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80 comments on Oil Reserves: Where Ghawar goes, the rest of OPEC follows
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Very good paper. Different orthogonal methodologies lead to reserves in the 140 - 175 Gb range for Saudi Arabia.
You can maybe add that with a reserve base of only 140-175 Gb, it is impossible to go above current production levels. Using Pickering relation (http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3221), you get a maximum production between 6.62 and 8.25 mbpd.
thanks Khebab.
I would also note that JoulesBurn, whose Saudi satellite sluething is simply amazing, thinks that Stuart's and Euan's estimates of OIIP for Ghawar are too low because of an under-estimate in the field area. However, I don't think that materially affects the analysis here.
Using Kebab's numbers and the "Pickering Relation".
140 / 6.62 = 21.15
175 / 8.25 = 21.21
The average multiplier is 21.18. Saudi Arabia claims they will increase production to 12.5 (mbpd). So we multiply 21.18 x 12.5 to get 264.75, which is the reserve number the Saudi's claim.
You are correct, 12.5 mbpd implies the following reserve numbers:
Fringe (large non-OPEC extractors): (12.5 -0.093)/0.0466= 266 Gb
Small Fringe (small non-OPEC extractors):(12.5-0.0418)/0.0435= 286 Gb
OPEC: (12.5 - 0.2323)/0.0096= 1.3 Tb (sic)
The last number is outrageous because the OPEC relationship is based on the official inflated reserve numbers.
I am trying to get a sense of what all this implies. I am assuming that Pickering's empirical numbers give a sense of prudent flow rates from a reserve of a given size. So then 12.5 mbd would be a prudent flow rate if SA indeed had 264 Gb reserve. So if SA only has 152 Gb as the article above says, then is the flow rate that SA is trying to achieve imprudent? What is the effect of pumping a reserve at imprudent rates?
Steeper decline rates, basically Cantarell all over again with 15% or greater production losses..
i dont see how an emperical relationship between reserves and rate in any way implies a prudent flow rate.
I'm no expert but I believe the prudent flow rate is the one that gets you the most amount of oil is the long run.. If you pump too fast you will end up leaving more oil in the ground by depleting the reservoir pressure to fast..
"I believe the prudent flow rate is the one that gets you the most amount of oil is the long run.."
i dont disagree. but my point is that there is no way, short of a (impossible given the lack of data) thourough analysis of each and every case in the data base, to conclude what a prudent rate for a group of producers is from an imperical analysis.
a mer(maximum efficient rate) determination also has an economic component and thanks to a (usually) constant oil price assumption and discounted present worth analysis leads to higher, rather than lower production rate. sometimes to the detrement of ultimate recovery*.
in the us of a, rule of capture .......well......rules, that has lead to excessive wells being drilled, rapid depletion and ,imo, loss of reserves.
* the only case where a higher rate may result in greater recovery is in a water driven ng reservoir.