Ireland's oil reserves - the truth

RichardAnd

BEfore I start let me just say that this isn't one of the many threads that is written by someone who believes there are billions upon billions of barrels of oil off the west coast. Nay, rather I wish to know just what the truth of the matter is in relation to oil reserves.

I know that there is supposed to be SOME oil within irish territory but it's also my understanding that the actual amount is wildly exaggerated. What I have heard touted by leaflets and posters is that the sum of this oil is something in the region of half a trillion euros. Granted, even if it were true, the oil would be deep underground and not worth a cent whilst it's there. Thus, can anyone tell me what the truth behind these rather audacious claims might be?

The reason I thought of this is because I over heard two old women talking about this on the dart yesterday evening. The spoke of the matter as if there was a huge stash of money off the west coast just waiting to be picked up but we couldn't take it because FF squandered our right to or some such.

It kind of got me thinking, on a lighter side of things, as to what it would be like if ireland suddenly had 500billion euro magicked into it's bank account. I suppose we could pay off the debts but as for the left overs, most likely we'd p!ss it against the wall and be right back to the start again.

Joey the lips

Funny your thinking of that I always wondered the same. I read an article published by Sinn Fein of all groups that describes ireland as having one of the biggest areas of sea area in europe. They go on to argue that while it is accepted we cannot free it ourselves. It would make more sense to auction it off at a rate acceptable to us. After all its an asset that can only appreciate in time.

I also read an article that an exploriation company increased its stake in an oil field beside kinsale head. Cant remember its name but my feeling is its only doing this if its going to profit

So yes I would love to know how much oil and gas we have.

How much is in "Shallow water" and how much is in "deep water"

Amhran Nua

I asked the very same thing of an extremely vocal Shell to Sea poster in AH, and all I got was misdirection (which they were called on) fake links (more of the same) and a refusal to answer the question directly. This is all on the record, anyone can check it. So if there are geologist's reports or surveys of any kind that indicate massive oil reserves, can someone provide a link, phone number or name we can use to ascertain this?

Sonovagun

It's for this exact reason i am going to Oil Drilling classes! In 2 years i'll be the only oil drilling in the country!

liammur

There is quite an amount of oil out there, but huge costs associated with it, for instance, shell has spent €1bn already. There are good websites with figures, but needless to say, these are all estimates.

ei.sdraob

Never mind the oil people, there's probably aint much available at extractable levels, if there where the companies be here now pumping it, hell the go drilling few KM in the gulf for the stuff

what is interesting is how much of this stuff frozen methane might be under our seas, apparently it occurs almost all deep locations

edit: it would actually be good for the environment if we extract and burn this methane (gas), since methane is 40x more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 and when it burns it releases CO2, so its a win win

robbyvibes

NEG

Energy invested Vs Profits made

If it costs more to extract oil from the irish seabed than is returned in the sale of that oil, it makes no sense to extract it.

Joey the lips

http://www.offshore-technology.com/features/feature40941/


10 Billion barrels of oil estimated of low sulphar grade(easy refinement)

I now need to go and find out how much is 10 billion in terms of lasting how long...


App the US uses 20 million barrels of oil a day...So 10 Billion would last the us 2500 days which is just under 7 years.....

Is my math correct.....

astrofool

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Never mind the oil people, there's probably aint much available at extractable levels, if there where the companies be here now pumping it, hell the go drilling few KM in the gulf for the stuff

what is interesting is how much of this stuff frozen methane might be under our seas, apparently it occurs almost all deep locations

edit: it would actually be good for the environment if we extract and burn this methane (gas), since methane is 40x more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 and when it burns it releases CO2, so its a win win

I don't think the methane burning bit is true. While under the ground, it's doing no harm (just as oil would), by burning it we're then causing damage via the co2 emmission (but better than just releasing it straight into the air, as you said).

ei.sdraob

astrofool wrote: »

I don't think the methane burning bit is true. While under the ground, it's doing no harm (just as oil would), by burning it we're then causing damage via the co2 emmission (but better than just releasing it straight into the air, as you said).

Its not underground but on the seafloor in layers

and its going into athmosphere as seas warm, extracting and burning would provide fuel and be actually good for the environment, last thing you want is the oceans to fart and cause problems for us pesky humans

Der Spiegel had an interesting article

notice the large blobs of the stuff in seas outside Ireland

Qwert1

If Ireland suddenly had 500 billion euros it would probably be a bad thing, i think we've proven we can't be trusted with money and we'd surely screw it up somehow.

Scofflaw

We do seem to be here regularly...the problem with the estimates is that they're estimates. At that, they're "guesstimates" - figures put together on the basis of extremely limited knowledge, because the sea floor area is huge and the exploration has been minimal.

If you want to take the rosiest possible estimate, you can point out that certain of the oil-bearing formations and structures from the Northern North Sea appear to continue into Ireland's western offshore, and you can base your estimate on the assumption that they are the same structures, and likely to contain similar levels of oil. This is the way we get estimates of 10 billion barrels of oil and the like - and such estimates are regularly published by the Petroleum Affairs Division, particularly in advance of a licensing round, in order to drum up interest.

