Sustainable oil?
 

Posted: May 25, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

• Methane (CH4) is a common molecule found in quantity throughout our solar system – huge concentrations exist at great depth in the Earth.

   

• At the mantle-crust interface, roughly 20,000 feet beneath the surface, rapidly rising streams of compressed methane-based gasses hit pockets of high temperature causing the condensation of heavier hydrocarbons. The product of this condensation is commonly known as crude oil.

   

• Some compressed methane-based gasses migrate into pockets and reservoirs we extract as "natural gas."

   

• In the geologically "cooler," more tectonically stable regions around the globe, the crude oil pools into reservoirs.

   

• In the "hotter," more volcanic and tectonically active areas, the oil and natural gas continue to condense and eventually to oxidize, producing carbon dioxide and steam, which exits from active volcanoes.

   

• Periodically, depending on variations of geology and Earth movement, oil seeps to the surface in quantity, creating the vast oil-sand deposits of Canada and Venezuela, or the continual seeps found beneath the Gulf of Mexico and Uzbekistan.

   

• Periodically, depending on variations of geology, the vast, deep pools of oil break free and replenish existing known reserves of oil.

   

Federal Triangle: Petroleum—A Renewable Resource?
By Barry Ashby




It seems many geologists are being petty, arguing over facts that have yet to yield answers about crude oil. The mid July 04 Hedberg Conference by American Association of Petroleum Geologists again discussed biogenic versus abiotic origins of hydrocarbons, an interesting and very significant industrial issue. At current rates of world consumption (over 26 billion barrels a year) and with 80% coming from fields discovered before 1973, end of supply is always a concern because proven reserves are only 1,213 billion barrels, 75% of which is in 370 fields worldwide. It is projected that production rates will peak in 2037 unless new reserves are found and sharply decline thereafter.

Then along comes Dr. Thomas Gold, professor emeritus at Cornell and an astronomer no less, who says not to worry. Petroleum is a renewable resource made deep in the earth by inorganic processes (abiotic — an idea first proposed by Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov in 1757 who called it “rock oil”) and does not come from piles of dead dinosaurs and fermenting leaves (biogenic). The conventional wisdom of petroleum geologists has been offended and most of them are steamed.

Crude oil is a primordial soup but not of biologic origin, says Dr. Gold, forming under great heat and pressure in the deep biosphere and hydrocarbons we now know are common on planetary bodies. The abiotic theory is that methane, the simplest carbon molecule (CH4) we call natural gas, is formed from carbonate rocks and water at depths of 5 to 20 miles, at pressures of 30 to 45 kilobars (441 to 662 ksi), and temperatures approaching 800˚C (1470˚F). Then the methane condenses into heavier hydrocarbons we call petroleum, collecting in subterranean pools. Most geologists agree so far; you can make oil artificially with these conditions. However the abiotic theory as a natural event is different, supported by these facts:


High oil quantities are found in locations where assays of prehistoric life are not sufficient to have produced the existing reserve.

Oil produced from varying depths from the same field has the same chemistry and does not vary as the fossil life changes with depth at these same spots.

Every oil field outgases helium, which does not appear in meaningful quantity in any other venue, and is a thoroughly stable, inorganic gas that is a product of radiologic decay of rocks appearing at great depths within the Earth mantle.

The abiotic theory is rejected by geologists who cite these facts:


Commercial oil fields produce a low content of C-13 isotope in molecules because plant life has available and absorbs the common C-12 isotope; deposits of deep methane have a higher content of the less common (1% of all carbon) C-13 atom.

Petroleum deposits occur mainly in horizontal, near-surface reservoirs.
Actually, it may well be that both protagonists for their cause (antagonists if you prefer) have strength in their arguments. It is known that hydrocarbons migrate within the Earth’s crust as witnessed by production at Eugene Island in the Gulf of Mexico 80 miles south of Louisiana. In 1973 when discovered, it produced 15,000 bpd but dwindled to 4,000 bpd by 1989. Inexplicably it resumed output to 13,000 bpd but has confounded geologists because current production is of a significantly different (newer) geologic age than yesteryear. Abiogenic proponents say it is being refilled from beneath the formation and that as oil migrates upward; it is attacked by bacteria that alter its appearance. It is known that such bacteria (hyperthermophiles) live at great depths, recorded in Alaska at 4.2 km and in Sweden at 5.2 km (2.6 and 3.2 miles) below the surface.

