<DrumBeat: April 10, 2007 The Oil Drum DrumBeat: April 11, 2007>

237 comments on Further Evidence of Saudi Arabia's Oil Production Decline

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new account on April 10, 2007 - 10:44am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top

Ace - How did you calculate the price forecast shown in Fig 7?


Great post. Thanks

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PeakTO on April 10, 2007 - 11:14am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Oops...posted in the wrong thread.

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ace on April 10, 2007 - 6:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

The price is forecast using estimates of short and long term demand elasticities. The price is a weighted average price which includes heavy and light crudes. The price should be used as a rough guide and the trend is more important than the absolute price.

Here is also a long term forecast for Saudi Arabia

There are no known scheduled megaprojects after 2014

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totoneila on April 12, 2007 - 5:34am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Hello TODers,

I realize this thread is getting age-dated, but I wanted to post this link near the top in the hopes that SS, F_F, and Euan will see it & comment:

http://www.spe.org/spe/jpt/jsp/jptmonthlysection/0,2440,1104_11038_58066...
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Technology Update: Haradh III: A Milestone for Smart Fields
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Now to me, but I am not an expert, this mostly reads like a 'rah-rah' press release rather than a detailed analysis of Haradh III. Feel free to disagree TODers. Please see the pictures in the link.

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Even more importantly, the northwest portion of Haradh III was diagnosed to provide a superhighway of communication because of the presence of faults/fractures—an eminent risk to offset crestal wells (because of accelerated water encroachment). Note the rapid rise and fall in pressures at observation Well HRDH 1500 in response to the injection from HRDH 1711.

Fig. 5—Isobaric map showing pressure distribution 3 months after startup of preinjection. The top plot shows the pressure response in an observation well resulting from injection at the offset injector.

The quick diagnosis and subsequent response (i.e., cutback in injection) most certainly averted premature water breakthrough and loss of oil production in the northwest segment of Haradh III.
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IMO, cutting back in injection does not change the hidden geo-structure of this area: KSA merely prevented the problem from getting worse [preventing water breakthrough into the centered high flux area topcrest]. My guess is, even with extensive seismic mapping before drilling, that unseen discrete fracture networks [DFNs] and/or pressurization-caused fractures suddenly started causing runaway waterfront flooding, so they then shut the injectors down. Aramco probably has no choice but to produce this area at much less than desired extraction/time levels plus additional drilling for bypassed pockets, or else accept much higher watercuts in the northwest segment of Haradh III.

It would be interesting to know how the other wells are performing to plan too. To my eyeballs: it looks like the same problem may be happening in the Fig. 5 Northeast sector too [red encroachment].

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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Fractional_Flow on April 12, 2007 - 7:57am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Thanks for that and I've read the rah rah before.

I wonder how they're making the planned 300,000 BOPD if the had to curtail injection in area(s) from planned???

What is the major difference between having a pressure sensor in the ground that tells you bad news is on the way and the bad news showing up on your doorstep in the form of injected water.... what's going on in the reservoir didn't change... can you kiss recovery and volumetric sweep of that area of the reservoir goodbye??

Just some questions with no easy answers I know.... but spin goes both ways.

FF

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Euan Mearns on April 12, 2007 - 6:08pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Bob - you're obviously working overtime on this problem and the last 2 week debate for me has brought out one of the real strengths of TOD - data mining by committed posters.

This article I had in fact seen before - and would you be surprised to hear that my take on this is a bit different to FF.

They know in this area from the distribution of possibilities that there is going to be some bad news but don't know where its comming from. So the observation wells provide insight to bad news months / years before it arrives. This allows them to adjust their water injection strategy accordingly, and they will be expecting water to arrive prematurly at some arms of producers - which can be shut off in these so called intelligent wells.

One thing though, now that I've gotten very accustomed to looking at 3D images of Ghawar from every angle apart from below - I note that the Haradh 1 zone seems to include about half of the area formerly known as Hawiyah - now that is big, big news. Perhaps, you, FF and Stuart woud like to look at the images - I'm looking at jpg called Image 78 that you dug up - and would care to comment - combined with Greg Croft's map.

I (and others) are working on reserves estimates for Ghawar - and this one observation may just wipe a few billion off the slate.

The plot thickens.

Euan;-)
Are humans smarter than wells?

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237 comments on Further Evidence of Saudi Arabia's Oil Production Decline

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