BAKERSFIELD, Calif., March 5 Old oil fields in California and elsewhere are the petroleum industry's version of the fountain of youth thanks to new extraction technology.
The Kern River field at Bakersfield, Calif., has produced oil for 108 years and now kicks out 8 1/2 times the oil it did in the 1960s thanks to high-pressure steam injection systems. In Texas, carbon dioxide will be used to force more oil out of the 1930s-era Means field.
Yes, there are finite resources in the ground, but you never get to that point, Chevron engineer Jeff Hatlen said. That's why peak oil is a moving target. Oil is always a function of price and technology.But some petroleum geologists believe the peak is just about here, The New York Times said Monday. I am very, very seriously worried about the future we are facing, said Kjell Aleklett of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas. It is clear that oil is in limited supplies.Still, the Cambridge Energy Research Associates recently placed recoverable oil resources at 4.8 trillion barrels, up from the 3.3 trillion barrels estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey in 2000.
Copyright 2007 by UPI
