"Show Me the Oil!"
In the last few months, I've seen a significant uptick in the number of emails asking me about the "abiotic oil" theory of oil formation. Although I cover the theory on the second page of this site, I suspect many people overlook it due to the volume of information presented on the two main pages of this site.
I believe in neither the "fossil fuel" or "abiotic" theory of oil formation. I hang my hat on the "show me the oil" theory. According to this theory, it matters not how oil is formed. What matters is whether oil fields are refilling themselves at a rate fast enough to prevent them from being depleted.
Abiotic oil advocates typically offer the "mysterious Eugene Island 330" as proof that fields refill themsevles via the abiotic process. For instance, abiotic oil advocates Alex Jones and Paul Watson write:
Eugene Island is an oil field in the gulf of Mexico, 80 miles off
the coast of Louisiana. It was discovered in 1973 and began
producing 15,000 barrels of oil a day which then slowed to
about 4,000 barrels in 1989.
But then for no logical reason whatsoever, production spiked
back up to 13,000 barrels a day.
What the researchers found when they analyzed the oil field
with time lapse 3-D seismic imaging is that there was an
unexplained deep fault in the bottom corner of the computer
scan, which showed oil gushing in from a previously unknown
deep source and migrating up through the rock to replenish
the existing supply.
Furthermore, the analysis of the oil now being produced at
Eugene Island shows that its age is geologically different
from the oil produced there after the refinery first opened.
Suggesting strongly that it is now emerging from a different,
unexplained source.
The last estimates of probable reserves shot up from 60
million barrels to 400 million barrels.
Mr. Jones and Mr. Watson reseach skills could use a bit of work. They wrote the above quoted article in 2005, a full 9 years after Eugene Island had already gone back into terminal decline! Had Jones and Watson wanted to find this information, a google search or two for "abiotic oil" would have turned it up for them just as it did for me.
Proffesor Richard Heinberg explains the history of Eugene Island 330's oil production:
Production from Eugene Island had achieved 20,000 barrels
per day by 1989; by 1992 it had slipped to 15,000 b/d, but
recovered to reach a peak of 30,000 b/d in 1996. Production
from the reservoir has dropped steadily since then.
For the sake of argument, let's pretend the above graph does not exist. While we'll playing make believe, let's also pretend:
1.Eugene Island's production is still going up.
2.Eugene Island's production was going up as a result of
the abioticly formed oil
With these two assumptioins in mind, my question to the abiotic oil advocates is this:
With more than 40,000 oil fields scattered across the globe,
all of them refilling via the abiotic process, where are the
other magically refilling fields?
If oil fieldss replinsh themselves via the abiotic process at a rate rapid enough to offset depletion, why have all of the following fields or provinces been in decline for so many years? It certainly isn't because of a lack of money, muscle, or motivation on the part of the oil industry. US and UK oil companies have more of those three attributes than anybody but God when it comes to locating and producing oil.
Some will say "it's environmental restrictions" but the state of Texas, where there are virtually no environmental laws against oil discovery, has seen both its production and recoverable reserves of oil decline for over 35 years.
If oil fields are refilling, why aren't they doing so in the state of Texas?
