Who do you believe?

The Energy Bulletin has published a cautionary article on the Chevron oil find in the Gulf of Mexico announced to great fanfare this week. The article points out that it is unlikely that the discovery will increase our oil reserves the 50% that's been mentioned in press articles. The uncommon depth (three miles) to reach the field leads the author to believe that there can be very little certainty as to the potential reserves; in fact, there is likely much more natural gas than oil found at such depths.

The author attributes the timing and content of the announcement to the upcoming consideration by the Senate of legislation to allow more offshore drilling. Bolstering this contention is the situation last year when the Mexican parliament was considering expanding drilling by its state oil company, Pemex. Just before the vote, a discovery with the potential of 10 billion barrels was announced. That estimate was revised this year to 43 million barrels, or a drop of 99.57%.

The skepticism which is implied by the title of this post is due to the limited information available about the backers of this site; there is none. The author of the article is identified as Randy Kirk who works for an invesrment firm in San Francisco. True, had there been names and background of the operators of the site, it could all be a charade. But, it would allow the reader to do some checking.