49 comments on Another look at the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
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49 comments on Another look at the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
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There is this document:
Saudi Arabia’s Strategic Energy Initiative:Safeguarding Against Supply Disruptions
by the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, a think-tank of some sort in Riyadh. It has these figures:
Expedited Production Schedule
• In January 2004: 300,000 b/d.
• In March 2005: produced additional 500,000 b/d (for total of
800,000 b/d).
• In January 2004: 170,000 b/d.
• April 2006: 300,000 b/d came on stream.
• In January 2004: 100,000 b/d.
• By June 2007 to reach 500,000 b/d.
• In January 2004: 500,000 b/d.
• By April 2008: 300,000 b/d will come on stream.
• In January 2004: not online.
• By Feb 2009: will increase to 100,000 million b/d.
• In January 2004: 150,000 b/d.
• By March 2009: expected to increase to 1.1 million b/d.
Now, I don't know what it means that Haradh was producing 170,000 BPD in 2004. I know that the HaradhIII area was not producing that. So, does that mean that Haradh I and II, despite having 600,000 BPD "capacity" were only churning out 170k? Or, perhaps Haradh III had a "capacity" of that, giving a whole new meaning to that term.
It's only numbers.
Thanks for the list - though I would point out that it was given in 2006, and that the Khursaniyah development that was supposed to be on line last June is now projected for the end of next month, which with the slippage of the other projects, is moving away the potential for increased production. Their target, bear in mind, from that document, was that they would be able to develop a sustained production of 12 mbd this year. The slippage in production that we are now seeing suggests that they will not be able to come up to that number.
My point is that we don't know what the numbers that they give out mean. So they project 1.2 MBD from Khurais. When they announced that number, they had not done a 3D Seismic survey. Will it ever produce that? Well, maybe not, but it has the "capacity". And capacity always comes in blocks of 100,000 barrels/day, never mind the geology.
Hi Joules - that's a great find.
Nawaf Obaid is currently the Managing Director of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, a government consultancy based in Riyadh. He is also the private Security & Energy Advisor to HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal, the Saudi Ambassador to the US.
I can live with this capacity forecast if projects come on time. He is using 7.3% decline of existing fields.
He is also an author on this 2005 CSIS paper, which may be the one that HO was referring to at top:
http://www.mafhoum.com/press8/237E11.pdf
This begs a question: If KSA is seeing decline of 7.3, how can world decline be 4.5, a la CERA? Curiouser and curiouser...
CERA aggregate decline of 4.5% is made up of higher decline in mature assets combined with no decline / build up / plateau in new assets. So it is the average of everything and they point out that a large chunk of current global oil production actually comes from new assets - which have not yet started to decline
In KSA the producing assets are by in large pretty old. So in the absence of new projects, the decline rate is a bit higher.
Thanks for that. But the whole issue is that we need new to counteract decline, so... shouldn't we be counting them separately so it's clear how much we really need?
Cheers
Found it.
The 170,000 is gas condensate, not the Haradh I, II and III oil fields tranches. Still interesting numbers.
http://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/projects/haradh/
Phew! Thanks Gary.
It's amazing that the Haradh Gas Plant was operating exactly at capacity in 2004. I hope they stopped drilling gas wells.
Yeeeesssss.
[strokes imaginary beard]
Somehow I doubt the field is producing exactly to the capacity of the plant. Seems more likely the one transposed to the other in someone's totalling up. Still this is gas produced from other reservoir layers of Ghawar, not the Arab-D with the oil which we all know and obsess over.
If Saudi reserves numbers are 'the most the fields ever held', are Saudi production numbers similarly 'the best we could do if everything worked right, all at the same time'? It would have a nice symmetry in approach and explain the extreme numbers quoted...
Now you're getting it. Production equals Capacity. It's easy.
Now you're ready for the bonus round. Read the following document and try to reconcile all the contradictions. Good luck, and thanks for playing.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/169325389_1.html