perhaps the results of this kind of analysis is the reason the saudis are pushing the "we've got to cut back production in the second quarter,because we don't want flood the market with oil" line.

  do they feel there is a problem with lack of demand or have they been pushing their fields hard enough that they must pull back production? do you foresee a lack of demand with the US and asians wanting to fill their SPR's, as well as the usual buildup before the summer driving season?

 Thanks for your analysis HO. It all makes sense, newer fields will be increasingly smaller, that's a fact.
 I'd like to suggest a comparision between the mean individual field production at this stage in Saudi Arabia to that of the US-48. Today Saudi Arabia has around 2600 oil wells each producing 4 000 bbd on average. In which year was the lower-48 at this stage?
Remeber that these two regions probably have a very similar URR, and today there are more than 230 000 wells in the lower-48, each producing 20 bbd on average.

There are certainly a lot of reasons to be skeptical of Saudi claims about increasing production, but not everyone in the peak oil community doubts that they can go higher. At the ASPO-USA conference, Jeremy Gilbert told Steve Andrews (or was it Randy Udall?) that he believes the Saudis can push their production up to the "high teens" (in mbd).

I've read Twilight in the Desert, and my inclincation is not to believe Gilbert, but still I wonder what he's basing that claim on. As is mentioned in any analysis of this kind, the data just aren't available to really know for sure what they can do. Gilbert was the chief reservoir engineer for BP, so I have to believe he knows a thing or two.

The Yibal Field, which has the same horizontal wells as the Ghawar Field, showed an 80% drop in production over a five year period.  When Ghawar goes into a similar decline, there is no possibility of the Saudis increasing their total production.  The final decline in the East Texas Field marked the end of increasing production for Texas and the Lower 48.

I see you allowed for some dry holes, but you didn't allow for any new injection wells.

If you're going to up the overall production volume, you have to increase the injection volume even more to flush the reservoir....

Just something else to lower that 820,000 figure another 20% or so!!

Having zero experience with oil production, I find the range of these number absolutely astounding. It demonstrates very nicely why it is no mystery that Saudi Arabia is a much more attractive place to drill for oil than say Texas.

One question I have though: were these numbers derived from merely dividing the country's total production by the total number of wells in existence?  If so, might some of those wells in the denominator  include inactive or older marginal wells, thus dragging the production-per-well ratio down?  In which case, it might not give quite a true picture of what actively producing wells are actually producing.

It would be helpful if you could clarify this point.,

When OPEC speaks of "refinery bottlenecks" could this be translated to mean "heavy &/or sour crude oil refinery bottlenecks"? It may be that these grades are the only spare capacity they have left. It seems that Valero is making moolah refining heavy/sour crude with help from relaxed regs: http://www.washtimes.com/business/20050313-114327-7447r.htm

I wonder if they will sell "winter gas" year round now? Doesn't refining sour crude produce extra sulphur emissions at the plant or out the tailpipe? Doesn't refining heavy crudes have a lower EROEI and higher greenhouse gas emissions per gallon of gasoline? When the oil companies borrow from the SPR do they get to repay what they borrow with heavier/sourer crude? If so, this is a sweet deal for them.

in April 05,remember;
It's not often that US President George W. Bush is seen walking hand-in-hand with anyone but his wife Laura. But [Monday], he readily took Crown Prince Abdullah by the hand as the Saudi leader arrived at the President's Texas ranch.

(Photo)

AP
George Bush and Prince Abdullah stroll through spring flowers at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas.

The hand clasp with the oil kingdom's 81-year-old de facto ruler had two objectives: a break from recent record-high world oil prices, and a message of U.S. support for the Saudi royal family as it faces a growing internal terrorist threat.

... White House National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, who praised the Saudis for their "very ambitious" $50-billion plan to expand output from the current 10.8 to 12.5 million barrels a day by the end of this decade and eventually to 15 million barrels a day. Mr. Hadley also announced that the US and Saudi Arabia have "established a joint committee, to be chaired by Secretary [of State Condoleezza] Rice and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal to discuss a range of strategic issues important to both sides," according to the "Washington File" published on the State Department's website.

 I feel Pres. Bush is way ,way out of his comfort zone walking thru the garden holding hands, like PLEASE more oil. Maybe they will not be "together" before long. Tight relationships often go thru major switches.
This committee with Ms. Rice looks like our way of keeping close tabs on them.

