What are the scenarios for crude oil and natural gas endgame and what does it mean for production costs and environmental footprint ?

[Marcin + 519]

What are the scenarios for crude oil and natural gas endgame and what does it mean for production costs and environmental footprint ?

 

2018 global output was 4.5 billion tons of crude oil and 3,867 billion sqm of natural gas which is 3.3 billion tons of oil equivalent.

Proved reserves in 2018 were 244 billion tons of crude oil and 196 trillion sqm of natural gas which is about 160 billion tons of oil equivalent.

So proved reserves are more or less equal 50 years of 2018 output.

I understand that new discoveries could be made.

 

I do not want to predict or discuss at what moment in time global reserves of oil & gas will be significantly depleted.

 

The topic is what processes/changes will be in place when this moment will come ?

 

First scenario:

With gradual depletion of cheaper reserves of hydrocarbons, increasing share of crude oil and natural gas output will come from more expensive sources like:

1. heavy oil Orinoco basin,

2. Canadian oil sands,

3. Shale oil and gas

4. Coal Gasification processes (Coal to syn gas/natural gas)

5. Coal-to-Liquids processes (Coal to crude oil/gasoline/diesel oil)

 

Other sources of hydrocarbons ?

 

I have found limited sources claiming production costs of processes 4. & 5. inChina at equivalent of 80 USD per barrel but have not found information about environmental footprint which is probably huge, relatively much higher than burning coal for electricity. They use 3 tons of coal for 1 ton of hydrocarbons.

 

So have nothing on cost & footprint of 1 and very limited on 4&5.

 

I think sources 4&5 will be used more extensively only after 1-3 are significantly depleted.

 

I do not  want to trash discussion talking about political considerations (US control of Canada or present battle over control of Venezuela between US and Russia/China).

 

Assume we have market access to all global resources.

 

Because:

For 135 years there was no significant breakthrough in transport – still internal combustion engines make for majority of global  transport effort.

For 70 years there was no significant breakthrough in baseload power generation and industrial power storage. Societies are afraid of nuclear power. Assume fossil fuels are major source of electricity.

 

Assume no technological breakthrough in hydrocarbons usage in transport & electricity generation

 

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

Well, generally there will not be an oil and gas endgame, is extremely unlikely, the reason is mainly because there's lot of it

The estimated reserves are generally classified as economically recoverable conventional reserves with current technology, as technology improves reserves are likely going to be bigger.

The Orinoco and Athabasca oil sands don't have 220 and 180 billion barrels of oil, they have 1.2 and 1.8 Trillion barrels, is just that is hard to recover, the same happens with Shales and with Coal

The oil reserves in the USA are technically tight oil not oil shale, even that it amounts to 656 billion barrels, if somebody managed to crack the process of converting all of the Kerogen in the Shale into oil and gas, then the oil reserves of the USA would be in the Trillions of barrels with a capital "T"

Another example is Argentina more specifically the Dead Cow, The "Vaca Muerta" shale basin has around 252 billion barrels of oil that is currently recoverable with actual commercially available technology, but the total hydrocarbon content in place is more like 3.6 trillion tons which is more or less 25 trillion barrels, is just that is contained in a viscous structure that doesn't flow in the first place, and to extract it one would have to inject CO2 at 600 Bars of pressure or more and heating it over 500°C of temperature.

There's a funny thing about coal, there's more than is realized, is just hard to recover because is most likely over 4000 meters depth, the USA coal reserves are not 254 billion tons but more like 3.8 trillion tons, is just that as i said before is likely very deep and that makes somewhat uneconomical to mine it.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Sebastian Meana

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,133]

NIT: Australia has just as much Kerogen as the USA.  Trillions of tons.  Was being actively mined in WWII and powered/helped the USN/RN across the pacific...

I would be shocked if there are not massive kerogen etc reserves in Africa/Asia/S. America.  It is just that the USA/Europe have been most extensively prospected before we start talking the middle east and the giant Kerogen formations in Israel/Jordan/Syria and Iraq which we have no idea how large they actually are other than(extremely large... trillions of barrels)

Heck, even here in the the most prospected area of the world USA, Utah, Arizona, Nevada have essentially been completely ignored for exploration other than very shallow formations due to their isolation.