BP Makes "Giant" Oil Discovery In Gulf Of Mexico

(AP) BP PLC said Wednesday that it had made a "giant" oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico but had not yet determined the size and commercial potential of the find.

The well, in Keathley Canyon block 102 about 250 miles (400 kms) southeast of Houston, is in 4,132 feet (1,259 meters) of water, the company said.

The Tiber well was drilled to a total depth of 35,055 feet (10,685 meters), making it one of the deepest wells ever drilled by the oil and gas industry, BP said.

BP has a 62 percent interest in Tiber, while Petrobras holds 20 percent and ConocoPhillips has 18 percent.

BP shares were up 1.9 percent at 529.5 pence on the London Stock Exchange.

Comments

[MyTake]

I guess this means that BP will not be installing any hydrogen gas pumps on their service station lots any time soon!

Someone should tell the BP engineers that there is more renewable energy in a barrel of water than there is in a barrel of oil.

Oh, lost my head for a moment, BP took a ton of money from DOE in constructing a "greenie" power plant in CA just outside of one of their refineries. They are now going to cook the thick tarry petcoke to crack the hydrogen gas from it which will be used to power a electrical plant.

Yet that Chu Nobel guy took just 20 days to strip all DOE hydrogen fuel cell funding on behalf of the oil cartel. But the Senate got even with him by restoring the existing funding for hydrogen fuel cell projects but elevated the funding much more.

[HMDMSR]

The U.S. uses 20,000,000 barrels of oil a day. Do the math.

[bannorhill]

The math says we need to drill a lot more!!!!!!!!

[Playin Possum]

But there is lots of easy oil left!

Seven miles down... That's what passes for easy in America today.

Drill baby drill... In Sarah Palin's head. You won't have to drill quite so far...

[mrcontinental]

Solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal... we currently have the ability to harness and produce enough energy to last us for eons.

This is not about energy and the betterment of mankind, this is about control, money, and power. We don't need oil as a energy source any longer and could easily relegate in to the manufacturing sector for its by products use only.

And Peak oil is a convenient fairy tale to get you to pay handsomely for something that's being constantly generated deep within the earths core and to get you to turn your head while we "occupy" the locations where it's the easiest to extract from. Or do you really believe that there were dinosaurs living seven plus miles underground "billions and billions" of years ago and oil is their remains?

[knosiswar]

Brazil's Big Oil Find Challenges Peak Theory -also concludes with the belief that oil is to be discovered under the Dead Sea

http://chinaconfidential.blogspot.com/2007/11/brazils-big-oil-find-challenges-peak.html


Dead Sea Oil Discovery

http://www.peak-oil-news.info/dead-sea-oil-discovery/



Evangelical preachers claim that a giant oil find in Israel will usher in the end of days.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/01/let-there-be-light-crude

[alvdh1]

I can see from some of the comments below that a history lesson is in order.

Standard Oil Company was broken up into 32 companies 1991 as a result of U.S. Supreme Court imposing the Sherman Anti Trust Act on John. D. Rockafeller's Standard Oil Company. One of the new companies created was Amoco Oil. British Petroleum (BP) merged with Amoco Oil in 1998 as a first tier U.S. subsidiary and retained the BP name. This gave them controlling interest in the Alaska North Slope oil production. While the company is technically a British company, it operates under U.S. law and with its vast American operations that range from exploratio­n/producti­on to retail sales of gasoline. The oil produced from the Tiber field will likely be sent directly to the Houston petrochemi­cal/refini­ng complex to meet America's insatiable thrist for petroleum products.

[alvdh1]

should say: into 32 companies in 1911.

[einstein10]

Didn't John Swearingen, former Amoco Chairman, complain that the 'merger' didn't go as planned?
Many promises were made but control ended up in British hands?

[lizardbrain]

"Giant" yet undetermined size. The oil is nasty, no getting around it: http://www.dasolar.com/alternative-energy/crude-oil

[slowtono]

Yea we don't want this we want $80,000 aqua cars and $2.00 a gallon water till we are dry.

[BannedNBoston]

legislate that all oil from Alaska must come to the west coast.
build 2 huge underground refineries and the price of gas will come down
Canada just built a UG refinery.

[alvdh1]

It is estimated that the field contains approximately 3 billion barrels of oil. By 2020, BP expects peak production to reach 300,000 BPD. In contrast, Mexico's Cantarell super giant oil field contained 39 billion barrels of oil and peak production was achieved in 2005 at 2.2 million BPD. To put BP's discovery into persepctive, one should measure it in terms of world oil consumption- which is 35 days of supply at a world demand level of 85 million BPD. It is therefore, by itself, a drop in the bucket.

