The Oil Drum | Debating to the numbers (or more on Saudi production)

26 comments on Debating to the numbers (or more on Saudi production)

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Murray on September 30, 2005 - 11:52am

Congressional testimony 1979 - proven plus probable = 177.5 Gb. That is ominously close to the above x intercept. I hadn't seen this Laherrere curve before, but to me it is very scary, especially when linked to the 1979 testimony. If a reasonable URR for SA is 180 Gb they are already at 58%. As I noted before, max. reservoir contact wells are likely to move the point of decline closer to 70% (not to be confused with 70% of URR recoverable) than 50%. At an assumed 180 Gb URR, a current production rate of 9.5 Gb/d and 70% peak point they are at best 6 years from decline, and probably very close to their peak production now. Murray

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Murray on September 30, 2005 - 12:03pm

I should have added that when water gets to those MRC wells, SA won't decline gradually, they will drop like a stone. Murray

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Sam Foucher on September 30, 2005 - 12:35pm

Exactly! if you look at the value for k= 7% (take the aP/Q value corresponding to the logistic line at Q=0), it gives you the maximum production rate at peak for a logistic curve:

Pmax= 180Gb x k / 4= 3.15 Gb/year= 8.63 mbpd

so if this model is true, they are probably past peak right now and they will have a high depletion rate. Conversely, you can take their current production figure around 11 mbpd and compute the corresponding URR which gives 229 Gb.

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26 comments on Debating to the numbers (or more on Saudi production)

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