This is a post by ACE!!! that was buried far down in the thread yesterday that deserves a new life...apologies in advance for bungling it (copied it from the source and removed stray HTML):

ace on April 2, 2007 - 12:53am

The Decline of Saudi Arabia: Updated Forecast and Field by Field Analysis Report
Hi Westexas,
That’s a great article that you’ve found – Riyadh bank predicts that Saudi oil production is expected to fall…to 8.44 million bpd in 2007.
My current forecast is showing Saudi oil production to be about the same at 8.43 million bpd in 2007.
Figure 1 – Saudi Arabia Production Forecast

Given that it is becoming more likely that Saudi has no surplus capacity the importance of the near term big projects Shaybah and AFK (Khursaniyah) becomes critical.
This Nov 2006 CSIS presentation by Obaid makes the following statements:
http://www.csis.org/media/csis/events/061109_omsg_presentation1.pdf
Khursaniyah (AFK) was ”originally scheduled for December 2007” but in Nov 2006, Obaid says that it will be earlier: ”by June 2007 to reach 500,000 b/d”.
Shaybah expansion was ”originally scheduled for January 2009” but again Obaid states an earlier date: ”by April/May 2008: 250,000 b/d will come on stream”.
On Mar 4, 2007, Phil Hart said that ”Khursaniyah group of fields..is not expected on stream until the end of 2007.”
http://www.energybulletin.net/26755.html
I’ve assumed Khursaniyah (AFK) first oil is Feb 2008.
The desperation to deliver first oil earlier from AFK and Shaybah together with Riyadh’s downgraded oil forecast shows that Saudi Aramco is struggling to increase production rates. The forecast in Figure 1 from 2008 to 2011 may be too optimistic.
The following presentation by Hans Jud from Switzerland performs a field by field analysis for Saudi Arabia:
http://www.peakoil.nl/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/sa-oilprod_field-by-fie...
Figure 2 – Small Saudi Fields show “Great Future”?

The figure above is partly based on information also from Obaid’s CSIS presentation. The figure shows that there is justified scepticism over Aramco’s promise to suddenly produce huge amounts of oil from old small fields. Look at Manifa and Khurais – huge production rate jumps!!
Figure 3 – HL for Saudi Giant Fields

The figure shows a cumulative HL plot for the giant fields of Ghawar, Abqaiq, Berri, Safinaya, Zuluf and Marjan. The URR is 125 Gb. Jud also does HLs for each of these fields in his presentation.
Figure 4 – HL for Saudi Arabia – all fields

The figure above shows a URR of about 165 Gb.
Figure 5 – Two cycle HL

For this chart, Jud optimistically assumes that Saudi Arabia has an additional 40 Gb of secret oil to produce. This gives the dashed blue line. This is added to the dashed red line (URR 165 Gb) to give the dashed green line as a forecast for Saudi production.
In the last few years, note also in the figure above the production drop in the 6 giant fields while total production is increasing. Are the MRC wells in the giant fields starting to show accelerated decline rates due to increased water cut?
Figure 6 – Where are the missing fields?

This last figure shows that Jud’s optimistic assumption of an additional 40 Gb is most likely false. This means that Saudi’s URR is about 165Gb. Fig 5 shows the dashed red line for the URR 165 Gb which might be the best HL fit for Saudi.
The forecast in Fig 1 assumes that old small fields such as Khursaniyah (AFK), Khurais and Manifa can deliver huge increases in production. Fig 5 shows these forecasts to be overoptimistic (Matt Simmons would probably agree).
It is highly unlikely that Saudi Arabia will ever produce more than 8.5 million bpd (C[and]C). This means that if any supply disruption or sudden demand increase occurs, do not assume that Saudi Arabia can be “called” upon to supply extra oil. Assume that price shocks are likely to occur starting the middle of this year.