To illuminate how little this will do to enhance supplies, a careful look at what has happened to Cantarell since 2005 is necessary. To be blunt, production at Cantarell has fallen off a production cliff.
It began the year at 772,000 BPD and Pemex projected production to decline to 700,000 BPD by December. May production was at 604,000 BPD. This represents a decline of nearly 1.6 million BPD in less than four years. To make up for this loss in production, BP would have to find another 4.3 similar fields yielding 300,000 BPD assuming that Cantarell doesn't experience decline which it will.

The North Sea decline curve is in a similar condition as are other major oil fields around the globe. In fact, 54 of the 62 largest oil fields are in post peak production.

[leduck]

I could not have put it better myself.....
so i wont

[ice crystal]

Yup, just posted this information almost word for word on another site yesterday.

The key thing to realize is that we have found only 4 super-giant oil fields in the last 40 years, including Cantarell. That would be Cantarell, Sugar Loaf (off shore Brazil), Azadegan (Iran), and Kashagan (Kazakhstan - and this one is disputed as to size).

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_fields

[doodlebug2]

yes, but what are the flowrates of this field?
Isn't the Cantrell Field in the GOM in Mexican waters dieing? So this oil comes on line and Cantrell runs out? BFD

[TxAggie]

The Cantarell field in Mexico is a a Mexican field- Mexico gets the benefit of it,. The BP field is in US waters, the US taxpayer is the big beneficiary of the BP discovery. OIl and gas revenues is the #2 source of revenue to the US government. The Tiber discovery is a good thing for the US.

We will soon lose Mexico as a source of imported oil and natural gas because of their production woes. We need to drill more and find more domestic reserves from both an economic and security standpoint.

[RomeoMD25]

BP is one of the corporations that funds the climate bill

[ReedYoung]

Says you.

[rkimball]

thanks to usa policy to shut down offshore drilling the chinese & brits are laughing & smiling all the way to the bank.

[Raccoon1]

You may recall that the domestic oil companies somehow needed billions of dollars in subsidies from the US Govt (Bush administration) to survive. Really now, if they are that inept, why should they continue? Do we want to continue to pour money into these companies when they've shown that they can't survive on their own?

[TxAggie]

Are you referring to the tax treatment of oil companies (much of which has been effect for over 50 years) or the deepwater royalty relief act inacted by the Clinton administration. THe US oil industry is not inept, we lead the world in technology and know how. You might want to study a bit on the subject before you so wildly opine.

[doodlebug2]

chinese drilling is an urban myth.

[alvdh1]

Do you just make stuff up that sounds good or do you ever do any research to support your comments.

Go to google and type in: total chinese domestic oil production.

The first hit is Energy Information Agency (EIA). Click on the link and scroll down the page until you find the graph and paragraph that shows China's historical oil production­/consumpti­on. The most recent year of data is 2008. There, in big bold lines and words, you will find that their 2008 production was 4 MMBPD or in case you don't know how to read my description 4 million barrels per day. U.S. oil production is 8.7 MMBPD.

Wow !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can learn something everyday if you try. Please don't tell us you are making up stories like this to your kids.

[rkimball]

wrong. they are drilling right now in the safety of cuban waters. they are horizontal drilling in usa offshore fields.

[Musiker]

Yee-haw! Drill, baby, drill.

[talkinhedz]

The Question is..why are the so called "wise" and forward thinking EU companies drilling off of OUR Coasts? Ohh ya..I forgot..we are greedy Americans..and the wise and compassionate Europeans care so much more than we do? Ridiculous..next thing..they will be putting up BP or some other foreign rigs off the coast of Califorina..and then charging us double for our own oil? Change we can believe in?

[mjt218]

BP is a publicly traded company. So people from Britain own along with people from all over the world. BP America is the company's subsidiary in America that made this discovery and that employs tens of thousands of Americans directly, and multitudes more indirectly.

They pay the same taxes and royalties any US company pays (which also happen to be owned by people from all over the world).

[einstein10]

Isn't British Petroleum (BP) headquartered in London? Who are the major stockholders?

[talkinhedz]

thanks for the update..figures with all the multinational companies out there.

[metroretro]

Offshore leases are acquired in a bid process and joint ventures between American and foreign corporations are quite common.

[Raccoon1]

Why do US oil companies drill in other places around the world?

[TxAggie]

What do you think? Could it be perhaps that that is where mother nature put the reserves? Could it be that 95% of the American OCS is off limits to exploration along with 85% of the federal onshore? Could it be that increased fees, royalties, red tape, taxes and regulatory BS makes the US a not so attractive place to drill?