There has been a long history of this argument. Mendeleyev, who discovered the Periodic table, said in 1870 the same thing offered in 1962 by Sir Robert Robinson of Britain’s Royal Society that “petroleum is a primordial hydrocarbon to which biological products have been added.” That’s quite similar to what Dr. Gold is touting and is of enormous importance due to geopolitics and economic impacts of the highly inelastic supply and demand system existing in the world. If abiotic petroleum formation is true, how much reserve really exists on Earth, and more importantly, is human consumption depleting supply faster than replenishment?


It will be interesting to hear what the Hedberg Conference determined, if any conclusions emerge. It might also be appropriate to remember the adage—actually the warning—my father taught me: “It’s the things we know for certain that just ain’t so.”


Barry Ashby - Washington Editor, Industrial Heating

Science Frontiers
ONLINE
No. 124: Jul-Aug 1999
 

Wall Street Journal Article  About The Origins Of Crude Oil

Odd Reservoir Off Louisiana Prods
Oil Experts to Seek a Deeper Meaning

By CHRISTOPHER COOPER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

April 16, 1999

HOUSTON -- Something mysterious is going on at Eugene Island 330.

Production at the oil field, deep in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana, was supposed to have declined years ago. And for a while, it behaved like any normal field: Following its 1973 discovery, Eugene Island 330's output peaked at about 15,000 barrels a day. By 1989, production had slowed to about 4,000 barrels a day.

Then suddenly -- some say almost inexplicably -- Eugene Island's fortunes reversed. The field, operated by PennzEnergy Co., is now producing 13,000 barrels a day, and probable reserves have rocketed to more than 400 million barrels from 60 million. Stranger still, scientists studying the field say the crude coming out of the pipe is of a geological age quite different from the oil that gushed 10 years ago.

Fill 'er Up

All of which has led some scientists to a radical theory: Eugene Island is rapidly refilling itself, perhaps from some continuous source miles below the Earth's surface. That, they say, raises the tantalizing possibility that oil may not be the limited resource it is assumed to be.

"It kind of blew me away," says Jean Whelan, a geochemist and senior researcher from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. Connected to Woods Hole since 1973, Dr. Whelan says she considered herself a traditional thinker until she encountered the phenomenon in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, she says, "I believe there is a huge system of oil just migrating" deep underground.

Conventional wisdom says the world's supply of oil is finite, and that it was deposited in horizontal reservoirs near the surface in a process that took millions of years. Since the economies of entire countries ride on the fundamental notion that oil reserves are exhaustible, any contrary evidence "would change the way people see the game, turn the world view upside down," says Daniel Yergin, a petroleum futurist and industry consultant in Cambridge, Mass. "Oil and renewable resource are not words that often appear in the same sentence."

Mideast Mystery

Doomsayers to the contrary, the world contains far more recoverable oil than was believed even 20 years ago. Between 1976 and 1996, estimated global oil reserves grew 72%, to 1.04 trillion barrels. Much of that growth came in the past 10 years, with the introduction of computers to the oil patch, which made drilling for oil more predictable.

Still, most geologists are hard-pressed to explain why the world's greatest oil pool, the Middle East, has more than doubled its reserves in the past 20 years, despite half a century of intense exploitation and relatively few new discoveries. It would take a pretty big pile of dead dinosaurs and prehistoric plants to account for the estimated 660 billion barrels of oil in the region, notes Norman Hyne, a professor at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. "Off-the-wall theories often turn out to be right," he says.

Even some of the most staid U.S. oil companies find the Eugene Island discoveries intriguing. "These reservoirs are refilling with oil," acknowledges David Sibley, a Chevron Corp. geologist who has monitored the work at Eugene Island.

Mr. Sibley cautions, however, that much research remains to be done on the source of that oil. "At this point, it's not black and white. It's gray," he says.

Although the world has been drilling for oil for generations, little is known about the nature of the resource or the underground activities that led to its creation. And because even conservative estimates say known oil reserves will last 40 years or more, most big oil companies haven't concerned themselves much with hunting for deep sources like the reservoirs scientists believe may exist under Eugene Island.

Economics never hindered the theorists, however. One, Thomas Gold, a respected astronomer and professor emeritus at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., has held for years that oil is actually a renewable, primordial syrup continually manufactured by the Earth under ultrahot conditions and tremendous pressures. As this substance migrates toward the surface, it is attacked by bacteria, making it appear to have an organic origin dating back to the dinosaurs, he says.

