'Huge Oil Field Discovered in Mexico'

The BBC recently reported that a huge new oil field was found in Mexico. This deep-water field is believed to contain roughly 10 billion barrels of oil.
Upon reading this, I wondered how this might affect world oil supplies, as this sounded like a great find!

But taken in light of the world oil consumption, currently some 120 million barrels per day, 10 billion barrels really doesn't seem like much. That's a mere 83 days of world consumption. Sure, that's a lot of oil, but in the scheme of things, it won't make any difference.

Two important tidbits can be extracted from this information. First, This is considered a huge oil find, with all the associated hoopla, and yet, by itself, it won't alter predictions for peak-oil. Second, this is a deep-water find, that some think supports the abiotic oil theory.

In a very small nutshell, the abiotic oil theory proposes that oil stores are contained inside the earth and seep up to form the pockets of oil that we've been drilling for the last century. This is in direct contrast to the popular fossil fuel theory that indicates that oil is the product of decayed remains of carbon based lifeforms. The abiotic theory is important because, if true, it could indicate that the quantity of oil in the Earth is vastly greater than that already extracted. I haven't decided for myself whether I buy this theory. The one thing that makes me take it seriously is that Tommy Gold (recently deceased) was a major proponent of this theory. See this Wired article for more info.