The Oil Drum

55 comments on Satellite O'er the Desert

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JoulesBurn on February 1, 2008 - 10:12am

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

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.