<Nigerian oil production safe (for now) The Oil Drum Dueling Editors>

30 comments on Shhhh! Maybe they won't notice . . . . . .

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version

Stuart Staniford on September 28, 2005 - 1:13am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
So to believe he's right - 460 billion to go, 110 produced, 570 total, we have to believe that the American owned version of Aramco which did almost all the discovery, was wrong in their estimate of OOIP (530 billion barrels) by a factor of, roughly, 2 or 3. This is if we believe recovery rate would eventually be 33-50% - so Mr al-Naimis 570 would have to come from OOIP of 1-1.5 trillion barrels. This is a generous recovery estimate given that most of the claimed reserves must be heavy oil (or they wouldn't be producing so much of it already). He's not claiming he's made big new discoveries, he's just claiming new technology will let them recover more from the known fields.

The American owned Aramco ran the province from the early 1930s to 1979. They may not have had 3d seismic, but they had 2d seismic, and they would have had data on every production well they drilled, right? Cuttings. So they'd know the porosity and height of the column in all those wells. So how could they be that wrong?

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
72myz on September 28, 2005 - 7:56am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"2005 - (august) As oil becomes more expensive and production rates decline from old wells, attention turns to expensive to access deep water oil. The cost of the relatively few specialised offshore exploration rigs is now between 30% and 50% higher than last year - demand for these specialist rigs is now high.

Suprisingly, Saudi Arabia this months hires five 'jackup' oil rigs to drill offshore. Some commentators ask, if Saudi reserves are as large as their unsubstantiated claims say, why do they need to explore the very expensive offshore drilling option? There have been no Saudi offshore fields of any size found in Saudi Arabia since 1978. Why are the Saudis looking for relatively small fields (by their standards)? The answer may be an estimate in 2000 that saw a possible 2 billion barrel of oil oilfield likely offshore Saudia Arabia, mostly, but not entirely, in Iranian waters. Clearly, an ally with strong marine firepower would be needed to protect the drillers in this contentious area."
http://www.SustainableLiving.info/fading_of_the_oil_economy_timeline.htm

Even this inferred 2 billion barrel oilfield, a useful size, is trivial in context of this huge claim. Where is the huge evidence?

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

30 comments on Shhhh! Maybe they won't notice . . . . . .

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version