How I found oil in Venezuela using a stick

Many years ago I reviewed development well proposals for a field in Venezuela, and approved two, the second contingent on the first one. A few weeks later I get called to a meeting where they were about to confirm the selected surface spot where the location was supposed to be built, and found they had placed it about 150 meters from a house. 

I dont like ruining relations with land owners, so i told them they had better move it away from the house, and i started getting protests from the construction manager, because the spot they had chosen was ideal as far as he was concerned.

I told them to arrange a meeting with the land owner at his house, that we would go over with the construction and field managers, a drilling engineer and a geologist to jointly decide where to put the darned well. 

Prior to the visit i had the subsurface team get me map overlays showing the surface topography, structure and net pay so i could put them on the legal plats and aerial photos. And i noticed there was a really good spot much further from the house, located on a flat spot with excellent drainage towards a small creek. To make it even nicer, the spot was located where the fence made a right angle, so the location would be tucked in with a property fence on two sides.

I had them give me our standard pad layout, put it on the map, and picked a spot exactly 150 of my paces from the two fences.

The day we visited the farmer we asked him if he thought the current stake was to his liking, and he politely said it could be further away on account of the noise.

Then i told him, what the hell, i think we can find a spot where theres oil, and told everybody to follow me. I picked up a long stick and started walking around, got to the fence, and walked back 150 paces, turned 90 degrees and walked 150 paces to the other fence, all the time waving the stick in the air and stomping the ground with my boots.

So i had them put the stake where i had made the turn (which i knew was a good spot after reviewing the subsurface maps), and told them the oil was there, to prepare the location, and drill the well.

Imagine the hub hub in the field when they heard i was picking a location with a stick and stomping the ground with my boots. The hub hub was even louder when several months later the well came in at a bit over 2000 BOPD, about triple our average rate. I had them so faked they started questioning whether we needed geoscientists or reservoir engineers as long as i had my stick.

Jordan Peterson, the canary in the coal mine

Rod Dreher just described Dr Jordan Peterson  "Jordan Peterson, the Canary in Progressivism's Coal Mine"" I've  copied below a couple of paragraphs from his article in American Conservative Magazine. I suggest you follow the link and read the full article.

"When the top man at The New York Times publishes a sober statement about a meeting he had with the president in which he describes instructing Trump about the problem of his “deeply troubling anti-press rhetoric,” and then three days later the paper announces that it has hired a writer who has tweeted about her hatred of white people, of Republicans, of cops, of the president, of the need to stop certain female writers and journalists from “existing,” and when this new hire will not be a beat reporter, but will sit on the paper’s editorial board—having a hand in shaping the opinions the paper presents to the world—then it is no mystery that a parallel culture of ideas has emerged to replace a corrupted system.

 When even Barack Obama, the poet laureate of identity politics, is moved to issue a message to the faithful, hinting that that they could be tipping their hand on all of this—saying during a speech he delivered in South Africa that a culture is at a dead end when it decides someone has no “standing to speak” if he is a white man—and when even this mayday is ignored, the doomsday clock ticks ever closer to the end."

By the way, the NY Times just hired a young jerk named who's famous for her racist tweets. So I'm linking you to an article where you can find them here 

http://nymag.com/consent.html?redirect_uri=%2Fdaily%2Fintelligencer%2F2018%2F08%2Fsarah-jeong-new-york-times-anti-white-racism.html%3Fvia%3Dgdpr-consent&redirect_host=nymag.com&orig_qs=

We keep running out of fossil fuels

Meanwhile we continue to see signs that fossil fuels are running out, and prices will have to rise to satisfy the industry’s need for cash flow to make the huge investments needed just to keep crude oil and condensate production at today’s 82 mmbopd real rate (the higher rates you read about are inflated with NGL, which are increasing as natural gas production rises, as well as the refinery gains which result from hydrogenation of the refinery feed). 

