ARTICLE: "Saudi Arabia Tests Its Potential For Unlocking Heavy-Oil Reserves," by Bushan Bahree and Russell Gold, Wall Street Journal, 10 July 2006, p. A1.
We forget that Saudi Arabia's known reserves have always been calculated in terms of the easily accessed light oil, or the stuff that just comes up when you pump some water down.
If [Saudi Arabia] succeeds in overcoming the technical hurdles, the effort could significantly increase Saudi Arabia's oil reserves over the next several years, potentially adding some slack to tight energy markets. It would also be a blow to so-called peak-oil theorists who have forecast that world oil production is on the brink of peakin.
Hubbert's Curve works, on known fields. But it doesn't tell you much on Saudi Arabia's unexplored and unexploited heavy-oil fields, or Canada's oil sands or...
"Look for resources and ye shall find..."
My first globalization commandment.
The U.S. Geological Survey now estimates that in there is an much heavy oil in the Western Hemisphere as there is light oil today in the Eastern Hemisphere, or roughly one trillion barrels.