The biggest of these supposed increases is of course from Saudi Arabia, where Khursaniyah (and Abu Hadriyah and Fadhili according to Simmons) are together supposed to produce 500,000 b/d by 2007. Simmons, in Twilight, is skeptical of that claim after reading the SPE papers about those fields and noting A) that the the rock formations there lack the wonderful porosity of Saudi Arabia's other fields, and B) that between 1965 and 1982, the field has fluctuated between 40,000 and 208,000 b/d. He concludes:

The technical papers written about Khursaniyah describe an older oilfield that seemed poised to fade quietly into oblivion. It was surprising then, to say the least, to read in October 2004 that Saudi Aramco's next big development project to bring on yet another 500,000 barrels per day of oil production capacity would focus on Khursaniyah and the nearby Abu Hadriya and Fadhili fields. When this new project is completed in 2007, the Saudi Petroleum Ministry has been widely quoted as saying, "these three fields will steadily produce 500,000 barrels per day for decades." It seems quite amazing that each of these projects to rehabilitate old, underperforming oilfields targets a production level of 500,000 barrels a day for a very long period of time. It is even more surprising that so many oil experts then simply acxcept these aggressive predictions without question or comment, as if predicting high production were tantamount to achieving it.

Emphasis in original. Well said, Matt.