Energy issues

 I had a great childhood in West Texas. My dad, an area manager for Gulf Oil when I was young, began my introduction to the oil and gas industry early, and it was continual. He waited until I was about seven to take me on my first rig visit. Over the next few years, and numerous field visits, I became intrigued with the industry and began to ask my father myriad questions about overall operations, and his projects.

I asked him once, how an exploration well in eastern New Mexico had gone. “Just got a little bit of tail,” he said. What he meant was a little bit of a Brontosaurus tail, indicating little hydrocarbon show. As a petroleum engineering and geology double major, he often referenced the accepted idea (fact to most of his generation) that oil and gas were derived from the slow transformation of organic material, under pressure and temperature. If he ever ran across the theory of abiotic oil formation, he never mentioned it—and he would not have accepted it. Few people have—but it is making the rounds again.

Origins. What, you might ask, is abiotic oil and gas formation? First proposed by Georg Agricola in the 16th century, the abiotic theory goes to the depths of the planet, specifically, the mantle. It proposes that carbon may exist as hydrocarbons (chiefly methane) and as elemental carbon, carbon dioxide and carbonates in the mantle. How, you might also ask, did those carbon compounds get there? Well, they showed up before life itself, and they likely came from—meteorites. Meteorites are believed to be the major material source from which the earth was formed. Some meteorites, such as carbonaceous chondrites, contain carbon-based materials. Trapped under HPHT regimes within the mantle, the inorganic carbon components in the meteorite detritus were transformed into hydrocarbons. It’s a bit more complex than that, but it would take too many pages to explain, three abiotic theories.

During the long abiotic oil debate, field observations have been cited to bolster the theory. These include oil wells offshore Vietnam, the Eugene Island Block 330 field in the Gulf of Mexico and the Dnieper-Donets basin. Of course, modern geologists attribute these commercial deposits to conventional sources.

FSU adherence. In the former Soviet Union, on the other hand, the theory gained large acceptance, beginning in the 1950s, and there it evolved fully. Indeed, Krayushkin, Tchebanenko, et. al., writing in 1994, declared “the modern Russian theory of abyssal, abiotic petroleum origins is no longer an item of academic debate among university faculties in the former Soviet Union. This body of knowledge is now approximately a half-century old and has moved considerably beyond academic research and scientific testing. Today, the modern theory is applied as a useful tool, and the guiding perspective, in petroleum exploration throughout the former
Soviet Union.”¹

Several points bear mentioning, regarding Russian development and championing of the theory, according to Dr. J. F. Kenney²:

• The modern Russian-Ukrainian theory of abyssal, abiotic petroleum origins was first proposed by Professor Nikolai Kudryavtsev in 1951. There have been several thousand journal articles published on the topic in Russia.
• This theory is not untested and is not speculative. From 1952 through 1964/65, All-Union conferences in petroleum and petroleum geology dealt with the subject.
• This theory is not a vague, qualitative hypothesis. It stands as a rigorous analytical theory within the mainstream of modern physical science.
• This theory is not controversial or presently a matter of academic debate.

With regard to the points above, take issue with what you will (I certainly do); but bear in mind that the theory has not been disproved, and it has not disappeared.

In fact, the discussion resurfaced lately in some interesting corners. To describe some of those corners as weird may be an understatement. My good friend and fellow World Oil columnist, Jim Redden, sent me a link recently to a discussion of the abiotic oil theory at viewzone.com. The article points to a report in ScienceDaily, noting that researchers at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm have “managed to prove that fossils of animals and plants are not necessary for crude oil and gas to be generated.” Other interesting stories have appeared on viewzone, including one that noted that a variant theory of light leads to the logical assumption that “we are actually characters in some computer simulations, perhaps being run by some superior intellect.”

And, a discussion on blackmadonna2009.wordpress.com suggests that there is large potential benefit in abiotic generation of oil: “If there is merit to this theory, it would be the closest thing to the Earth Mother extending humanity an invitation to a fruitful partnership.” The same article wonders if it is true that the “oil industry makes more money by keeping oil in the ground than distributing it” and is, therefore, “loath to support mainlining research into advanced drilling techniques …”

For the record, I didn’t make any of this up and did not embellish it. Nor am I passing judgment on the theory or its proponents. In fact, I am quite sure that if I left a carton of ice cream in the fridge long enough, it would turn into oil and gas under another generation theory—natural ultra-low thermal sequestration (NUTS).

REFERENCES

1. Kenney, J. F., “Considerations about recent predictions of impending shortages of petroleum evaluated from the perspective of modern petroleum science,” Joint Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; Gas Resources Corporation, Houston, 2005, http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Energy.html.

2. “Special edition on the future of petroleum,” Energy World, British Institute of Petroleum, London, June 1996, pp. 16-18.