The problem is that what's actually been found is (a) pretty small and (b) almost entirely gas. I would recommend reading this article by Pat Shannon at UCD's Geology Department - it's worth pointing out, though, that Pat has always been a firmly optimistic believer in the potential of the Irish offshore, and that much of the interest in the Irish offshore was sparked by his work in the Eighties (esp Naylor & Shannon 1984).

Some notable points from the article:

Finally, in order to locate oil or gas deep exploration wells must be drilled. Unfortunately, there are no certain ways of knowing if oil fields are likely to be present without drilling and generally only 10 per cent of wells drilled will encounter significant amounts of oil or gas. Having located an oil or gas field, normally several kilometres beneath the seabed, further wells are needed to delineate the extent of the discovery and to decide if it is commercially viable.

Drilling in the deep waters of the Atlantic is very expensive. It takes 2-3 months to drill most deep wells and the cost of hiring one of the few rigs capable of drilling in such deep-water, environmentally-hostile conditions, is currently running at roughly $500,000 a day!

North Celtic Sea and Fastnet basins: These lie to the south of Ireland, in relatively shallow waters. A considerable number of wells (over 100) have been drilled since exploration drilling first started offshore Ireland in 1969. Overall exploration results have been disappointing.

Porcupine Basin: This is a large basin in deep water (500m to 2,500m plus), in an environmentally harsh setting on the Atlantic margin, approximately 250km west of Ireland. Only 30 wells have been drilled to date. Four produced oil or gas, but none commercially. All appear to be structurally complex but do demonstrate the presence of the necessary ingredients for a petroleum system.

The largest of these is the Connemara oil accumulation, but despite attempts over 25 year, its complex geology has proved commercially unviable. The published estimates of oil in place in the field are in the region 120-200 million barrels. However, other potential reservoirs within the basin means that it contains significant potential, mainly in the very deep-water unexplored south.

Slyne and Erris basins: Two narrow, structurally-linked basins that lie to the west of Sligo, Mayo and Donegal. Water depths are significantly shallower than in the Porcupine Basin. Some 10 wells have been drilled.

In 1996 the Corrib gas field was discovered in the Slyne Basin, approximately 70 km west of Co Mayo. The gas-bearing structure is at a depth of roughly 3,500m and lies in a water depth of 335m. It is a medium-sized gasfield, probably a bit smaller than the Kinsale Head gasfield, and is likely to contain something of the order of 1 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas.

There are a number of other structures that look broadly similar to the Corrib gas field structures. Some have been drilled and contain no hydrocarbons but others are undrilled and hold potential.

In short, some gas - mostly in the Celtic Sea to the south east rather than in the west - and some sub-commercial oil finds in chopped-up reservoirs.

The essential problem is that Irish geology is very small scale and highly faulted. In Saudi Arabia, if you find an oil-bearing rock at 300m dipping 1cm east every km, then 500km east, you'll find it at 350m give or take a few cm. In Ireland, if you go 50km from the Burren limestone, you're in granite.

That complexity, and therefore the likely small sizes of reservoirs and the probability of petroleum escape through fractures, appears to continue into the Irish western offshore.

cordially,
Scofflaw

silverharp

Have to say that the ultra deep experemental drilling, like what is happening off the coast of Brazil wouldnt be happening if there was easy to get oil of the Irish coast.

Also oil doesnt really have a future, there will have to be a transition over the next 30 to 40 years to nuclear electric and the rest. Cant see any significant Irish oil business in the meantime, so why obsess about it?

Sponge Bob

It may become economic to extract in 20 or 30 years , till then no.

kirving

I had written out another post but accidently closed IE before I posted it, basically...

From figures I looked up online(admittedly Wikipedia and a few other sites which I couldnt guarantee the accuract of), the Corrib Gas Field makes up about 8% of the total gas available off the Irish coastline.

Using the current price charged by Bord Gais for Gas, and the estimated amount of recoverable gas present, the Corrib Gas was worth something like €7.5bn AFAIR, definately less than €10bn.

So,

GAS
€7.5bn*12.5 = 100% of Gas = €93.75bn Approx (I'll do it out properly later!)

OIL

176 million barrels * ~€70 per Barrel = €12.32bn Approx.



So, unless I'm WAY off the mark(I probably am!), €110bn total, profits, and thats before you have to extract all of it.

Nehaxak

Was watching a programme on BBC iplayer last night, one part of it went into oil exploration and the fact the majority of oil companies first search for salt deposits and then oil, as one seems to follow the other with a chance that the oil fields lie below the salt layers, which will break through (or can be forced to do so) and into those salt layers - making the drilling for oil easier, less expensive and with a higher chance of success.
Anyway, there were no such deposits of salt around Ireland so little chance of easily striking black gold and hard for exploration companies to take significant risks to explore outside of what they're used to doing (ie., searching for salt deposits first).

I have always however found it strange that both Ireland and Scotland are not well known for large rare mineral or oil deposits, given both countries emerged together (or broke away even) from the African continent originally.

