ERHC Energy Inc (ERHE)

[rational_trader]

Size of the elephant according to Meridian

"an oil column of 800ft and an oil bearing structure with a diameter of 50 miles"

How many barrels of oil are in this structure ?

I am more comfortable with meters, so let's start with some conversions:

1 mile = 1609 meters
1 foot = 0.3 meter
1 cubic meter = 6.29 barrels

structure area = 0.5*pi*r*r = 0.5*3.14*(25x1609)*(25X1609)
=2.54 bil sq. meters

structure vol = 2.54 x (800*0.3) = 609 bil cubic meters

volumns in barrels = 609 * 6.29 = 3834 bil barrels

or 3.8 trillion barrels ?

Can this be true ?


Let's be more conservative, (1)the diameter is off by 2 = 25 miles
(2)The 800 ft depth is the maximum and at the edge of the structure, it goes to zero
(3)only 1/3 is recoverable

The total area is reduced by a factor of 4, depth reduced by a factor of 3,
total volumns in barrels = 3834/12 = 319 bil barrels

Total recoverable = 319/3 = 106 bil barrel


Maybe this is why someone mentioned "second only to Saudi" ???

Still hard to believe.