"...one of the deepest ever drilled", but will it come at a price?

A BBC report today states that:

"Oil giant BP says it has made a "giant" new oil discovery in its fields in the Gulf of Mexico"

"The company said it drilled the well, dubbed Tiber, to a total depth of about 35,055ft (10,685m), making it one of the deepest wells drilled to date."

"The industry-wide definition for a "giant" discovery is about 250 million barrels of oil "in place", or in other words, the likely total amount, BP spokeswoman Sheila Williams said.

But usually, only as much as 30% of that is extracted from the ground in practice, she said"

BP has had to push further out to sea and drill to ever greater depths in the Gulf of Mexico; the BP share price has risen.

There are now serious concerns that global oil production will 'peak' and then cheap oil will be a thing of the past. We will have an increasing demand for a decreasing supply of a finite resource.

The risks posed by 'peak oil' and the differences in opinion between Government and some members of the business community were discussed in a very interesting article in the FT (on line August 9th). The article states in part,

"...the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security...concluded last year that the economy faces a clear and present energy-security threat. The taskforce, a group that includes Virgin, Scottish and Southern Energy, Arup, Stagecoach and Solarcentury, was set up in 2007 on the basis of our shared opinion that peak oil merited serious study as a business risk. Some began with the assumption that the issue was low-risk but high-consequence. Sadly, we are now of the collective view that peak oil is a high-risk, high-consequence issue."

The article further states:

"The FT’s Gillian Tett has argued that the banking elite cocooned itself in a “social silence” over the true worth of its assets in the run-up to the financial crunch. We worry that the oil industry is wrapped in a social silence on the depletion of its own assets. If we are right, a dire energy crunch awaits us and we need to act now"

To listen to an archived piece on peak oil click here

AN APT contact has contacted us to say that here is no mention of peak oil in the Highland wide Local Development Plan Environmental Statement.