194 comments on Saudi Arabia - production forecasts and reserves estimates
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
User login
Personnel
Editors
Contributors
Peak Oil Primers
Archives
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
Vital Trivia
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
One more thing KSA has adopted and in fact been a leader in developing technology to enhance production rates this is not
included. The dogleg for the US occurred because of a massive drilling campaign. KSA has a different profile but newer technology probably has resulted in inflated reserve estimates. KSA itself uses enhanced extraction rates to justify their highly inflated reserve estimates so you have to assume that they have seen some significant improvements in extraction rates from technical advancements. We have reason however to doubt this translates into higher final recoveries at high production rates.
So KSA production is not a black and white issue and its sad that its treated as such.
Everything Saudi Arabia has done in developing their oil resources has been aimed at maximising recovery at the expense of high production in the short term.
Ghawar alone could have produced at over 15 million barrels per day but has never done much over 5. The Saudis have also left huge fields lying fallow. None of this would ever have happened within the OECD.
There principal use of horizontal wells has been to maximise recovery from poorer quality reservoirs and to control water cuts in the vicinity of mobile oil water contacts.
The advent of new technology - mainly horizontal drilling and 3D and 4D seismic has led to a justifiable expectation of higher recovery factors over the years. The one-off reserves inflation in the 1980s and in particular the fact that they have not been declined for production since remains a seroius problem.
Why Euan, you almost sound like...
nevermind :P
I'm curious as to why these technologies have not turned around the Texas and North Sea declines.
BTW, a question I have been meaning to ask you. Were there ever any material restrictions on drilling in the North Sea?
Because these fields have been grossly mismanaged in such a way that most of the OOIP is now locked in no matter what kind of technology you bring into it. KSA has done a great service by slowly producing their oil to maximize long term profit. We at the USofA are concerned with this quarters shareholder earnings...
I nominate this comment for the top 10 list of most nonsensical comments ever posted on The Oil Drum.
We're not talking about turning around decline here but estimating URR.
The biggest hydrocrabon resource as far as I'm aware in NW Europe is not Statfjord, Troll, Brent or Forties but the Claire field west of Shetland. A huge accumulation of relatively heavy oil (20 api) in poor quality Devonian sandstone reservoir. This field lay fallow for decades as the oil was not producible using vertical wells - but much diligant work by BP (which I was involved in in a small way) has led to development of the best reservoir segments using horizontal wells. This has added to the URR of the UK.
In Norway, the giant Troll west field is gas with a thin oil rim. Norsk Hydro spent many years modelling the producibility of this oil using horizontal wells (I was also involved in a small way in that modleling work) - as it turns out Troll W became Norway's largest oil producer, I believe, for a few years. Again, this oil was not recoverable using vertical wells and producing this oil using horizontals has added to the URR of Norway.