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A billion barrels here. A billion barrels there. Pretty soon you're talking about a lot of oil. 

When it comes to ExxonMobil's Julia discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, however, the only projection the company actually has ever provided is one vague word: "significant."

But that didn't stop industry analysts and journalists from freaking out recently at the language used by ExxonMobil lawyers in a lawsuit against the US government contesting rejection of an extension on the company's lease at that prospect. More specifically, in the first paragraph of their pleadings, the legal team charged the rejection is "depriving ExxonMobil of the right to produce a reservoir believed to hold billions of barrels of oil."

My journalism career started with writing food articles for the "Women's News" section of my local newspaper, but eventually ended up covering what might be called "Men's News": the energy sector.

Solid statistics on women in the energy field overall are scarce, but a glance around the room at any industry event will confirm it is probably not much higher than the 20% or so that has been bandied around as an estimate. To pick a random example, ExxonMobil says women make up 26% of its worldwide workforce.

There is widespread agreement that confusion hampered the response effort in the early days and weeks after the April 20 blowout of BP's Macondo well. There was confusion over whether there was an oil spill at all and then just how large; confusion over how quickly the gushing well would be capped; and confusion over just who was in charge, BP or the government.

The scale and scope of the confusion is well documented by a report produced by the staff of the National Oil Spill Commission, appointed by President Obama to investigate the Deepwater Horizon tragedy and recommend ways to avoid a repeat. The document, entitled "Decision Making Within the Unified Command," details some of the problems encountered by government responders in the early days and suggests ways to clarify roles in the future.

Media agencies from around the globe have descended on beautiful Cancun, Mexico, this week to cover the two-day summit of the International Energy Forum, which began Monday. Cancun has been a wonderful host, and reporters are enjoying their time at the lovely Moon Palace resort, hard against the Caribbean Sea.

The IEF's treatment of the media here leaves much to be desired, however.

Although a jury of ousted castmates rejected his claim on the $1 million prize for this season's Survivor: Samoa show, oilman-turned-TV-villain Russell Hantz was vindicated when the larger TV audience voted him its "player of the season" with a $100,000 consolation prize.

But Hantz was still arguing his case at the season finale ("Oilman-turned-TV villain Hantz eyes $1 million 'Survivor' prize," The Barrel, December 18, 2009) Sunday night, where he offered the $100,000 to winner Natalie White if she would just acknowledge his stature as the show's true sole survivor.

Oil industry representative Russell Hantz has secured a spot in the three-hour season finale for the CBS Survivor: Samoa reality game show scheduled for Sunday night, after lying and cheating his way into the final five. 

The 36-year-old Hantz ("Meet the oil industry's newest high-profile villain," The Barrel September 22, 2009) runs Hantz Tankering in Dayton, Texas, but he may well have found his true calling on the Survivor show, where he has emerged as one of the franchise's most memorable villains of all time, according to numerous Survivor fan web sites.

Most of the jokes and web links flying around the Internet about high gasoline prices are pretty predictable. As a result, they are not particularly funny.

But the embedded picture in this one, I must admit, made me laugh.

"Dire Predictions - Understanding Global Warming," a guide to the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is likely to infuriate climate skeptics because it is so user friendly that it could become a popular default source for information on what has been called the gravest environmental challenge of the 21st century (among a host of envirnmental challnges).

The book distills the more than 2,000 pages of the three latest IPCC reports, released last year, into 200 lavishly illustrated pages. It offers in broad strokes what the IPCC provides in so much greater detail. But while few casual readers are likely to plow through the densely written, heavily foot-noted IPCC reports, "Dire Predictions" is an easy read.

It's been said in recent years that to get the pulse of what America is talking about, check out the monologues of Jay Leno and David Letterman.

Here's what Jay had to say this week about a particular oil issue.