westexas

The problem is, and I quote from the excellent paper of Morton's (great maps too!) you link,

"Unfortunately for the world, few know the actual state of Ghawar."

And this is considering that everyone in the business had tried to beg, borrow or steal information about the condition of the field....imagine how little we know about the less studied Saudia areas, including Saudi offshore oil.

The problem is that sooner or later, this lack of oil would have to start showing up in a big way.  If Ghawar really is done that much, combined with Bergen, combined with Canterell combined with the known large drops in the North Sea combined with Norway, combined with China's field, then...?

Where is the oil coming from?  Are refiners having any difficulty getting supplies?  Are contract prices rising to lock in supplies?  Is any serious effort at diversification being made, to nat gas and propane, which for now we seem to up to our eyebrows?  Are drillers of gas and oil jumping back in in a big way?

These would be confirmation signs.  In the short range, we can find no one in the industry itself showing signs of panic or need for expedited action.  In fact, the trend in the short terrm is running the other direction, with countries talking of reducing production to protect price, investment firms running scared after the derivitives in natural gas collapse  (a collapse brought on by falling, not rising, natural gas prices), and gas drillers out west now delaying action on drilling of known assets to "store the gas in the ground".

There are however some confirmations, in the Saudi's march to more complex and expensive fields (remote ones which require pipeline water to inject and expensive pipeline to get the oil out) and high tech drilling to boost production, and into the offshore area in a bigger way  (this to me is always a sign that gas/oil is getting difficult to find onshore....otherwise, why go through the pain in the azz that is the nature of offshore drilling....and the deeper they go, the more it signals that onshore oil is getting hard to find and develop, for whatever reason.

There is one more thing I have to mention, even though I don't want to go too long.....these so called "oil insiders" or "a Mexican oil worker has leaked" or "an unnamed Saudi oilfield insider said" type stories are completely useless.

There is no way I can know that this is not some guy who saved up a couple of thousand bucks, bought oil futures on the long side and then started making a few phone calls to back up his bet and pick up some extra money.
It could be a PEMEX or ARAMCO secretary or janitor for all I know....with no attribution or confirmation, that is National Enquirer type stuff....

Roger Conner  known to you as ThatsItImout