Apart from the fact that tonnes is only rarely used for reporting oil reserves, a half billion barrel discovery is not to be sneezed at, but not unusual, and it won't make much difference in the greater scheme of things. If it's tonnes, then it's a ~3 billion barrel discovery which is a big one, but again not impossible.
Lets assume its circa 500 million barrels in place. Until the advent of enhanced recovery methods you would only actually extract about a third of this, although these days if done carefully we will get 70% out of the ground. So assuming they don't screw it up, lets say it will produce 300-400 million barrels. That is three days worth of global demand.
Or if its tons, multiply by 7.
For reference, the largest currently known field is Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, which has been producing for 70 odd years and originally contained about 100 billion barrels. It's still got at least 30 billion barrels left. You can see it's influence on satellite measurements of variations in the earth's gravitational field.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LewisM
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-c...-idUSKBN1DV3NF
https://www.rt.com/business/411524-c...it-discovered/
I guess this means consumer goods might come down even further in price, and possibly, even fuel prices if they give the Middle East a run for their money. The US geo-political and geo-strategic betting on the Middle East may also be slapped in the face.
Down side - our LNG exports to China may be impacted greatly. I don't know anything of the geology of crude oil so can only speculate. And then the environmental impacts... and also potentially less reliance on alternatives etc
Heck, telescope prices may drop further still!
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