1.1.5 Worldwide Resoij-rces and Production Trends 



Of all the trends occurring in the worldwide petroleum business, 

 the most important is the current shifting of measured reserves and 

 production from the U.S. and Western Hemisphere to the Eastern 

 Hemisphere--the Persian Gulf nations, the western and northern African 

 nations, and Indonesia along with several other Southeast Asian countries. 

 All of these areas are presently supplying significant imports to the 

 United States. The dramatic North Sea and Prudhoe Bay discoveries have 

 caused a temporary increase in the United States and Western European 

 supply. 



Over 85 percent of the world's hydrocarbon production and reserves 

 occur in less than 5 percent (238 fields) of all producing accumulations 

 [5]. Sixty-five percent of the reserves occur in less than one percent 

 of the fields. The 55 "supergiant" fields (scattered throughout the 

 world) each contain over a billion barrels of oil (or a trillion cubic 

 feet of natural gas). Fifteen percent of reserves occur in two immense 

 Persian Gulf fields--Ghawan in Saudi Arabia and Burgan in Kuwait. 



More than anything else, the shift in the geographical location of 

 reserves and production has meant, and will mean, a transition from 

 traditional patterns of production, transportation, and refining of 

 nydrocarbons to new patterns with oil and gas flowing from the reserve 

 rich countries to U.S. refining and distribution centers. It is these 

 patterns, defined by the worldwide flow of Eastern Hemisphere oil and 

 gas, which will determine the trends in the U.S. petroleum infrastructure 

 for at least the next 20 years. Unless an unexpectedly large reserve is 

 found offshore in U.S. frontier areas, any discoveries or production 

 from the offshore will not alter the trends set by foreign imports 

 (imports, however, could be affected by significant conservation efforts). 

 Domestic production from offshore will simply displace foreign hydrocarbons 

 to other regions of the nation or be added to a region's input stream. 

 Therefore, vast growth of refining and distribution systems will not 

 likely be induced by offshore finds, unless they are unexpectedly high. 



1.1.6 Location of Refineries and Other Infrastructure 



The easiest way to explain how the infrastructure of the U.S. oil 

 industry is presently distributed is to say that it is organized around 

 the historical sources of oil and gas, areas which have had the largest 

 concentration of producing fields. Therefore, the heaviest concentrations 

 of infrastructures are in the Texas and Louisiana coastal region. The 

 pipelines and refineries in these areas have, in the past, been supplied 

 from local fields but now are increasingly supplied from imports coming 

 in through the region's many tanker terminals. 



How offshore development in any "frontier" area will affect nearby 

 coastal communities depends on its relation to the existing pattern of 



