Large GoMex oil "find"

So Chevron claims to have found an oil field with approximately 15 billion barrels in the Gulf of Mexico. Good for them, but once more, I'd like to caution everyone not to get too excited. Every little bit helps, but this is not even a drop in the bucket.

One analyst quoted by CNN says:

"At best we're not going to see a drop of oil for five years, maybe seven years," said Fadel Gheit, oil analyst for Oppenheimer. "It's great news for Chevron and even more so for Devon. But you can't hold your breath waiting for it."

In five years, the United States will have used more than 35 billion barrels of oil. In five years, the world will have used 150 billion barrels of oil. So by the time this field comes on stream, we will have already used ten times as much oil as is under the waters. What I'm saying is we're not even treading water with discoveries like this - we're (barely) slowing the rate of descent.

And that, of course, assumes that this find proves to actually have as much oil as they suspect today - remember earlier this year, Mexico announced a 10-billion-plus field that turned out to be so much gas.

Most amusing have been the news anchors breathlessly reporting that this find could expand the US's oil reserves by "a whopping 50%"!!! Carefully left out of the picture is the reality that the US reserves are something like 60-70% depleted, and it's a sign of how meager they are, not how large this find is, that a number like that has any relevance.