Scotland's Oil

[Enigma]

Basically, don't trust any MP who's been told this stuff fifth hand.

...but trust the random punter off a football forum... sure.

[Hedgecutter]

Right, but you'd hope that one of the major regional newspapers for Scotland's primary oil region wouldn't run front-page spreads on easily-refuted bullshit. And the Sunday Post is rabidly unionist, which makes it odd they'd be running it the month before the referendum without thorough fact-checking as well.

I very clearly referred to the west coast stuff (ie Sunday Post story), not the P&J headline which is for the Bentley field, EoS.

As I did point out though, there's an addition to the story this time as it's also referring further afield to the UK Atlantic Margin (I.e. Rockall basin). Playing up Rockall is fine, but throwing in the old 'west coast' Firth of Clyde / Sea of the Hebrides / Trident debate into that article and making it sound like Aberdeen professors etc are talking about that too (when it's the major Atlantic Margin basins they're actually referring to) is just misguiding it's readers.

When academics and industry professionals refer to the serious potential of 'west Scotland', they're talking about the Rockall and surrounding Atlantic Margin region well beyond the Outer Hebrides, not CalMac Country.

I should however retract the dig at Ewing though as I've noticed he has actually referred "to the west of Scotland" rather than refer to areas around the mainland's west coast which is what the stories are usually about (see photo of previous Sunday Post headline embedded into the article).

...but trust the random punter off a football forum... sure.

I can understand your point, but some football forum users can have some very niche professions and would be guys feeding the info which would eventually reach the Enterprise, Energy & Tourism minister via a rather long game of Chinese Whispers.

[ayrmad]

I very clearly referred to the west coast stuff (ie Sunday Post story), not the P&J headline which is for the Bentley field, EoS.

As I did point out though, there's an addition to the story this time as it's also referring further afield to the UK Atlantic Margin (I.e. Rockall basin). Playing up Rockall is fine, but throwing in the old 'west coast' Firth of Clyde / Sea of the Hebrides / Trident debate into that article and making it sound like Aberdeen professors etc are talking about that too (when it's the major Atlantic Margin basins they're actually referring to) is just misguiding it's readers.

When academics and industry professionals refer to the serious potential of 'west Scotland', they're talking about the Rockall and surrounding Atlantic Margin region well beyond the Outer Hebrides, not CalMac Country.

I should however retract the dig at Ewing though as I've noticed he has actually referred "to the west of Scotland" rather than refer to areas around the mainland's west coast which is what the stories are usually about (see photo of previous Sunday Post headline embedded into the article).

I can understand your point, but some football forum users can have some very niche professions and would be guys feeding the info which would eventually reach the Enterprise, Energy & Tourism minister via a rather long game of Chinese Whispers.

Reynard just uses Twatter.

[AUFC90]

https://m.facebook.com/YesShetland/photos/a.689750037705010.1073741828.565189126827769/895597380453607/?type=1

1 of 6 floatels housing 2000 people each because all the B&Bs and hotels are full in Shetland. Must be those declining revenues they're after

[AUFC90]

Jeez, not this West Coast oil boom pish yet again.

Covered this in detail on here before and to summarise: Might be the odd pocket of oil around our Isles but unlikely to be commercial, certainly not enough to cause a boom collectively and local regions are unlikely to see much benefit out of it just as Caithness & Sutherland don't with the Beatrice / Jacky / Lybster fields just offshore there.

Rockall on the other hand however is the exception. Potentially a lot of oil there but the deep water currently makes it an expensive nightmare logistically.

The "only 20 exploration wells have been drilled off the west coast despite 3000 in the North Sea" bit specifically bugs me somewhat. 3000 have been drilled there because it's a deep basin which continually made finds when it kicked off and contains one of the world's best quality oil source rocks which was previously known about for years before hand because you can see its continuation onshore England (basically how BP found Wytch Farm in Dorset quite easily way back in the early 70's). You don't drill anywhere near that number of multimillion pound wells in a shallow basin where the onshore geology only hits at limited crappy source rocks / reservoir and nearly all wells to date have shown zero potential.

Also as I see from that article, you do not go "oh, the Sea of the Hebrides never gave us much, let's not bother with Rockall". The two basins have two very different geological histories and you go at them separately. Otherwise it would be like not bothering with the North Sea because nothing was found drilling the West Orkney Basin.

Basically, don't trust any MP who's been told this stuff fifth hand.

What about the 500 million barrel field found of Rathlin Island ? Is that in the same barren basin as the Firth of Clyde ?

[Hedgecutter]

What about the 500 million barrel field found of Rathlin Island ? Is that in the same barren basin as the Firth of Clyde ?

