Oil Storm

[The Lawspeaker]

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Oil Storm

Oil Storm is a 2005 television docudrama portraying a future oil-shortage crisis in the United States, precipitated by a hurricane destroying key parts of the United States' oil infrastructure. The program was an attempt to depict what would happen if the highly oil-dependent country was suddenly faced with gasoline costing upwards of $7 to $8 per gallon (as opposed to the national average of around $2 per gallon when the show first aired). Directed by James Erskine and written by Erskine and Caroline Levy, it originally aired on FX Networks on June 5, 2005, at 8 p.m. ET.

[rashka]

Do they know when and if middle eastern oil will run dry?

[The Lawspeaker]

I am not sure but I think that this film is scaremongering. Oil here costs around 7 and a half to 8 USD a gallon and we haven't gone bankrupt yet.

[joe blowe]

Consumption in the USA has already decreased by 30% from 2007 levels.

[Aces High]

Do they know when and if middle eastern oil will run dry?

Its hard to say but not in your lifetime.

150 yrs.

[Skandi]

Do they know when and if middle eastern oil will run dry?

it's not a question of running out as such, it's more the cost of recovery, as technology improves the recovery factor increases but the cost of enhancing recovery goes up. (4D seismic, wellbore monitoring, computing, solvent/water/gas injection, new wells etc)

As the price of oil rises these techniques and marginal reservoirs (small, tight, heavy oil, sour oil etc) that have been found but considered "uneconomic" (please note these are NOT included in the official reserve statistics) become economic so the oil will never run out as such, just become to expencive to extract, a large % of the ME oil reserves are in Limestone hosts, which can be more complex and less well studied than the sandstones of the North Sea (for example) furtehr slowing recovery rates and reducing the recovery factor.

now greed is a huge issue with oil extraction. say your reservoir has 500 mb (million barrels) and a possible recovery rate of 70% (fairly high) so in theory if you are patient you can get a maximum of 350mb out of the ground (at present technology levels) However that may take 40 years if you push you can get perhapse 200mb out in 5 years, but doing so can runi the reservoir and make the remaining oil very hard/impossible to retrieve, unfortunatly the financiers want money NOW not more money later, so a lot of our reserves are being ruined and wasted in this way.