"The matter of EROEI can be expressed very directly by means of the following rhetorical question. What is the point of getting a barrel of oil out of the ground if the energy required to get it out is equivalent to that released on the burning of two barrels of oil?
The information is fairly well known. What is less widely known is that it does not even remotely signify oil depletion. Over the period covered by the graph wells have increased in depth from tens or at most a hundred or so metres to thousands of metres and the energy required to raise oil from such depths obviously exceeds that required to raise it from shallower depths, other things being equal.
The energy requirement for drilling in exploration is quite negligible in comparison with that in subsequent production, so initial inaccessibility of the oil is probably not a factor in the .
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Last date updated on September, 2024