BP makes "giant" discovery in Gulf of Mexico

BP's "giant" oil discovery in the Gulf of Mexico is all over the news this morning.

“It will be bigger than the 3 billion barrels” of oil equivalent discovered at the nearby Kaskida field, said Robert Wine, a London-based spokesman at BP. “This is a whole new geological play we’ve got here.”

In the FT, a few analysts give their interpretations of the size and significance of the find. The FT also has this nifty chart showing the impressive technical strides deepwater drilling has made (the new "Tiber" find is over 10,000 meters deep, a depth considerably greater than Mount Everest's altitude of 8,848 meters).


Update: Tim Haab at Environmental Economics calls it "Economic theory of depletable resources 1, Peak oil predictions 0."

Again: higher oil prices create at least three types of incentives 1) Incentives to invest in alternative fuel technologies, 2) Incentives to conserve, and 3) Incentives to explore for new sources of oil.