Joe Carroll: Texas Wildcatter Moncrief Hits Latest Gusher Beneath Old Fields. (Hat tip: John A. Bailo)
Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- William “Tex” Moncrief, the billionaire wildcatter and scion of one of the founding families of the Texas oil industry, is betting the key to finding new gushers is to go deeper than anyone has gone before.
Moncrief agreed in September to help finance McMoRan Exploration Co.’s $70 million Davy Jones well off the Louisiana coast in exchange for a 10 percent stake in the prospect. The gamble paid off last week, when New Orleans-based McMoRan said the well hit what may be one of the biggest Gulf of Mexico oil and gas discoveries in decades.
Moncrief bought a piece of Davy Jones after being impressed by McMoRan’s success with a former Exxon Mobil Corp. well known as Blackbeard at a then-record depth of 32,997 feet (10,057 meters). He said he’s eager to invest in more projects with McMoRan Co-Chairman James “Jim Bob” Moffett, a friend of 50 years and a pioneer in finding oil miles beneath old fields.
“I knew Jim Bob took in that old Exxon Blackbeard well and went deeper with it to make it work,” Moncrief, 89, said in a telephone interview from the headquarters of closely held Moncrief Oil in Fort Worth, Texas. “I’ve drilled lots of deep wells. Sometimes when you don’t find what you’re looking for, you have to just keep on going.”
The biggest find so far in Moncrief’s 64 years in the oil patch was the Madden field in Wyoming, which he tapped at almost 28,000 feet underground in 1969. Four decades after its discovery, Madden is pumping out enough natural gas to rank as the state’s fifth-biggest producer, according to the Wyoming Oil and Gas Commission.
Deep Stuff
“Tex has always been very aggressive and willing to go after deals,” said A.V. Jones, owner of Van Operating Ltd., an Albany, Texas-based oil producer. “He’s been a leader as far as going after some of the deep stuff that takes real money to make it play.”
McMoRan said today that its Davy Jones well found additional hydrocarbon-bearing sands after drilling deeper following the discovery announced last week. The well was drilled to 28,603 feet, all but about 20 feet of that beneath the seafloor. It has found 200 net feet of productive sands and will go deeper, according to McMoRan.
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7 comments:
OIM,
Good find, and none too soon. I only wish we had a way to test for abiotic oil to shut up the peak oilers.
KV,
All oil is inorganic. It has been tested and it's a fact. No amount of evidence will shut up the peak oilers. Scientific evidence is irrelevant to them because it's a religion.
Thank you John A. Bailo. Yes, my hat's off to you for alerting OilIsMastery.
This is major confirmation of Abiotic Oil theory.
This fits Abiotic Oil theory in all respects and contradicts the "oil window" hypothesis in all respects.
Deep oil & gas below land and sea bottom.
KV: I have to agree with OilIsMastery, the people who cling to "peak" oil based on the "fossil" hypothesis do so not based on scientific evidence, but on ideology.
It's a litmus test: After studying the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting the reality of Abiotic Oil, if a person still maintains the belief in the discredited "fossil" hypothesis, you know they have no respect for scientific evidence and are captured and controlled by their ideology and their dogma.
It's that simple and that clear.
Thank goodness folks like William "Tex" Moncrief are only interested in finding and producing oil, not discredited ideology and dogma.
Finding oil deeper under exhausted oil fields is exactly as described by Nikolai Kudryavtsev:
"Kudryavtsev's Rule states that any region in which hydrocarbons are found at one level will also have hydrocarbons in large or small quantities at all levels down to and into the basement rock. Thus, where oil and gas deposits are found, there will often be coal seams above them. Gas is usually the deepest in the pattern, and can alternate with oil. All petroleum deposits have a capstone generally impermeable to carbon's upward migration, and this capstone leads to the accumulation of the hydrocarbon."
It would seem William "Tex" Moncrief has taken Kudryavtsev's Rule to heart and put his money where his mouth is -- and struck black gold.
Enough said.
Interesting speculation about Haiti is that it is "known" to contain more oil than Venezuala, hence the US interest in keeping out democracy and invading due to the earthquake.
It comes under the "keep it in the ground until the rest is depleted strategy". If I am too imaginative, I have some company....
Fungus FitzJuggler III:
Yes, there is every reason to suspect that Haiti could have substantial oil deposits off it shores within its territorial waters.
Why?
Because Haiti sits near a Transform Boundary tectonic plate region, one of the "cracks of the world" where oil is found in abundance in accordance with Abiotic Oil theory.
Funny, you should mention Venezuala because it also has a Transform Boundry meeting of two adjoining tectonic plates right below where its huge heavy oil deposits, laced with rare Earth metals like Vanadium which are rare in the adjoining shallow crust, is located...again, in accordance with Abiotic Oil theory.
Fungus FitzJuggler III, you are getting the hang of Abiotic Oil theory :-)
As for the speculated political mechanations, I don't know about that, obviously, Haiti is in desperate need of humanitarian aid and assistance.
Irrespective of the earthquake, Haiti, in any event, would need outside investment and technology to develop its oil deposits.
Yes, it sure has taken an imaginative turn, here :->
KV wanted a test.
Well, the depths below the sea bottom where the oil deposits are located far out from shore, off the coast of Brazil, well over a hundred miles offshore, and over 5,000 feet deep to the sea bottom from sea level, for some deposits and oil deposit temperatures around 500 degrees Fahrenheit, 260 degrees Celsius, sometimes deeper than 25,000 feet below the sea bottom, under a layer of salt over a kilometer thick, make the idea of millions of years ago, pre-historic, ancient "lakes" preposterous on its face.
(Go ahead, explain the geologics of that scenario.)
See Bloomberg, Brazil Oil Trapped by 500-Degree Heat, Salt Barrier (Update2) April 28, 2008.
But what of an idea closer to Tommy Gold's idea of micro-organisms converting abiotic methane to oil by their biological processes, whether as detritus or biological metabolism?
It doesn't work.
Not only is deep oil (over 25,00 feet) found without trace of organic detritus, but the environment at such depths and temperatures make the presence of miro-organisms very unlikely if not impossible.
Why?
Because the highest temperatures that micro-organisms have been found to survive is 113 degrees celsius.
"Cultivable microorganisms could not be demonstrated, possibly because of a too high temperature for life of the sampled fluids, which was 118 °C. So far, the highest culturing temperature for hyperthermophiles has not exceeded 113 °C."
(The quote above is from, The secrets of deep intra-terrestrial microbes.)
Remember, from above, the oil off the coast of Brazil has been found to be as high a temperature as 500 degrees Fahrenheit which converts to 260 degrees Celsius. Over twice as high a temperature as these "hyperthermophiles" have been found to survive in the deep Earth and under tremendous pressure to boot.
A close examination of the facts falsifies this "microbe" converts methane hypothesis.
There is your desired test.
Earth is an Abiotic Oil planet.
Remember that one reason the US is in Iraq and etc is because of the restrictions on oil drilling on the continental US by the Democrats and greens. Add Biotic oil-peak oil nonsense, and it's understandable why the US does what it does.
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