Gulf of Mexico Crude Oil and Gas Production

This is a guest post by Jean Laherrere

BOEM and BSEE have published in 2014 the GOM oil & gas reserves at end 2010 few months ago and at end 2011 lately.

The big change is that they now report proved and probable reserves = 2P (in contrary to SEC rules for operators reporting at the US Stock Exchange, forbidding to report probable reserves), when before they reported only proved reserves = 1P

They argue:

In order to more closely align BOEM GOM reserves definitions with the Petroleum Resources Management System definitions (SPE/AAPG/WPC/SPEE 2007), this report clarifies that Proved Reserves in this and previous reports are Proved plus Probable (2P) estimates.

The difference between original reserves estimates from previous year found little difference for discoveries before 1995

The difference between 2P 2011 and 2P 2010 is a very large decrease for Thunder Horse (-488 Mb or 573 Mboe) and the largest increase is Great White +73 Mb

Jean 1

The difference between 2P 2010 and 1P 2009 displays a large increase in Tahiti +169 Gb and large decrease with Atlantis -92 Mb (already in decrease in 2009)

Jean 2

The difference between 1P 2009 and 1P 2008 is as important as the difference between 2P and 1P: large increase with WD 030 +61 Mb and large decrease for Atalntis -161 Mb

Jean 3

The change in reserves with time  and definitions does not change the estimate on GOM ultimates: 24 Gb and 210 Tcf
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