Scofflaw

Kevin Irving wrote: »

I had written out another post but accidently closed IE before I posted it, basically...

From figures I looked up online(admittedly Wikipedia and a few other sites which I couldnt guarantee the accuract of), the Corrib Gas Field makes up about 8% of the total gas available off the Irish coastline.

Using the current price charged by Bord Gais for Gas, and the estimated amount of recoverable gas present, the Corrib Gas was worth something like €7.5bn AFAIR, definately less than €10bn.

So,

GAS
€7.5bn*12.5 = 100% of Gas = €93.75bn Approx (I'll do it out properly later!)

OIL

176 million barrels * ~€70 per Barrel = €12.32bn Approx.



So, unless I'm WAY off the mark(I probably am!), €110bn total, profits, and thats before you have to extract all of it.

More €110bn gross, before extraction and other costs. However, the East Irish Sea Basin you're taking figures from is in UK waters, not Irish waters:



We currently have no economic oil reservoirs at all. We have the Helvick field (12m barrels, €840m, recoverability uncertain), which is currently regarded as uneconomic, but which Tony O'Reilly's Providence Oil is trialling an experimental recovery system on. There are reservoirs off the west coast, but they're all too small to be economic.

Proven gas reserves in Ireland are c. 30bcm, which is basically Corrib (c.25 bcm) and the remains of Kinsale (taking in Kinsale's satellite fields at Ballycotton etc).

cordially,
Scofflaw

Iorras55

Sponge Bob wrote: »

It may become economic to extract in 20 or 30 years , till then no.

And, we will need fossil fuel reserves at a future time in order to get sustainable projects up and running, so it is a nonsense to keep taking them now and burning them to make steam to generate electricity. In other words, use, use, use until there are none of these finite resources left and the transition to sustainable energy generation will not be able to be made.

edit: it would actually be good for the environment if we extract and burn this methane (gas), since methane is 40x more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 and when it burns it releases CO2, so its a win win

ridiculous statement! I know what you're saying - I too have seen the footage of Siberian ice covered areas where the gas is seeping through from below and the film crew is able to set fire to it on the surface. Do you not put two and two together and see that humans have also removed vast swathes of jungle and trees from the earth's surface. Humans cannot breathe CO2. We need plants to do it for us and then put out oxygen in exchange. It's not good enough for you to plant a tree. You need to put your efforts into ensuring sustainable policies are implemented world wide and the earth's lungs are not removed for human greed as they currently are being at an unsustainable rate. Nature is much better at manipulating itself than man can ever be at manipulating nature.

I asked the very same thing of an extremely vocal Shell to Sea poster in AH, and all I got was misdirection (which they were called on) fake links (more of the same) and a refusal to answer the question directly. This is all on the record, anyone can check it. So if there are geologist's reports or surveys of any kind that indicate massive oil reserves, can someone provide a link, phone number or name we can use to ascertain this?

Probably me? Even though I am not, Shell to Sea - where did you get that from??? - are local people not allowed to have a say? You got no fake links. What was your direct question? If its about oil reserves or gas reserves then I really have no interest. If its about profitability margins or other such rubbish, I have no interest. Am I required to be a qualified geologist and expert on fiscal economics on everything you ask or what? I am however, very concerned about the Irish government's utter and stupid reliance on FDI and on foreign multi-national corporations, and fraudulent FDI, about its harbouring of global economic criminals, its abuse of the people whilst pretending to protect them, its misuse of funds, its greed, its corruptness, its cronyism........need I go on?

Brussels Sprout

Interesting article in today's paper:

Twelve international oil companies have expressed interest in buying into the Barryroe oil field, off the Cork coast.

Providence Resources — which currently holds an 80% stake in Barryroe (with Lansdowne Oil & Gas controlling the remainder) — has long-since stated its aim to find a farm-out partner to buy into the project and carry the development costs. Depending on the offers, the Dublin-based company could lower its stakeholding by as much as half.

Coinciding with its interim results, Providence said yesterday interest levels have been high, “with approximately a dozen companies having reviewed the data”.

It said those interested form a good cross section of leading exploration and production companies, adding that discussions are “ongoing” with the company working to conclude discussions “over the coming months”.

“As planned, we are now actively engaged in a farm-out process, which involves bringing in a suitably qualified partner to advance the project from development to first oil.

“The company is very pleased with the level of international industry interest in Barryroe”, Providence’s CEO, Tony O’Reilly Jnr noted.

With an estimated 1bn-1.6bn barrels of oil in place and 300m barrels of recoverable oil; Barryroe is being tipped to become Ireland’s first commercial oil field within the next four years or so.

Meanwhile, Providence yesterday reported a profit of €1.33m for the first six months of this year. That figure was driven by the sale of its onshore UK assets earlier this year. Excluding that, the company made an underlying pre-tax loss of just over €3.5m; although this was down from a loss before tax of €6.3m for the first half of last year.

Providence said preparatory work is continuing on the remaining four wells of its multi-basin offshore Ireland drilling programme, with the Cairn Energy-operated Spanish Point appraisal well, off the west coast, to be drilled in the second quarter of next year.

link