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Satellite O'er the Desert

Posted by Stuart Staniford on February 1, 2008 - 2:33am
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: ghawar, peak oil, saudi arabia [list all tags]

Oil Wells in 'Ain Dar and Uthmaniyah: a) before ca. 2000, b) between 2000 and 2003, and c) developed after 2003 including sites prepared for drilling and those undergoing active drilling in summer 2006. Water injectors are not shown. Source: Satellite O'er the Desert .

I interrupt the regular schedule to bring you some breaking news.

TOD editors and contributors have been privy for some time to some absolutely incredible work that TOD commenter JoulesBurn has been doing analyzing Saudi well sites in Google Earth. We've urged him multiple times to summarize his work in a guest post, but he's been taking his time perfecting it - poring over every square mile of Ghawar, to the point where he has identified and classified 3000 well sites in that field - an extraordinary feat of diligence.

Happily, he is now sharing his work with the world on his own blog Satellite O'er the Desert which promises to be a major resource for students of Saudi oil supply. My favorite image was the one above. For comparison, here's my model of 'Ain Dar and Shedgum's oil level in 2004 from Depletion Levels in Ghawar:

Modeled distribution of original reserves in 'Ain Dar/Shedgum area of Ghawar (left), oil water contact offset by 511' vertically upward (center) and the same with the effect of gas caps (right). 511' offset is my estimate for the average level of the OWC at the start of 2004. Source: Depletion Levels in Ghawar.

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