Word: bbl
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...world's next great oil field lies. He is now the largest deepwater license holder in Africa, with 20 million acres under license, an area equivalent to 70% of the Gulf of Mexico's deepwater fields. He believes that the region could hold as much as 100 billion bbl., equal to the reserves of such oil powers as Iran or Kuwait. Now wealthy partners are lining up to pay the cost of drilling exploratory wells, which runs into the tens of millions per try. "The Chinese and Indians, they're the ones that are the real, real market...
...Dyke has always liked to walk on the wild side. Ten years ago, when he started nosing around West Africa, the price of oil was only $20 per bbl. His friends thought he was crazy sinking money into leases with untested, unstable countries. Today, with a barrel of crude at close to triple that price, demand soaring and experts sounding alarms about depleting reserves, the majors are following Van Dyke's lead. In the offices of Houston-based Vanco Energy Corp., of which Van Dyke is chairman, you can see where this wildcatter is placing his bets. African tribal masks...
...investors or consultants or began specializing in "strip wells" that draw oil out from nearly depleted wells, Van Dyke decided to go for broke, launching a bid to become an international deepwater wildcatter in the North Sea in 1973. The gamble paid off with another modest find--60 million bbl. off the coast of the Netherlands--and allowed Van Dyke to be part of the development of deepwater exploration technology, such as 2-D and 3-D seismic analysis, during the 1980s and '90s. Most wildcatters operate with a success rate of less than 10%. By pinpointing promising fields with...
...have doubled over the past few years, fed by soaring oil prices. For them to move much higher, oil--which has been edging lower of late--would have to resume its upward trend. Which it may. Wall Street heavyweight Goldman Sachs raised the specter of oil at $100 per bbl. even before hurricanes Katrina and Rita disrupted supply lines and briefly pushed oil past $70 at summer's end. Some investors clearly believe Goldman's story: cash flowing into energy-related stock mutual funds this year has reached $6 billion--already more than twice last year's total. These funds...
...investment in exploration and production will lead to greater supply in coming years. "There's more than enough reserve base," says Craig Pennington, energy analyst at Schroders. By 2010 crude will average $36 per bbl. as new technologies and new fields in formerly unreachable regions of Russia and the Middle East add more than 3 million bbl. a day to global supply, he predicts...