Talk:East Texas Oil Field

Production level and cumulative production?

Since the information in the article that 5.2 billion barrels of oil have been produced since 1930 of a total reserve of 7.0 billion was already added to the article in June 2008, and were not the most recent numbers even in 2008 I guess. Maybe someone has or know a good source to get more recent numbers? Current production level, accumulative production which for sure now is over 5.5 billion if not even close to 6.0 billion and since there is a rapid technical development in the oil sector the reserves may be went up. I don't know the Original Oil In Place, but it must be something over 20 billion barrels, I think at least 25 even more realistic.

Greetings Kilon22 (talk) 17:57, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

It's a good question, and I've dug around a bit but cannot find new numbers for the entire field in a tabular format. Texas Railroad Commission doesn't make them available quite as easily as, say, DOGGR does for California. However by running the query tool on their web site (http://webapps.rrc.state.tx.us/PDQ/generalReportAction.do) I was able to determine that the field has produced 16,466,828 barrels between June 2008 and January 2013. Since this is a query result and not a direct link, I'm a little reluctant to add up the numbers (i.e. no way to know exactly how current the 5.2 billion number is) -- but it should give you some idea. Current production is steady but not extraordinarily high. Antandrus (talk) 20:16, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your search. 4 years and 7 Months and 16,466,828 barrels is realistic for such a old field, especially since the oil price went down dramatic between July 2008 and December 2008 to around ~35$, this for sure lead to suspended drilling and so on since there have been much younger fields in the US which survived only because the price reached 75$ in the 2000's, it took a while until the oil price recovered and maybe 2010 or later some investments have been made to get out a little bit more out of the field. But the Montana-North Dakota oil boom together with the shale gas boom in the whole US is more attractive to the involved companies, I don't know without looking which companies operate East Texas but it is old and during the 40's it was THE oil field of the western allies, but now it is like an old men, you know he will die soon, you maybe give him medicine, not the most expensive, but middle price and hope he lives a few years longer ;) I Think the 5.2 billion barrels number is from the early 2000's, and together with your numbers I would say the field is not somewhere between 5.4 and 5.6 billion.

June 2008 until January 2013 is around ~1675 days. This would make 9830,94 barrels a day with your numbers. Seems very realistic to me. January, February and March 2013 are 90 days and would result in a production of 884,784.6 barrels in the first quarter 2013. This will continue with dropping amounts until maybe 1 or 2 wells remain and the production falls below 1,000 barrels daily and the field will be closed. Maybe in 40 or 60 years it will be "reopened", we saw this in Russia, some western siberian fields were closed in the 1980's and in the 2000's when the market was open for western companies some fields have been "recovered" with technology the Soviet Union did not had in the early 1980's. These fields are still in production and are the main source for the gasoline we consume in western Europe.

Another thing:

which are mainly below 3,500 feet (1,100 m); most early wells ended in broken bits, dry holes, and bankrupt operators. Finally, an enterprising Alabama man, Columbus Marion (Dad) Joiner, was the first with enough persistence to succeed, and on October 5, 1930, his Daisy Bradford No. 3 well (named after the widow who owned the farm) hit oil at 3,536 feet (1,078 m) below ground surface.[5] This well is located near the southeastern boundary of the oil field.[6]

First figure is 3,500 feet (1,100m); and first oil was found at 3,536 feet... so it is clear that this must be a bit deeper than 1,100m, but the 3,536 here are only 1,078 meters... I can't stand this gallon, feet, miles and so on anyway but the numbers must be somehow correct.

Google tells me:

3500 feet = 1 066.8 meters
3536 feet = 1 077.7728 meters

so someone just rounded up the depth, but this is too important, especially in the oil drilling business to round up 33,2 meters = 108,923885 feet (108 feet 113⁄32 inches). I will correct this.

Greetings Kilon22 (talk) 15:01, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I could find out something interesting:

By January 1, 1993, cumulative production from East Texas field was reported as 5,145,562,000 barrels of oil.

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/doe01

So the 5.2 billion barrels amount is from the 1990's, production was higher at this time since the field was much younger than ;) You found numbers from June 2008. Means 15 years and 6 months later than the above cumulative production of 5.145 billion barrels. Only 4,438,001 barrel more and the cumulative production amount could be rounded up to 5.2 billion ;) For June 2008 until January 2013 we found out a production niveau of 9830,94 barrels a day. For January 1993 until January 1997 I would say the production was at least 17,500 bpd in the neutral scenario, between 12,500 and 15,000 only in a very pessimistic scenario and over 20,000 barrels a day in a optimistic scenario. In my opinion the neutral scenario or the optimistic scenario is realistic ;) Greetings Kilon22 (talk) 15:22, 12 April 2013 (UTC)