Reserve growth

This study assesses the threat that depletion poses to the availability of petroleum resources. It does so by estimating cumulative availability curves for conventional petroleum (oil, gas, and natural gas liquids) and for three unconventional sources of liquids (heavy oil, oil sands, and oil shale). The analysis extends the important study conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (2000) on this topic by taking account of (1) conventional petroleum resources from provinces not assessed by the Survey or other organizations, (2) future reserve growth, (3) unconventional sources of liquids, and (4) production costs. The results indicate that large quantities of conventional and unconventional petroleum resources are available and can be produced at costs substantially below current market prices of around US$120 per barrel. These findings suggest that petroleum resources are likely to last far longer than many are now predicting and that depletion need not drive market prices above the relatively high levels prevailing over the past several years.

Published in: Energy Journal, Volume 30, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 141-174
Available from: The Energy Journal

Although reserve (or field) growth has proved to be an important contributing factor in adding new reserves in mature petroleum basins, it is a poorly understood phenomenon. Although several papers have been published on the U.S. fields, there are only a few publications on fields in other petroleum provinces. This paper explores the reserve growth in the 42 largest West Siberian oil fields that contain about 55% of the basin’s total oil reserves.

The West Siberian oil fields show 13-fold reserve growth 20 years after the discovery year and only about 2-fold growth after the first production year. This difference in growth is attributed to extensive exploration and field delineation activities between discovery and the first production year. Because of the uncertainty in the length of evaluation time and in reported reserves during this initial period, reserve growth based on the first production year is more reliable for model development. However, reserve growth models based both on discovery year and first production year show rapid growth in the first few years and slower growth in the following years. In contrast, the reserve growth patterns for the conterminous United States and offshore Gulf of Mexico show a steady reserve increase throughout the productive lives of the fields. The different reserve booking requirements and the lack of capital investment for improved reservoir management and production technologies in West Siberia are the probable causes for the difference in the growth patterns.

The models based on the first production year predict that the reserve growth potential in the 42 largest oil fields ofWest Siberia for a five-year period (1998–2003) ranges from 270–330 million barrels or 0.34–0.42% per year. For a similar five-year period (1996–2001), models for the conterminous United States predict a growth of 0.54–0.75% per year.

Published in: Natural Resources Research, Volume 12, Issue 2, Pages 105-119
Available from: SpringerLink