The future of oil has a “deep color”

Abstract

Ronald Oligney and Michael Economides in their book The Color of Oil (Round Oak Publishing Company, 2000) describe the primary colors of oil as “money, people, and technology.” Figure 1, an illustration from the book, shows U.S. Lower 48 oil production peaking in the late 1960s and continuing on a steady decline after that. The decline in U.S. domestic production was delayed somewhat when the lower 48 production was supplemented by the inclusion of Alaska oil into the totals. This total also has peaked and is on a downward trend. Oligney and Economides point out that even breakthrough new technology such as 3-D seismic and horizontal wells only made a slight “bump” on the downward trend. New large reservoirs must still be found to impact the trend. They have used Figure 2 in other presentations to provide an Alaskan North Slope type scenario that could reverse this downward trend. The deepwater region in the Gulf of Mexico and other parts of the world is demonstrating that it can be the site of new large ...