In a word, no. I'll try and explain this very generally without getting too far into the technical guts of it all:

That Polaris prospect is within the Rathlin Trough basin (by 'basin' I mean a hole in the ground millions of years ago which has since been filled in by various mudstones and sandstones, i.e. not referring to present day bathymetry which you might be thinking of). This is anomalous in the region because it's a deep 'graben' structure (see image below in spoiler) which doesn't extend very far into Scottish waters (and they're west of Kintyre anyway). I've stuck a map below.

Above: the light brown areas represent areas with sedimentary rocks of at least semi interest. Everything else is is near/fully impermeable and useless. black rectangular 'tick' marks along the fault lines are on the side of the deeper down-thrown block.

Decent quality oil source rocks are usually confined to these graben basins which subside with fault movement. More space to fill = deeper water at time of deposition = better mudstones / more anoxic conditions = organic matter preserved = oil generated. Continued subsidence also means that these sources can reach the 'oil window' as temperature increases with depth (you need ~3km of burial for oil to generate). Basically, oil generation is most likely to be confined to the Rathlin Trough area. Reservoir rocks which were deposited within this basin also tend to be much thicker and better developed than anywhere else due to rivers etc gradually filling the basin's depocentre with decent sand.

Then you have the issue of the 'seal' which is the impermeable rock above the reservoir which stops the oil migrating to the surface and being lost forever. Around Rathlin, these are thick layers of Tertiary lavas which are restricted to the Antrim coast (Giant's Causeway type stuff). You do of course see similar stuff in Scotland at Mull / Staffa (Fingal's Cave) but that's way beyond this area.

The Firth of Clyde region on the other hand is controlled by the separate Arran Basin which hasn't had it's sediments buried deep enough to get any potential source rocks to hydrocarbon generating temperatures and any lavas which may have existed have been eroded away due to uplift around the rather large Arran volcanic centre. The Rathlin area is also weird in that there aren't many impermeable volcanic intrusions whilst the Firth of Clyde area is absolutely littered with them (the Lion Rock on Cumbrae is an example of an eroded one). These usually knacker oil field reservoirs by cooking and splitting them up into various compartments which need a well drilled into each one, meaning it has to be an exceptionally sizeable field to make it economically viable. To summarise:

Rathlin area = all components for a petroleum system (source, reservoir, seal) are in place and look very good.

Firth of Clyde = all components highly dodgy with one or more missing in most places.

Interestingly though, much of the geological surveying over Rathlin has been done by air rather than by survey ship. You need to remember that's still unproven though, although I think they should have drilled another exploration well by now. I think that's enough for the one post though! Hopefully it highlights the main issues and shows that it's not the same all over the west coast though (even though Rathlin isn't actually that far away).

[AUFC90]

In a word, no. I'll try and explain this very generally without getting too far into the technical guts of it all:

That Polaris prospect is within the Rathlin Trough basin (by 'basin' I mean a hole in the ground millions of years ago which has since been filled in by various mudstones and sandstones, i.e. not referring to present day bathymetry which you might be thinking of). This is anomalous in the region because it's a deep 'graben' structure (see image below in spoiler) which doesn't extend very far into Scottish waters (and they're west of Kintyre anyway). I've stuck a map below.

Decent quality oil source rocks are usually confined to these graben basins which subside with fault movement. More space to fill = deeper water at time of deposition = better mudstones / more anoxic conditions = organic matter preserved = oil generated. Continued subsidence also means that these sources can reach the 'oil window' as temperature increases with depth (you need ~3km of burial for oil to generate). Basically, oil generation is most likely to be confined to the Rathlin Trough area. Reservoir rocks which were deposited within this basin also tend to be much thicker and better developed than anywhere else due to rivers etc gradually filling the basin's depocentre with decent sand.

Then you have the issue of the 'seal' which is the impermeable rock above the reservoir which stops the oil migrating to the surface and being lost forever. Around Rathlin, these are thick layers of Tertiary lavas which are restricted to the Antrim coast (Giant's Causeway type stuff). You do of course see similar stuff in Scotland at Mull / Staffa (Fingal's Cave) but that's way beyond this area.

The Firth of Clyde region on the other hand is controlled by the separate Arran Basin which hasn't had it's sediments buried deep enough to get any potential source rocks to hydrocarbon generating temperatures and any lavas which may have existed have been eroded away due to uplift around the rather large Arran volcanic centre. The Rathlin area is also weird in that there aren't many impermeable volcanic intrusions whilst the Firth of Clyde area is absolutely littered with them (the Lion Rock on Cumbrae is an example of an eroded one). These usually knacker oil field reservoirs by cooking and splitting them up into various compartments which need a well drilled into each one, meaning it has to be an exceptionally sizeable field to make it economically viable. To summarise:

Rathlin area = all components for a petroleum system (source, reservoir, seal) are in place and look very good.