Here's a great big question thrown out for the lions at TOD.  Isn't our biggest concern really the net energy  that leaves the refineries.  The debates about rate of decline seem to center on wellhead production.  If memory serves, Stuart recently did a Hubbert-type  analysis that yielded a possibly hopeful slow rate of decline.  But aren't we increasingly seeing the heavy/sour crude, secondary or tertieary recovery, and deeper off-shore drilling.  

If these are all factored in, wouldn't the ERoEI drop considerably--even  exponentially?   I.e,  couldnt we have (rosiest scenario) at the wellhead only a small rate of decline or even a plateau in the near future and yet see a significant decline in net  production of refinery products?

  Playing detective with Saudi Arabia's numbers is the popular game it is because this is where all the debate is centered about where the global peak is to occur. There isn't much debate about the collective conventional production elsewhere - it is flat or in decline. The Saudi production has acted as the central bank of oil pricing since the 70s - but that is now ending. This was admitted by none other than the Saudis themselves in what Deffeyes points out in his book as a little noticed Dow Jones Newswire of 3/6/03 that read, "Saudi Arabia has notified Western government and oil officials the kingdom's crude oil production has reached its limit at around 9.2 million barrels per day and will not rise further, even with a war looming in Iraq." This quietly marked a critical transition from a throttling era where there was a modulation of production and prices with a hand on a valve, to the no-throttle era we are entering now, where production has to be added the hard way with added wells and infrastructure. And they are frantically punching new holes, even earning Nabors Industries the nickname "Nabors of Arabia". This era transition is also suggested by the comment made by Ali Naimi in 4/05 when he said "the kingdom has tossed aside its production cap set by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Nations and is willing to sell its customers every barrel of oil they want, up to its current capacity of 11 mpd". This policy change is often cited as similar to the deregulation of U.S. production that ocurred around 1970, which turned out to be the U.S. peak later on.
  The Saudi and other OPEC throttling sure came in handy in the massive demand surge of the 70s, which Simmons describes as a "runaway train". Oil was $1.80/barrel before this and went to over $18 in '79 before the Iranian supply shock sent it to $40. The Saudis strained their excess production capacity to their then considerable limits so much so that it precipitated two secret Congressional hearings in '74 and '79 on the reservoir damaging overproduction by Aramco that was then run by the big American oil companies, as documented by Simmons. Think about it. Oil pricing climbed over 1000% with the throttle opened wide to reservoir damaging levels to "control" this 10 year demand surge. Now we face a new demand surge from China, India, and many other factors; and we have no throttle. You hear so much about how demand destruction will serve as the cure for high oil - not to worry. High oil is the cure for high oil. But it didn't work very well in this past demand surge. Simmons points this out (p57-58) noting that, despite the accepted wisdom that high oil during this time damaged the economy and produced a steep drop in oil demand, actual oil demand increased 44% during this phenomenal price climb. how can we expect a measly climb to $100 from $30 to produce enough demand destruction to solve the problem in an economy that's much stronger than the wretched 70s economy? How much can we rely on demand destruction and the free markets to control high oil? We will have to rely on demand CONVERSION more than on demand destruction - that is conversion of demand to coal derived fuels and other sources that started to take place under Ford and Carter, but most unfortunately went nowhere because we had plenty of cheap oil left.
  Another source of complacency is this notion that the Saudis can ramp production up to 15 mbd or higher from the current 10 or so by drilling previously mothballed or undeveloped fields. Simmons argues convincingly that this is unlikely, pointing out that these are poor producers or have problems that have focused efforts on the tried and true elephant fields in current production. If these other fields are so prolific and easy, why focus all the effort on wringing the last easy oil out of the spent, peaking fields with no fresher production geared up and ready to take its place, Simmons argues. But let's assume for the sake of argument that the Saudis can ramp it up to 15 mbd in just a couple of years. World oil demand is about 85 mbd and is increasing at over 2% per year. Do the math and you see that, with oil from elsewhere being flat at best, the 2 mbd world demand increase per year goes through the Saudi ramp up from 10 to 15 mbd in just 2.5 years - about how long it would take them to do the increase if they are lucky! What kind of solution is this? Even a ramp up to the high teens would have a good portion go to offsetting declining production elsewhere and the remainder would be quickly soaked up by the rate of global demand increase. Even if all our detective work finds it feasible, how much can we rely on a Saudi ramp up to control high oil?
  Why we are not in a national emergency program to build coal conversion plants, I guess I'll never understand.