I'm shocked! (Iraq oil reserves)

ARTICLE: Iraq oil reserves estimate increased, ASSOCIATED PRESS, April 20, 2007

Shocked to discover there's so much more oil in Iraq than previously known!

Comments

[J Canepa]

The 116 billion barrels in the ground has a present value of at least $10 per barrel. The stakes in Iraq are therefore worth over a trillion.

Small wonder then that the British and US are there in force.

The option of a Shiite Iraq in league with Iran is not acceptable, as that would combine Iraqi and Iranian oil reserves, yielding too much power to the 2 I’s.

Its inescapable then that Iraq will return to the status quo ante: Sunni control.

One has to wonder what Gates is now spinning in Baghdad to the Iraq government and if anyone believes him.

[Mike Z.]

Nah, I figured that much from the beginning. After all, think about how how behind the times there oil industry really is and how little of the country was like even surveyed.

Iran also recently made a discovery too: http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article131769.ece

What really matters for Iraq right now is OFFSHORE oil discoveries. That way the can produce the stuff without the exposure to attack.

[Jimmy J]

I was asked to go to Iraq in the 1950s when I was an oil geologist. (I was recalled to active duty in the Navy, so didn't get to go.) I was told the fields were huge (75 miles long x 10 miles wide) and shallow. (3500 feet) In fact, I was told that many of the wells were drilled with cable tools, not rotary drills. They found and are producing all the easy oil, and there is a lot of that. I've suspected, since they nationalized the industry and quit exploring, that there was a lot more oil there. The Kurds are finding more in areas that didn't have production before. My guess is that there's a lot more to be found. But the Islamists don't want to explore for more oil, they just want to get control of what's there to use for jihad. Too bad.