• Question: where can you find the most crude oil

    Asked by franco to Chris, Michael, Paddy, Philip on 22 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Paddy Brock

      Paddy Brock answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      I think the laregest deposits are in the middle east, russia and canada. However, is it worth drilling out? As a biologist, I’m keen for people to stop focussing on crude oil and start thinking about renewable sources of power like wind (despite all the arguments against it); becasue if we continue ploughing up natural habitat, we’ll drive many species extinct and ecosystems will change and may stop providing services to us (like allowing us to grow crops the way we used to doing).

    • Photo: Michael Wharmby

      Michael Wharmby answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      Good question and important side point from Paddy.

      Short answer: Currently the biggest producers are the OPEC nations (particularly Saudi Arabia, though other Middle East countries are quite big). Venezuela and Canada are also big producers. Some oil also comes from Nigeria.
      Current interest is on the Artic though – there was a land grab about a year ago with Russia and the USA claiming areas. This has happened because of a greater amount of ice melting in the Artic summer. Antartica is expected to prove to be a good source too. (more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves#Estimated_reserves_by_country)

      Places with oil reserves are on the edges of oceanic tectonic plates (the Middle East is on a closed ancient ocean called Tethys). At the edges of the oceans, plant life and carbon rich debris is deposited from the land. Sediment then falls on this to bury it and then over time, with heat and pressure, oil is formed. So today places like the Bay of Bengal is probably setting up conditions for making oil (the Ganges delta will be dumping lots of carbon material into it and burying it with sediment from the Himalayas) – this won’t be available for a long time though.
      Renewables are a different argument. We do need to change to using more renewables, but technology at the minute is not good enough to replace our fossil fuel hungry way of life. If you like taking the bus to school or being driven, in a oil free world that wouldn’t happen – yes we could use electric, but the technology if far from good enough right now. Also a lot of chemicals for plastics and even drug manufacture are sourced from oil. We need money to be given to industry and research to encourage development of renewables generally – not just wind, but wave power and (I know this isn’t a fashionable thing to say) **safer** nuclear. We also need to get away from the Not In My BackYard (NIMBY) mindset.

    • Photo: Philip Denniff

      Philip Denniff answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      I agree with you both, they are good answers. I my paper at the weekend was a list of oil producers so here goes with a list of reserves billions of barrels (ie oil in the ground) and how long it will last if they pump at the presnt rate (years). After all we are scientist and what we live and breath are facts.
      Saudi Arabia 250 bn barrels 72 years
      Canada 160, 140
      Iran 140, 60
      Iraq 110, 125
      Kuwait 100, 115
      Venezuela 95, 115
      In at 14th place is USA with 20 bn barrels that will run out in 10 years time.
      There is plenty of oil there if it is used wisely. That means using if for things that cannot come from another source. If electricity can be made from wave power or nuclear then it should be rather than depleting oil too quickly.
      Just changing tack slightly is the availability of water. I think that will run out (be in very short supply) before the oil.

    • Photo: Chris Jordan

      Chris Jordan answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      Michael – you’ve just answered my question on why these areas have a lot of oil (I was guessing at them being the sites of forests and swamps)

Comments