogen is a residue of hydorcarbons.

    Thanks for the back flips.

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  5. NEW SALT THEORY

    In the course of researching the preceeding comment, I ran across this website, Marine Discoveries, that presents "The Hydrothermal Salt Theory."

    This is an exciting theory for this writer, as I have been discussing large formations of salt associated with oil deposits for some time on the Oil Is Mastery website and in particular salt associated with deepwater, ultra-deep, drilling, in places like Brazil where huge "pre-salt" oil discoveries have been made.

    Please review the theory.

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  6. NEW ABIOTIC THEORIES CONFIRM EUGENE COSTE'S OBSERVATIONS


    Eugene Coste at the beginning of the 20th century observed that hydrocarbons were associated with solfataric vents:

    "All the petroleum, natural gas, and bituminous fields or deposits cannot be regarded as anything else but the products of solfotaric volcanic emanations condensed and held in their passage upward in the porous tanks of all ages of the crust of the earth from the Archaean rocks to the Quaternary. Nothing is so simple and therefore nothing so natural as this origin, and we will see that it can be abundantly proven." -- Eugene Coste, 1903

    In his publication noted below and available at the side-bar under his name.

    Canadian Mining Institute Journal: The Volcanic Origin Of Natural Gas And Petroleum (1903)

    Now there are observations and theories that support Coste's observations and theory of a century before.

    One theory is presented in this abstract: Deep-rooted piercement structures in deep sedimentary basins — Manifestations of supercritical water generation at depth?

    The author Martin Hovland states: "Our hypothesis overcomes some of the problems with interpreting fluid flow products, which are otherwise very difficult to explain. In case this hypothesis can be further verified, the family could perhaps be called ‘hydrothermally associated piercement structures’."

    Hovland also has a website called Marine Observations where he discusses mud volcanoes, explaining these hydrocarbon producing geologic features.

    Eugene Coste would be proud that his observations are being confirmed and given depth with scientific explanation of the geologic processes at work.

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