<Former CEO of Talisman Energy: Peak oil is 'here or hereabouts'The Oil DrumDrumBeat: February 1, 2008>

55 comments on Satellite O'er the Desert

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JoulesBurn on February 1, 2008 - 6:37am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

There are wells there in Shedgum, of course, but Google Earth is not covering a big swath of that area. I have identified where the older wells are, so if GE ever gets around to using an updated high-res image (which exists--they are just being lazy!), a similar analysis could be done there.

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meganerd on February 1, 2008 - 6:54am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

If you know where to get updated high-res images of that area, then I can forward it on to my former colleagues and they'll get it included. However, I suspect the problem is that whoever it was that took the higher-res images wants to charge Google an arm and a leg to license it. Unfortunately a lot of areas in the world don't bring in enough advertising dollars from local search to justify the expense of acquiring better pictures.

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JoulesBurn on February 1, 2008 - 7:57am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Every last acre of Ghawar is covered in one or more 2006-2007 images from DigitalGlobe, the best out there. I'm convinced that someone is paying DG to take these shots. Why some of them are not being used (2006 Shedgum and Haradh images) is beyond me. A 2006 high-res shot of a small, isolated, but interesting (from an oil standpoint) area of Uthmaniyah was suddenly included a year after it was taken. There is also a 2007 DG image covering an area just south of there that I would like to have.

I would imagine that Google Earth has license to all of DigitalGlobe existing imagery such that they don't pay by the piece. If an image exists (e.g., someone paid for the photoshoot), the bottleneck is GE taking the time to correct for azimuth skew and put it in the right location. I don't think the decision to do that for a particular area is random, either.

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AlanfromBigEasy on February 1, 2008 - 7:23am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Shedgum appears to have two high spots, a smaller one to the west and a much larger one to the east.

The missing high resolution swath appears to be centered on the larger eastern high spot, but the western smaller Shedgum high spot (which Stuarts red & white photo/graph show to be full of oil an not depleting between b & c) appears to be fully in the high area, but with no wells or rigs operating there.

Is this so ?

And if true does this imply that this small high spot is now depleted ? (or held in reserve ?)

Note that the small spot of Shedgum would be a major field in the United States.

Alan

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JoulesBurn on February 1, 2008 - 10:12am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Stuart's model for depletion assumed that the Arab-D reservoir is being depleted evenly from the bottom up. Thus, the higher spots would be the last to go. However, especially for Shedgum, this is not always the case. The remaining oil in Shedgum is to the west of the crest and on over to 'Ain Dar. A figure from Stuart's presentation at ASPO shows that, and I will do a post on Shedgum before too long. Perhaps GE will bless me with an update first.

Stuart's western "high" spot for Shedgum is in a high-res coverage area, but in a small strip dating to 2003 and there are maybe a couple of new wells evident then. Using a low-res 2006 image as an overlay, I can tentatively find about 9 more. There are also a couple of new wells on the west side of the "dead" zone, but it's otherwise rather quiet over there.

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Stuart Staniford on February 1, 2008 - 11:03am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Here's the picture Joules is referring to:

This is from a 1991 paper discussing the progress of the waterflood in an area that is not named but is clearly Shedgum. I have overlaid what my model would suggest for 1990. The amount of oil is about right, but the waterflood has pushed the cap off center to the north and west.
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