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29 comments on A closer IEA look at Saudi Arabian production

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Murray on November 8, 2005 - 10:15am

At production of 10 Mb/d and a 6%/yr depletion rate the 4 big projects listed come up a cumulative 700kb/d short of offsetting depletion by end 2010. Do they have a flock of small projects that can make up that shortfall? Was there a 6% decline in 2005 that was not fully offset? Looks pretty close to peak right now to me. Also note 2 fields are nearly 75% of production. What is Ghawar's proven plus probable EUR? I suspect they have already passed 60% and their projections would take them past 70% by end 2010. Can MRC wells take a field past 70% before flooding out. How fast will the decline be when water gets to the MRC wells? Not knowing the answers to these questions, I suspect this report describes a disaster in progress. Murray

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Typhoon on November 8, 2005 - 11:47am

Considering the quality of the Arab D Zone 2-B reservoir, it is possible that ultimate recovery from North Ghawar could approach 70%. It seems like much of this would have to come from tertiary recovery, but perhaps MRC wells can extend secondary recovery close to that. A petroleum engineer once told me about horizontal and MRC wells. He confirmed that once the water reaches a horizontal wellbore or the laterals of MRC wells ("water channeling", versus "coning" for vertical wells), the decline can be quite large and instantaneous.

In any case, we're looking at either a steep decline beginning now, or an extremely steep decline beginning in a few years. North Uthmaniyah has already declined sharply, while Hawiyah and Haradh will decline much later than Ain Dar, Shedgum, and South Uthmaniyah.

Aramco insiders are actually saying that reservoir models indicate a "catastrophic" decline at Ghawar in 2008 or 2009.