Saved by West Shetland

An analysis of the recent BBC TV program Crude Britannia: The Story of North Sea Oil Episode 3.

Features our man Colin Campbell (Peak Oil guru) who manages to say ~“change of historical magnitude”.

Intimates by stock footage of the late 1960's that we will all go back to doing the washing up...

Man from BP on great white hope of the West of Shetland area the 2005 Clair Field –BP ~“a giant field by world standards”.

'The world's 932 giant oil and gas fields are considered those with 500 million barrels of ultimately recoverable oil or gas equivalent.'
Source document

So one of 932 then ;¬).

Another definition is:

'There are two ways to define a giant oil field.
One is based on ultimately recoverable resources (URR), and the second is based on maximum oil production level.
The URR definition considers giants to have more than 0.5 Gb of ultimately recoverable resources. The production definition assumes a production of more than 100,000 barrels per day (b/d) for more than one year (Simmons, 2002).'

Just a plain old large oilfield then ;¬)


Man from BP again,~ “5 billion barrels in ground, 3 years later recovered less than 1%.”

'The Clair development is a phased one. Phase 1 has focused on the Core, Graben and Horst reservoir areas which have estimated oil in place of approximately 1.75 billion barrels, of which 250 million barrels can be recovered.
Initial production through the original appraisal well was brought online in February 2005. Production built up to a plateau of 50,000bpd in 2007.'
From the BP website accessed 04/07/09.

Large or ~'giant oilfields typically reach a plateau early and maintain it before declining relatively quickly'

Taking the 2007 production rate:

1.825 x 10-7 bp annum

18.25 million barrels a year or 7.3% of recoverable reserves.

So 11 more years at the plateau rate to exhaustion, taking the 2 years pre plateau production, the bell shaped production curve and guessing - 8 years to exhaustion or end of significant production.

The man from BP he say 1%, 1% of 1.75 Billion (1.75 x 10-9) is 17.5 million (1.75 x 10-7).
I say 7.3% from BPs own figures ;¬)

UK 2009 oil consumption is '1.704 x10-6 barrels per day'.

Conclusion

West Shetland can not produce enough oil to support a return to the groovy sixties.

BPs' wisdom surpasses human understanding.
Suggested new BP motto:
I'll wait in this place where the sun never shines;
Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves.