Tiber

The amount of hype new oil discoveries receive these days is telling.

BP's latest "giant" oil field discovery "Tiber" is said to contain 3B barrels of oil in place.

Peak Oil debunked. Gas up the hummer. Energy crisis solved.

But consider;

1) 20% of the field is actually recoverable, or 600M barrels. Divide that by 75M barrels a day oil consumption - and you get 8 days supply

2) The field is supposed to be developed in 2015...in the intervening 6 years, the world will have burned 164 Billion barrels of oil, or 273 Tibers. Depletion is relentless, and discoveries are no where close to replacing what we are using

3) The oil is 6 miles below the floor of the Gulf of Mexico in hurricane alley, the easy oil is long gone

4) If this project actually moves forward, it will mean one thing, high oil prices. The cost to develop this field is enormous, mind boggling - only in a high oil price environment would BP consider allocating capital in hope for a return to shareholders.

Next time the media announces a major oil find, take it with a grain of salt

- Rinx