While many scientists discount Prof. Gold's theory as unproved, "it made a believer out of me," says Robert Hefner, chairman of Seven Seas Petroleum Inc., a Houston firm that specializes in ultradeep drilling and has worked with the professor on his experiments. Seven Seas continues to use "conventional" methods in seeking reserves, though the halls of the company often ring with dissent. "My boss and I yell at each other all the time about these theories," says Russ Cunningham, a geologist and exploration manager for Seven Seas who isn't sold on Prof. Gold's ideas.

Energy Vacuum

Knowing that clever theories don't fill the gas tank, Roger Anderson, an oceanographer and executive director of Columbia University's Energy Research Center in New York, proposed studying the behavior of oil in a reservoir in hopes of finding a new way to help companies vacuum up what their drilling was leaving behind.

He focused on Eugene Island, a kidney-shaped subsurface mountain that slopes steeply into the Gulf depths. About 80 miles off the Louisiana coast, the underwater landscape surrounding Eugene Island is otherworldly, cut with deep fissures and faults that spontaneously belch gas and oil. In 1985, as he stood on the deck of a shrimp boat towing an oil-sniffing contraption through the area, Dr. Anderson pondered Eugene Island's strange history. "Migrating oil and anomalous production. I sort of linked the two ideas together," he says.

Five years later, the U.S. Department of Energy ponied up $10 million to investigate the Eugene Island geologic formation, and especially the oddly behaving field at its crest. A consortium of companies leasing chunks of the formation, including such giants as Chevron, Exxon Corp. and Texaco Corp., matched the federal grant.

Time and Space

The Eugene Island researchers began their investigation about the same time that 3-D seismic technology was introduced to the oil business, allowing geologists to see promising reservoirs as a cavern in the ground rather than as a line on a piece of paper.

Taking the technology one step further, Dr. Anderson used a powerful computer to stack 3-D images of Eugene Island on top of one another. That resulted in a 4-D image, showing not only the reservoir in three spatial dimensions, but showing also the movement of its contents over time as PennzEnergy siphoned out oil.

What Dr. Anderson noticed as he played his time-lapse model was how much oil PennzEnergy had missed over the years. The remaining crude, surrounded by water and wobbling like giant globs of Jell-O in the computer model, gave PennzEnergy new targets as it reworked Eugene Island.

What captivated scientists, though, was a deep fault in the bottom corner of the computer scan that was gushing oil like a garden hose. "We could see the stream," Dr. Anderson says. "It wasn't even debated that it was happening."

Woods Hole's Dr. Whelan, invited by Dr. Anderson to join the Eugene Island investigation, postulated that superheated methane gas -- a compound that is able to absorb vast amounts of oil -- was carrying crude from a deep source below. The age of the crude pushed through the stream, and its hotter temperature helped support that theory. The scientists decided to drill into the fault.

Unlucky Strike

As prospectors, the scientists were fairly lucky. As researchers they weren't. The first well they drilled hit natural gas, a pocket so pressurized "that it scared us," Dr. Anderson says; that well is still producing. The second stab, however, collapsed the fault. "Some oil flowed. I have 15 gallons of it in my closet," Dr. Anderson says. But it wasn't successful enough to advance Dr. Whelan's theory.

A third well was drilled at a spot on an adjacent lease, where the fault disappeared from seismic view. The researchers missed the stream but hit a fair-size reservoir, one that is still producing.

It was here, in 1995, that the scientists ran out of grant money and PennzEnergy lost interest in continuing. "I'm not discounting the possibility that there is oil moving into these reservoirs," says William Van Wie, a PennzEnergy senior vice president. "I question only the rate."

Dr. Whelan hasn't lost interest, however, and is seeking to investigate further the mysterious vents and seeps. While industry geologists have generally assumed such eruptions are merely cracks in a shallow oil reservoir, they aren't sure. Noting that many of the seeps are occurring in deep water, rather than in the relative shallows of the continental shelf, Dr. Whelan wonders if they may link a deeper source.

This summer, a tiny submarine chartered by a Louisiana State University researcher will attempt to install a series of measuring devices on vents near the Eugene Island property. Dr. Whelan hopes this will give her some idea of how quickly Eugene Island is refilling. "We need to know if we're talking years or if we're talking hundreds of thousands of years," she says.

Yours in Yahshua, Hawke

©  Truth on the Net Dot Com 2005