I started writing about this subject in 2013, when I saw the RCP8.5 paper, and realized it had a huge mistake built into its logic because it didn’t handle the industry need for ever increasing prices to justify extracting oil, gas, and coal. For those who don’t follow industry trends, I can point out that oil prices have had to increase way beyond inflation over the last 20 years. I remember preparing a detailed budget for a business unit in 1998 which assumed the price was $14 per barrel ($25 in today’s dollars). That price constrained what we could do somewhat, but the fields we had were good enough to justify several hundred million in new investments and nearly doubling production. Today, new investments in most areas outside the Middle East require at least $50, and many are on line after being approved assuming the price would be $80. 

Although it may be hard to believe, natural gas will see the same trend, but with a delay. In 2040 natural gas prices will be a lot higher (I anticipate the first serious uptick in the USA market will take place this fall). And coal will follow. 

I also believe there are potential new technologies which allow burning natural gas and coal using variations of existing turbine technology which will allow easier CO2 capture. But I can’t visualize where all that co2 can be injected unless the requirement that it be kept sealed forever be relaxed. 

There’s also the fact that some areas have rocks which make injection a risky proposition because it can trigger earthquakes. And these earthquakes can be caused by density differences which make the bulk rock density change and reactivate faults (this means rate control won’t be enough, this is a highly specialized field which climatologists and most geoscientists know nothing about, therefore they haven’t even considered it). 

I guess I’ll close by writing that the RCP8.5 and siblings all share the same serious flaw, and that I realize I’m getting a bit of traction but the majority of the individuals dealing with this problem haven’t got the foggiest idea of what’s really going on, and how serious it will be if we don’t develop new technologies to soften the impact as we run out of fossil fuels.

2018 Venezuela Pseudopresidential pseudoelection

Update: I was wrong. The dictatorship made Madurothe winner, now they risk no recognition in January 2019. The question is whether the moribund opposition will have the drive to create a government in exile and claim control of Citgo as well as all oil exports.

Original post follows:

Henri Falcon could win the forthcoming pseudo elections and the communists would still control Venezuela. You see, that red Mafia has put in place an illegitimate "Constituyent Assembly" they claim is the supreme power over and above the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial powers. This means Falcón would remain a puppet subject to an illegitimate autocracy which in turn is partially controlled by Raul Castro. 

Some may think Raúl handed power to Diaz Canel, but that's just a cover they needed to have so the international left would continue supporting the Castro regime. Raúl remains Communist Party head, his son Alejandro Castro controls state security services, his former son in law heads GAESA, the military conglomerate which strikes deals with foreign multinationals, his grandson Raulito controls the body guard service as well as the high level medical services delivered to high level regime capos. 

Returning to Venezuela, the word in Havana is that Raúl already convinced Maduro to retire. Maduro would lose and Falcón would be "president". The National Assembly, controlled by the opposition, would continue to be ignored, and Falcón would be asked to submit to the illegitimate Constituyent Assembly.

Jorge Rodriguez with his younger sister Delci 

would control Venezuela if Falcón "wins"

The assembly president is Delci Rodriguez, a hard core Castroite who in turn follows the lead of his older brother, Jorge Rodriguez. A narco and military Mafia headed by Diosdado Cabello, and a separate narco Mafia led by Tareck el Aissami will expect to get pieces of the pie. But as reported by Reuters, Venezuela is serving as a captive colony of the Castro family, and has been purchasing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of oil for delivery to Cuba. 

Falcón would be expected to continue sending oil and cash to the Castros as part of the deal. And the Torino Capital guy would have to be in this deal in which communists, narcos, the Castros, and assorted mafias continue to destroy Venezuela. 

Thus we see that either Maduro wins and continues destroying Venezuela simply because he's Marxist and under Castro control, or Falcón will win, fake being in charge, and continue destroying Venezuela almost as fast as Maduro has been. The root cause of this tragedy is in Havana, and unfortunately that communist Mafia seems to be getting a lot of help from the left. Pope Francis, Obama, Federica Mogherini, et al are making sure the regime survives. And this means the fate of Venezuela is sealed. Production will continue to drop, the genocide of the infirm, those with chronic diseases and the elderly will continue. And nothing will be done.