<DrumBeat: July 6, 2006The Oil DrumThe Rupture Index *>

19 comments on Norway and the Parabolic Fractal Law

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Euan Mearns on July 6, 2006 - 4:43pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Khebab - what can I say - outstanding. But Norway is past peak and Norway's main worry for now must be how the oil fund is invested.

I imagine you must know Stuart and one point I have made to him in recent days is that the really important thing to understand is what is going on inside ME- OPEC - I can already hear the regular TODers groaning in dismay - what has been known to a few for a long time, however,  is news to a FNG.

My understanding of the Saudi field development history, by way of example, is that only the super giants have been fully developed - Ghawar, Abqaiq, Berri, Safaniya and Shaybah.  The rest it seems has been largely ignored - what was the point in developing everything else when you had to keep you super giants choked back for decades?

What I was wondering was what Norway's production profile would look like if they only produced Ekofisk, Statfjord, Oseberg, Gullfaks ± Troll, ± Snorre until these fields peaked.  You then panic and decide to produce everything else - and this may produce a second peak on the down curve from the biguns.  Just an idea that may give a clue how the Saudi (Kuwait and UAE) production profiles may pan out over the next 20 years.

Your charts and work on Norway are fantastic.

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Khebab on July 6, 2006 - 5:29pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Very good comment! below the result of two separate HL on the top 5 fields and the rest:

HL big fields:

Q(2005)= 10.8 Gb (  89.4 % of the URR)
URR= 12.124 Gb
k=  21.4 %
Peak date= 1995
Q(1995)=  6.418 Gb (52.937% of the URR)

HL small fields:

Q(2005)= 8.4 Gb ( 66.3 % of the URR)
URR= 12.639
k=  22.5 %
Peak date= 2002
Q(2002)=  6.420 Gb (50.797% of the URR)

Clearly production have been maintained by the 42 smallest fields that contains 50% of the URR. The contribution from the top 5 has peaked in 1995 whereas the small fields contribution has peaked in 2002. I'm surprised that the decline rates are similar (~22%).

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Euan Mearns on July 6, 2006 - 6:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Thanks Khebab, a trult amazing swift response.  So the top 5 fields peak around 1994 (lets say thats 2006 for KSA) what happens to the sum of the two logistics if you then slide the 42 smallest fields to the right to start producing around 1995 for Norway that's plus 18 years?  In KSA they may just start to think about all the rest next year.

Very interesting to see that the 42 smallest fields reach a peak that is just marginally higher than the 5 biggest.  This I think is a good thing.  If KSA do indeed have 42± smaller fields to develop (in their size scale) then is it possible that KSA may have a second peak in 25 years time?

There's no doubt that KSA will have a large number of undeveloped fields - p 33 of Twilight shows some of these.  It will require a huge amount of cash and effort to develop them.  This may have no impact on peak oil but may have a profound impact on the shape of the down curve.

PS its 11 o'clock here in Aberdeen and I'm off trout fishing in Norway tomorrow and am not back till Tuesday.

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Luis de Sousa on July 8, 2006 - 2:36pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Thank you guys for these post/comments!

I just continue to be baffled by the numbers coming out of these posts. Besides of the mystic 0.07, now that equal K for the big and smaller fields.

The equal K must be a symptom of a fractal phenomenon. The smaller fields behave just like the big ones!

Had we field by field data for KSA, we could get a pretty good idea of what the production of smaller fields will look like.

All in all I think KSA will yield a future production graph over time like that of the UK, with a primary peak followed by a second. In the UK this was due to two separate discovery cycles; in KSA this will be due to two development cycles.

The result - KSA peaked in 1980 and that's it.

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Khebab on July 8, 2006 - 5:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You're right, the fact that the two logistic curves have the same shape is surprising. I still don't know exactly what to think of it yet!
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Don Sailorman on July 11, 2006 - 11:23am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
i DON'T find it the least bit surprising.

Why not?

See my comments on figuring telescope mirrors elsewhere.

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jkissing on July 6, 2006 - 5:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Great point. And, opec countries, plus some others, are not open to commercial development where anybody can buy or lease land anywhere and everywhere. The US is fully explored because there were never any limits on production (except texas), so constraints were entirely economic.

OTOH, consider that in 1999 SA chose to devlop Shaybah, located very deep in the empty quarter, where production costs are much higher, and anyway development required expensive, horizontal multilateral wells. Presumably, this was at that time their lowest cost option.

BTW, their doubling of rigs may be necessary to maintain production because they are now resorting to horizontal wells, which take longer to drill.

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westexas on July 6, 2006 - 6:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The Lower 48 is a fascinating HL case.  Khebab took only the Lower 48 production through 1970 to  generate a predicted post-1970 production profile (through 2004).  

The post-1970 cumulative Lower 48 production was 99% of what the HL model predicted that it would be.  What is interesting is that unrestrained drilling for smaller fields had no discernible effect.  

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Euan Mearns on July 6, 2006 - 6:22pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Is it possible that the Saudis have been pre-occupied with size?  Shaybah afterall was the biggest field on their books and a major exploration success.  At some point they must get around to developing 100,000 bopd fields using 50 production wells and 20 injectors.  I'm sure 2000 bopd doesn't sound great in Saudi.  Are there any on-shore wells in Texas that still produce 2000 bopd?
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Khebab on July 7, 2006 - 9:34am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Spam?
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