From: pfallon@bigfoot.com
Date: Wed Nov 03 1999 - 08:58:15 MST
Anders Sandberg wrote:
> hal@finney.org writes:
>
> > Gold convinced a group to drill for oil in what was a highly unpromising
> > area by conventional standards, in the late 70s or early 80s, and as I
> > recall the project was a complete failure. No mention of that in the
> > article quoted here, though, which seemed more interested in colorizing
> > the man than in whether his ideas are correct.
>
> That was the Siljan Gas Project, where they drilled in the region
> around lake Siljan in Sweden. The place is rather interesting, an old
> impact crater (a few tens of kilometers across) where Gold's theories
> said methane would have been trapped beneath the rock. There was quite
> a bit of interest in the drilling, not unlike participating in a
> lottery (OK, the likeliehood of winning is slight... but IF you
> win!). As you said, the project failed to find any oil or gas.
Gold, in http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/tg21/usgs.html claims otherwise:
"It was quickly ascertained that just the area of the Siljan structure was
quite anomalously rich in soil
methane and other light hydrocarbons, that many ordinary water wells produced
copious amounts of
gas and that a number of stone quarries in the area had oil seeping out of the
rocks and making oil
pools in the ground. It is true that the stone quarries were in the
sedimentary rock which fills a ring
shaped depression, but those sediments are nowhere deeper than 300 meters. Oil
seepage generated
after 360 million years from such a small quantity of sediments seemed
improbable. Aside from the
ring shaped depression, the basement rock is very close to the surface in the
whole area; there is
barely enough soil for the trees to grow both inside and outside the Siljan
Ring feature.
As a result of the clear demonstration that the area was quite anomalous for
its hydrocarbon content,
it was decided to engage in a major drilling operation. Since 1986 two wells
have been drilled: one to
a depth of 6.7 kilometers, the other to a depth of 6.5 kilometers. Both holes
showed the presence of
methane and of other hydrocarbon gases, as well as of crude oil. While in the
first hole (Gravberg I)
diesel oil was used for a time as a component of the drilling mud, only
water-based mud was used in
the second hole (Stenberg 1), which is situated in the center of the ring, and
is 12 km distant from the
ring sediments, and also from Gravberg 1. Although the detailed chemical
makeup of the oil found at
deep levels in Gravberg was not the same as diesel oil, many considered
nevertheless that the diesel
drilling oil could be held responsible. Some 15 tons of oil were pumped up,
oil that had hydrocarbon
components and organo-metallic compounds that are frequently in natural crude
oils, but were absent
or present only in very much lower abundance in any of the drilling fluids...
The scientific investigations carried out on products of the two holes have
thus demonstrated that
hydrocarbons are present deep in granitic rock in the complete absence or
proximity of any
sedimentary materials and in a distribution that leaves no reasonable doubt
that they have come from
deeper levels. The mix of the different hydrocarbon molecules, both of the
gases and the oils, is quite
a typical mix, as it is found in other oil and gas producing regions. The
quantities of oil and gas that
appear to be present in this 44 km diameter formation, tested in two distant
locations, appear to be
very large, as judged by the porosity measurements and the vertical intervals
showing high
concentrations."
He also mentions the sludge you cite, for example:
" Production flow rates could not be achieved in either hole, apparently
because in a
confluent flow towards the wellbore, the sludge quickly concentrates and
blocks the pores."
Perhaps for that reason the project was deemed a failure.
Regards,
Pat Fallon
pfallon@bigfoot.com
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