"There is no difference between drilling for gas and drilling for oil — and Terry McAuliffe knows it."That's what renowned world energy expert (and political consultant, on the side apparently) Joe Trippi writes on his blog.
Of course, that's completely untrue. The fact is, you can search for oil alone, you can search for natural gas alone, or you can search for natural gas and oil together. There's a good reason why natural gas is divided into two types, "associated" and "non-associated" - because sometimes you find it with oil, sometimes you don't. Here's how my former employer (of 17 years), the US Energy Information Administration, defines the terms:
Natural Gas, Associated--Dissolved: The combined volume of natural gas which occurs in crude oil reservoirs either as free gas (associated) or as gas in solution with crude oil (dissolved)and...
Natural Gas, Nonassociated: Natural gas not in contact with significant quantities of crude oil in a reservoir.The Congressional Research Service also has a good definition:
...Over geologic time, almost all natural gas reaches the earth's surface and is lost to the atmosphere. When its upward migration is interrupted by a geologic trap (an upwardly convex permeable reservoir rock sealed above by impermeable cap rock) commercial quantities of gas can accumulate. This gas is termed nonassociated gas. Commercial amounts of gas also can accumulate as a gas cap above an oil pool or, if reservoir pressure is sufficiently high, dissolved in the oil. Such natural gas is termed associated gas.And just as you can find natural gas in association with oil, or not, you can also find oil on its own or with natural gas present. For instance, there are over 170 billion barrels of oil in Canada, the vast majority of which is in something called "oil sands." According to EIA's Country Analysis Brief on Canada, extracting these oil sands requires huge amounts of natural gas piped in from remote sources. For more on the Athabasca Oil Sands, see mining-technology.com.
Just in case the energy experts at Camp Moran are interested, the largest non-associated natural gas field in the world is Qatar's North Dome Field, "which holds more than 900 Tcf of proven natural gas reserves and is the world’s largest non-associated natural gas field." Iran is another country with large non-associated natural gas reserves. In fact, a significant percentage of Iran's non-associated natural gas reserves are slated for use in "enhanced recovery" techniques (e.g., "natural gas injection") for oil. When the gas is non-associated, it has to be piped to the oil field so it can be reinjected.
The bottom line is that, despite what the renowned energy experts at the Moran campaign say, there IS a difference between "drilling for [natural] gas and drilling for oil." And, I'd add, "Terry McAuliffe knows it." :)
But wait, there's more! Over at petroleum geologist/political consultant Joe Trippi's blog, he also cites the Federal Minerals Management Service to "prove" that the McAuliffe campaign "continues to make a misleading distinction between offshore oil drilling and offshore gas drilling."
...gas-only leasing is not currently an option because the OCS Lands Act does not allow for leasing of and exploration for natural gas only, as it authorizes ‘oil and gas leases’ under section 8 (43 U.S.C. 1337). Additionally, there are technical and engineering challenges to gas-only leasing including maintaining appropriate reservoir development and determining what would happen if oil was found.Let's take the second point first, that "there are technical and engineering challenges to gas-only leasing including maintaining appropriate reservoir development and determining what would happen if oil was found." That pretty much proves the point I've been making, that there IS A DIFFERENCE between "drilling for [natural] gas and drilling for oil." Note the last phrase, "what would happen if oil was found." Obviously, that means oil might or might not be found along with natural gas, and that depending on the geological structure, the economics, technology, and recovery potential might be very different.
Second, what about the part about the OCS Lands Act not allowing "for leasing of and exploration for natural gas only, as it authorizes ‘oil and gas leases’ under section 8 (43 U.S.C. 1337)?" I checked with a leading EIA oil and natural gas analyst, and this is what he had to say:
1. "There are large gas hydrate deposits along the continental slope and rise offshore of Virginia but it will be quite a while before any of it becomes technically, much less economically, producible -- if ever."
2. "In a July 2006 addendum to its 2006 Federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) assessment, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) assigned mean undiscovered technically recoverable resources of 1.5 billion barrels of oil and 15.13 trillion cubic feet of gas to the MMS Mid-Atlantic Planning Area (located off Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina) portion of the Atlantic OCS."
