Fellow members,
The following is from a Petroleum Handbook
Quote
Oil and natural gas were formed from the remains of prehistoric plants and animals—that’s why they’re called fossil fuels.
Hundreds of millions of years ago, prehistoric plant and animal remains settled into the seas along with sand, silt and rocks. As the rocks and silt settled, layer upon layer piled up in rivers, along coastlines and on the sea bottom trapping the organic material. Without air, the organic layers could not rot away.
Over time, increasing pressure and temperature changed the mud, sand and silt into rock (known as source rock) and slowly “cooked” the organic matter into petroleum. Petroleum is held inside the rock formation, similar to how a sponge holds water.
Over millions of years, the oil and gas that formed in the source rock deep within the Earth moved upward through tiny, connected pore spaces in the rocks. Some seeped out at the Earth’s surface, but most of the petroleum hydrocarbons were trapped by nonporous rocks or other barriers. These underground traps of oil and gas are called reservoirs. Contrary to popular misconception, reservoirs are not underground “lakes” of oil; they are made up of porous and permeable rocks that can hold significant amounts of oil and gas within their pore spaces. Some reservoirs are hundreds of feet below the surface, while others are thousands of feet underground.
Unquote.
It is only possible to ‘steal’ oil or gas if one taps into the same oil bearing structure. There is no oil and/or gas bearing structure belonging to Iran within 500 Km of Pakistan border. Therefore being close to Iran border implies nothing. Please understand that there is no such thing as “River of oil”.
Any and all rumours floating about Iran not wanting to drill in Baluchistan were totally baseless.
Now let us discuss the reservoirs. The reservoir has two characteristics; the size of the hydrocarbon-bearing formation and depth of the ‘pay zone’.
One of the world’s largest reservoir, the Ghawar field of Saudi Arabia has an oil-bearing formation which is approx. 280 Km long and 40 Km wide. Its ‘payzone’ is 100 meters thick and lies about 2,000 meters below the surface.
In the 1960’s when most of the large oil deposits were discovered, a “Giant” field contained about 5-billion bbl. oil (or more) and a giant gas field had about 10 tcf of gas ( or more). The whole world has since been seismically searched and picked over. Geological knowledge has improved enormously in the past 30 years and it is almost inconceivable now that major fields of the 70-billion bbls still remain to be found
These days nearly all very large fields have already discovered and any oil filed in about of in excess of 1-billion barrels of oil or 1 tcf of gas is called a giant gas discovery. Nearly all new large oil finds these days are in 1 to 2-billion barrel range, but at $70-bbl oil, it converts into a lot of money
Historically, Pakistan has had smaller oil finds, the oil-bearing formation being only a few kilometres in size and pay zones about 30 meters thick. Average oil-bearing structures in Pakistan contain less than 50-million barrels of oil and total proven reserves are less than 500-million bbls. An oil find of the size of “Burgan field” of Kuwait (close to 70 –billion barrels), while not “impossible” it is highly unlikely.
Pakistan has had better luck with the gas discoveries. Sui gas field discovered in 1952 had about 10 tcf gas reserves (about 1.7-bbl oil equivalent) and indeed a giant gas field. It started production in 1955 and after more than 60 years it still has about 2 tcf gas left. However, since then we have not discovered any gas bearing structure of that size.
Another thing to remember is the cost of production. While older onshore oil well produces crude at $ 7 -10 per bbl., production from newer wells, depending upon well depth can be anywhere from $20 to $30- per bbl. Offshore drilling costs about 4 times as much. North Sea average drill depth is about 3,000 meters. Exxon has already drilled down to 5,000 meters. How much will be the average production cost? I would not even hazard a guess. However, it is safe to assume that it will be below $70 per bbl, thus economically viable at current oil prices.
Offshore drilling is not new in Pakistan. Wintershell was the first company that started offshore drilling in Pakistan but withdrew after 3 dry well off the Makran coast. Last I heard was that Ocean Oil held two offshore/ adjacent onshore blocks off Makran coast well.
I have also read in theTimes of Islamabad that ExxonMobil was on the “Verge” of discovering huge deposits. All indications are that this a ‘Conventional’ drilling and already as deep as 5,000 meters, close to the Iranian border. I would, therefore, eliminate the non-conventional sources such as Oil-shales.
My problem is that this revelation was not from the drilling company but from the caretaker Minister. Discoveries are normally announced after the same have been discovered; not before. IMHO the Minister has been highly indiscreet. The honourable minister will look extremely foolish if by chance this shows up as a dry hole or only a minor discovery or the news turns out to be fake.
I hate to be the harbinger of bad news but IMHO post 148 by Hon AA Khan appears to have a sound basis.
According to the news article of May 2018, Exxon had acquired 25% stake in the offshore drilling of Makran coast. I am therefore surprised to hear that in barely 3 months Exxon has already drilled down to 5,000-meter depth.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/1721191/2-exxonmobil-acquires-25-stake-offshore-drilling-pakistan/
On the verge does not mean actually discovered. My suggestion is that let us not count our chickens before they are hatched. Our current proven reserves are less than 500-million barrels. I would, therefore, be over the over the moon even if we find a 1-billion barrel oil field or a 10 tcf gas field. Any more would be more than GREAT news. However, we must wait until the actual results are announced before jumping to any conclusions
