From 1959 through 1961, the Khurais field enjoyed a small burst of early production. Production then ceased.
In the early 1970s, Khurais was brought back onstream and produced between 20,000 and 40,000 barrels per day for the rest of the decade. It is not clear whether this production came from the Khurais field only or from the entire Khurais complex.
In 1980 Khurais produced 68,000 barrels a day.
In 1981 when Saudi Arabia's oil production reached its all-time peak, Khurais produced a record 144,000 barrels a day. This was likely Khurais' all-time peak output.

But now Saudi Aramco hopes to get 1,200,000 barrels per day when before the very best they could do was 144,000 barrels per day. How do they hope to accomplish this feat? Obviously it is with the aid of massive injections of seawater. Contracts have been let to lay this seawater pipeline from the Persian Gulf.

In 1983 Saudi drilled 50 new gas reinjection wells in the Khurais field to try to get production up. But production kept falling and the field was eventually closed because of low well production and other technical problems. At the price of oil in those days, they probably felt that a seawater pipeline from the gulf was just not economical. Now however, with the price of oil at $70 a barrel, they will try to get more oil from this field. But a jump from its former peak of 144,000 barrels per day to 1.2 million barrels per day seems quite a leap. I would bet a pretty penny that the field will never produce more than half a million barrels per day. In fact, I have serious doubts that it will ever reach that point.

Ron Patterson