3. "In its most recent assessment (1995) the United States Geological Survey assigned no undiscovered technically recoverable oil or gas resources to State-jurisdiction waters of the Atlantic Ocean."
4. "A total of ten oil and gas lease sales were held in the Atlantic in 1976 and 1983. Forty-seven exploratory wells were drilled. Five of these wells drilled offshore New Jersey discovered hydrocarbons in non-commercial quantity and were abandoned."
In other words, there may or may not be oil or natural gas in commercial quantities off the Virginia coast. To date, exploration hasn't found anything interesting, certainly not economically recoverable at current low prices (particularly for natural gas), which is why the effort has largely been abandoned and is pretty much a non-starter at the moment in Virginia, except for political campaigns and candidates trying to score cheap talking points (assuming that nobody knows the difference between natural gas and oil reserves, anyway).
By the way, the estimates of "assigned mean undiscovered technically recoverable resources of 1.5 billion barrels of oil and 15.13 trillion cubic feet of gas to the MMS Mid-Atlantic Planning Area (located off Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina) portion of the Atlantic OCS" might sound like a lot, but it isn't. A few points.
1. These are not even PROVEN reserves, they are highly speculative/sketchy "assigned mean undiscovered technically recoverable." That's "geologist speak" for, "we're assuming, based on the geological structures and other factors, that there MIGHT be that amount of oil and natural gas out there that MIGHT be recoverable under the right conditions of technology, geology and economics." That does NOT mean these are "proven" reserves in the sense that we know they're there and that they're recoverable, of course, it just means they COULD be there based on similar geological formations found elsewhere.
2. The numbers cited here are for the entire Mid-Atlantic Planning area, of which Virginia is only one part. So, reduce the "assigned mean undiscovered technically recoverable resources" - again, NOT "proven reserves" by any stretch of the imagination - accordingly. Let's say Virginia accounts for one-fourth of the total, that would mean we MIGHT HAVE as much as 375 million barrels of oil and we MIGHT HAVE as much as 3.78 trillion cubic feet of natural gas POTENTIAL off the Virginia coast. It's quite possible that little to none of that exists, or that it's not worth recovering for a combination of geological, technological and economic reasons. But let's even assume, to be WILDLY optimistic, that ALL of it eventually is discovered and found to be recoverable. How much oil and natural gas is that?
3. To put it in perspective, 375 million barrels of oil would be less PROVEN crude oil reserves than is found in North Dakota (482 million barrels). In 2007, North Dakota produced 123,000 barrels per day of oil. That would imply possible production in Virginia of 96,000 barrels per day of oil, which would represent about 2% of U.S. total crude oil production. There are only two problems: first, we don't know if any of that oil is off the Virginia coast; second, we don't know if any of it is recoverable. Most likely, only a small fraction - if any - of these "assigned mean undiscovered technically recoverable resources" would eventually be classified as "proven," let alone "recoverable."
4. Pretty much the same analysis applies to the "assigned mean undiscovered technically recoverable" natural gas resource as well.
5. Again, the bottom line is that we have almost no idea what's out there, whether it's technically and/or economically recoverable, whether there's only oil, only natural gas, or some combination of both. And that's really the entire point here; until we do serious exploration, seismic and other techniques (e.g, drilling test wells), we won't know the answer to any of these questions.
So, for now, most of the discussion you hear on this subject - whether from the McDonnell campaign or the Moran campaign - is misleading at best, complete nonsense at worst. Some day we may know what the true situation is, but today is not that day. But the bottom lines are: a) yes, indeed, there IS a difference between drilling for natural gas and drilling for oil; b) there may be, or there may not be, economically viable oil and/or natural gas reserves that are ultimately proven to exist off Virginia's coast, but right now it's all extremely speculative; and c) the last people you want to listen to on this subject are political consultants with no energy background, but with a strong interest in electing their candidate, even if it means taking the facts and distorting them beyond any conceivable sense or resemblance to reality.