Firth of Clyde = all components highly dodgy with one or more missing in most places.

Interestingly though, much of the geological surveying over Rathlin has been done by air rather than by survey ship. You need to remember that's still unproven though, although I think they should have drilled another exploration well by now. I think that's enough for the one post though! Hopefully it highlights the main issues and shows that it's not the same all over the west coast though (even though Rathlin isn't actually that far away).

Images (hidden to save space):

IMAG0580.jpg

Above: the light brown areas represent areas with sedimentary rocks of at least semi interest. Everything else is hard rock academic hard rock shite. black rectangular 'tick' marks along the fault lines are on the side of the deeper down-thrown block.

Fair enough sir... You know more than most

Thanks for taking the time to explain it

[Blaven]

If you can, get on BBC I player, go to bbc1 Wednesday and look for Referendum documentaries " our friends in the North".

[Blaven]

Neil Findlay making a complete tit of himself on Scotland tonight.

[joozy]

Sir Ian Wood has come out in favour of a no vote and says the SNP have over-estimated production figures.

http://www.energyvoice.com/2014/08/sir-ian-wood-breaks-silence-ahead-scotlands-independence-vote/

[Blaven]

Sir Ian Wood has come out in favour of a no vote and says the SNP have over-estimated production figures.

http://www.energyvoice.com/2014/08/sir-ian-wood-breaks-silence-ahead-scotlands-independence-vote/

Yes. Very surprising. Started to read, got to Scotland needing to import energy from England and stopped.

Utter pish.

[Confidemus]

Sir Ian Wood has come out in favour of a no vote and says the SNP have over-estimated production figures.

http://www.energyvoice.com/2014/08/sir-ian-wood-breaks-silence-ahead-scotlands-independence-vote/

Yeah? Well Professor Sir Donald Mackay says Danny Alexander and the OBR have underestimated figures.

http://wingsoverscotland.com/danny-alexanders-broken-calculator/

Professor Sir trumps plain old Sir. Ner ner ner, etc.

[AUFC90]

Sir Ian Wood has come out in favour of a no vote and says the SNP have over-estimated production figures.

http://www.energyvoice.com/2014/08/sir-ian-wood-breaks-silence-ahead-scotlands-independence-vote/

Was that same ian wood that said we could get an extra 200 billion out of oil and gas over the next 20 years ?

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26315319

[joozy]

Yes. Very surprising. Started to read, got to Scotland needing to import energy from England and stopped.

Utter pish.

Yeah? Well Professor Sir Donald Mackay says Danny Alexander and the OBR have underestimated figures.

http://wingsoverscotland.com/danny-alexanders-broken-calculator/

Professor Sir trumps plain old Sir. Ner ner ner, etc.

Was that same ian wood that said we could get an extra 200 billion out of oil and gas over the next 20 years ?

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26315319

Wow...it's a 30 minute interview which is actually pretty measured in tone - and here come the usual yes lunatics within a few minutes essentially saying "wah wah wah".

Watch the video - he explains his reasoning pretty clearly.

[doulikefish]

Wow...it's a 30 minute interview which is actually pretty measured in tone - and here come the usual yes lunatics within a few minutes essentially saying "wah wah wah".

Watch the video - he explains his reasoning pretty clearly.

Yip he does,only one small problem somebody better tell bp that its running out in 35 years,last week they estimated the clair field to have at least 40years as a conservative estimate

[AUFC90]

Wow...it's a 30 minute interview which is actually pretty measured in tone - and here come the usual yes lunatics within a few minutes essentially saying "wah wah wah".

Watch the video - he explains his reasoning pretty clearly.

So he was lying in the article I provided ?

[AUFC90]

Yip he does,only one small problem somebody better tell bp that its running out in 35 years,last week they estimated the clair field to have at least 40years as a conservative estimate

Plus the Bentley field which will last at least 30 years. Not counting the North sea which has at least 40 years left.

[Blaven]

Wow...it's a 30 minute interview which is actually pretty measured in tone - and here come the usual yes lunatics within a few minutes essentially saying "wah wah wah".

Watch the video - he explains his reasoning pretty clearly.

What vision do you have for the UK when the oil and gas runs out?

[AUFC90]

What vision do you have for the UK when the oil and gas runs out?

When that happens they'll be desperate to get rid of us

[Casual Bystander]

Out of interest, is this the same Mr Wood that was proclaiming a £200bn bonanza over the next couple of decades from the Oil and Gas section in Scotland just a few years ago. It seems that his predictions seem to be tailored towards his audience.

When it's investment he is looking for, then the spin is positive and when it's his own pet unionist agenda well then clearly it's not quite as enthusiastic. Don't get me wrong Mr Wood is not a stupid man, he would never say something that was either untrue or could come back to bite him but he knows how to preach to the believers.