Nothing to See Here . . . No Worries!

This parody of business blogs paints a rosy picture:

We Will Never Run Out of Oil, For Reals

No really. Cantarell is soaring, like the Hindenberg. Perma-downers like Matthew Simmons chirp “peak oil” like a kookaburra spotting a snake or whatever it is a kookaburra chirps about up in the eucalyptus, but our “infinity oil” thesis posits that not only we will never hit so-called peak oil, we will never ever run out of oil.
Never ever.

Soaring like the Hindenburg. An apt turn of phrase!

The Cantarell Oil Field is Mexico's largest, and the second-largest in the world, with a current production in the neighborhood of 2 million barrels per day. However, it has already peaked and begun its decline.

The parodist's link is to a WSJ article which requires a subscription to view. Here's a free link to another story on the same subject . . . from 2006.

Pemex Says Cantarell 2006 Production to Decline 8% (Update1)
By Thomas Black

Aug. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos, Mexico's state- owned oil monopoly, said production at its Cantarell oil field, the world's second-largest by volume, will decline 8 percent in 2006, dropping faster than its December [2005] estimate of 6 percent.

Cantarell will produce 1.86 million barrels of crude a day in 2006, Vinicio Suro, deputy director of planning and evaluation for Pemex's production and exploration unit, said in a conference call with analysts. Pemex in December [2005] said the field, which accounted for 57 percent of Mexican crude output in the first half of this year, would produce 1.9 million barrels per day in 2006 compared with 2.03 million barrels a day in 2005. [Emphasis added.]

. . .

With efforts to stem Cantarell's decline and to boost output at peripheral fields, daily production at the company may decline to less than 2.8 million barrels by 2010 and 2.5 million barrels by 2012, Padilla said. [Note: this is for the company as a whole, not the Cantarell field.]

"Our bigger concern starts in about 2008,'' Padilla said.

Suro said Pemex is developing different geological models and estimates that could change the forecast for Cantarell production it made in December of 1.68 million barrels per day in 2007 and 1.43 million barrels a day in 2008.

I wonder what's happening now? Hey, this looks fresh, also from Bloomberg:

Pemex Turns to Horizontal Wells to Boost Oil Output, WSJ Says
By James Kraus

April 5 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos is increasing the use of horizontal wells that allow a single platform to pull oil from a larger area to maximize dwindling reserves at the Cantarell field, the Wall Street Journal said..

The company, the third biggest oil supplier to the U.S., plans to drill more such wells this year as part of $2.4 billion in spending to slow the decline in output at the field to about 50 percent of last year's rate, the Journal said, citing consultants.

The wells may cut the decrease in output to about 200,000 barrels of daily output at year's end from about 400,000, the Journal said.

Cantarell last year supplied the Mexican government with $25 billion out of some $53 billion in oil revenue, the Journal said. Pemex predicts the field will probably continue to decline by about 10 percent annually to a daily average of 600,000 in 2013, the Journal reported. [Emphasis added.]

Last Updated: April 5, 2007 03:52 EDT

Let's do the math, shall we? 2006 prediction was 1.86 MBD (million barrels per day), down from just over 2.0 MBD. That's a predicted decline of 140,000 BD. Compare with the actual decline of 400,000 BD!

I wonder if everyone else is predicting as well as Pemex?

Cantarell is indeed soaring like the Hindenburg. How's that hydrogen economy coming along, by the way?