Iran is losing 350,000 b/d/year of oil production capacity, Fesharaki said, and the decline rate could increase to 500,000 b/d/year by the end of the decade.
Based on current production of 3.8 mbo/d, and assuming the depletion gets worse linearly, the depletion curve looks like this:
Frankly, this seems like kind of an extreme dropoff, so there is some question as to the reliability of the estimate, but if true, the notion that these poor guys will be down to a trickle in five years is pretty significant.
The government is not in agreement:
Code:
Iran's fourth 5-year plan, covering the period ending Mar. 20, 2009, calls for an increase in production capacity to 5.4 million b/d through measures that include injection of 5 bcfd of South Pars gas by the end of the period. To reach that level of oil production, Iran must add 1.5-1.6 million b/d of capacity to compensate for declines plus 1.4 million b/d more.
I believe he is refering to depletion of existing wells, factoring out new production.
The numbers are alarming, but not near as alarming as it would appear from your chart, which assumes the depletion percentage given is net.
For example, you remember when ExxonMobil speaks of depletion of existing production of 4-6% per year for world production? Well, in this context, increasing from 7 to 8 percent for onshore wells in Iran is surprising. It is perhaps a high estimate. I agree, it would be interesting to hear what Mr Bakhtiari has to say on the matter.
Per this morning's news via the front page of PO.com: Iran's depletion rate is 400Kb/d/y.
This is about 9.5% of their total production, of 4125 mbd
Iran's internal consumption of oil grew 5% last year, according to the BP review.
Maybe someone more authoritative than the blogspot can update us with better figures, however, at this rate of internal consumption, Iran will become a net importer of oil within 5 years.
here are the updated production, consumption and export curves:
“Iran's existing oilfields have a natural decline rate estimated at 8-13 percent per year (300,000-500,000 bbl/d) and are in need of upgrading, modernization, and enhanced oil recovery efforts (i.e., gas reinjection).”
Decline assumption in the model:
Decline of 8% assumed for the period of 2005-2010
Production increases in the model (Based on EIA country analysis):
Azadegan production increase of 50.000 added in 2007
Azadegan production increase of 100.000 added in 2008
Azadegan production increase of 100.000 added in 2009
Bangestan production increase of 50.000 added in 2009
Bangestan production increase of 200.000 added in 2010
Joined: May 24, 2004 Posts: 1932 Location: Richland Center, Wisconsin
Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2005 12:28 pm Post subject: FLAG
FLAG: "Some comment from Bakhtiari might be in order." _________________ --------------------------------
| Whose reality is this anyway!? |
--------------------------------
(-------< Temet Nosce >-------)
____________________________
“Iran's existing oilfields have a natural decline rate estimated at 8-13 percent per year (300,000-500,000 bbl/d) and are in need of upgrading, modernization, and enhanced oil recovery efforts (i.e., gas reinjection).”
So they are not in terminal decline, they have not used EOR yet! _________________ ______________________________________
http://GraphOilogy.blogspot.com
Some more material from the EIA Country Analysis Brief:
Quote:
With sufficient investment, it is widely believed that Iran could increase its crude oil production capacity significantly. Iran produced 6 million bbl/d of crude oil in 1974, but has not surpassed 3.9 million bbl/d on an annual basis since the 1978/79 Iranian revolution. During the 1980s, it is believed that Iran may have maintained production levels at some older fields only by using methods that have permanently damaged the fields. Despite these problems, Iran has ambitious plans to increase national oil production - to 4.5 million bbl/d by the end of 2005, more than 5 million bbl/d by 2009, and 7 million bbl/d by 2024. The country is counting on billions of dollars in foreign investment to accomplish this, but this is unlikely to be achieved without a significant change in policy to attract such investment (and possibly a change in relations with the West).
The following bit is really amazing:
Quote:
To the contrary, in January 2005, the Majlis decided to freeze domestic prices for gasoline and other fuels at 2003 levels. Currently, gasoline costs less than 40 cents per gallon in Iran, far below market cost.
