The Oil Drum | Burgan and the other fields in Kuwait

12 comments on Burgan and the other fields in Kuwait

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version

Donal on November 14, 2005 - 6:22pm

Why would torching increase depletion? Can oil and gas burn away while thousands of feet underground?

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Bubba on November 14, 2005 - 6:56pm

Saddam's troops blew the wellheads on lots (tens to hundreds) of wells in Burgan field. It allowed them to flow unconstrainted at very high rates for months. Some of them probably "coned" water in from below the oil reservoir. This has a damaging effect on the reservoir. Moreover, lots of reservoir pressure was lost, and lots of barrels (?volume?) ended up on the ground or were burned up.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Dave Cohen on November 14, 2005 - 9:35pm

Re: "coned" water in from below the oil reservoir

Could you explain that further? As regards lots of pressure being lost, that seems straightforward and no doubt accelerated declining flow rates as I talk about here. But it seems hard to believe that a truly significant volume was lost from the sabotage.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Essex Land Rover Man on November 15, 2005 - 3:07am

It has been estimated that Kuwait lost 2 billion barrels of oil due to the invasion (ASPO amongst other sources).

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Rick on November 15, 2005 - 12:04am

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Dave Cohen on November 15, 2005 - 12:22am

A picture is worth a thousand words. Perhaps I stand corrected vis-a-vis how much lost oil there was from Burgan back in 1991. I will say that as far as depletion goes regarding the peak, above the ground geopolitical factors (that led to this burn-off fire) count equally with geological considerations.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

12 comments on Burgan and the other fields in Kuwait

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version

Search The Oil Drum with Google

Support The Oil Drum

Click the button to learn about supporting The Oil Drum with a secure donation.

Peak Oil Primers

Beware email scams!

Beware email scams claiming to be from this site. We do not have any job openings. If anyone contacts you about a job at The Oil Drum, do not reply to them, and definitely do not give them any personal information or send them money. Read more here.

“This order [i.e. capitalism] is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with the economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt.”

—Max Weber, 1905