Joined: Oct 23, 2004 Posts: 5905 Location: New Jersey
Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 10:03 am Post subject: Re: Iran's Depletion Curve
Petrologistics stated last Wednesday that OPEC supply will be down about 200,000 bpd in April, mostly due to Saudi Arabia and Iran. This suggests that Iran is having trouble keeping production even at prior OPEC quota levels. _________________ It's already over, now it's just a matter of adjusting.
Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2007 12:31 am Post subject: Re: Iran's Depletion Curve
Both Iran and Iraq's curves are not really reflective of geological factors. Politcs and war drove those totals, so unlike other areas I think both countries could offer more, again assuming the non-geological constraints are removed. _________________ UNplanning the future...
http://unplanning.blogspot.com
Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2007 9:39 am Post subject: Re: Iran's Depletion Curve
Been away for awhile but thought I would point those interested in Iran production/reserves to a very recent paper:
Al-Husseini, M.I., 2007, Iran's crude oil reserves and production, GeoArabia, Vol. 12, #2, pp. 69-94.
this is an outstanding piece of research that puts together reserves and production numbers on a field by field basis for all of the Iranian production.
A few quotes:
Quote:
In contrast to 1974 when Iran's production peaked at 6.0 MB/d, production in 2005 averaged about 4.1 Mb/d. The 1974 peak occurred when production from most of the giant fields was ramped-up to very high but unsustainable levels. Current plans are to increase the crude oil production rate to 4.6 Mb/d by 2009. This is a significant challenge because this production capacity has to offset a reported total annual decline rate of 300 - 500,000 barrel/day. This high decline rate is attributed to the maturity of the giant fields, many of which attained their peaks in the 1970's and have produced about half or more of their estimated ultimate recoverable reserves. Therefore to achieve the 2009 production target within the next three years, Iran has to add about 680 Kb/d of capacity per year from its developed fields (infill drilling, recompletions, enhanced and improved oil recovery), while also adding net new surface facilities and well capacity from undeveloped fields and reservoirs.
Quote:
About half of Iran's production comes from four mature sueprgiant fields that have depleted about half of their ultimate recoverable reserves. They contain 25% of Iran's initial-oil-in-place and collectively peaked in 1974 when they were producing 3.9 MB/d (versus abou 2.1 MB/d in 2005). The decline from 3.9 to 2.1 Mb/d corrresponds to ra rate of 2% per year on average.
One of the charts shown in the paper indicates that as compared to 4.1 MB/d production at the end 2005, planned expansions and reserve growth will account for 5.5 MB/d production by 2010. The source for this information is noted to be MEES, February, 2006 and OPEC website.
Unfortunately I cannot provide a link to the paper as it is a subscription magazine. However, if you have access to a local University library they will be able to get a copy for you. The paper is very well written giving a balanced reporting of the information that is currently available with regards to production and reserves. It notes descrepencies between official and independant reserve numbers but avoids making claims as to which is correct. Well worth having in your "Peak Oil Library".
I think the writer (who has Campbell as a colleague) is a bit sceptical of the numbers MEES offers up. For a number of the fields they suggest that production can be maintained via reserve growth. I will look in more detail at all of the numbers as I get a chance. Recovery factors are currently all over the place with various zones in fields such as Azadegan ranging from 12.3% (Gurpi Fm) to 28.2% (Gadvan Fm) with the majority of reserves in the 18% recovery range (Sarvak Fm). Also there seems to be a wide range in current recovery factors in similar lithologies. As an example the Asmari limestone in Ahwaz has 64.2% recovery whereas the Asmari at Agha Jari only has 15% recovery.
This is one paper that brings together all the data though. It should be possible to get some sense of what potential reserve growth might be reasonable for the various pools on a strictly statistical basis (take the range in recoveries for a given reservoir across all of the fields and fit a lognormal distribution to it). From that one might be able to come up with a probablistic approach to what production numbers might be in the future. I'll have a go when I get some free time.
Ay Caramba! I think this is close to the hydrocarbon percent in the
Athabasca oil sands. They'd almost be better off trying to mine it.
We forum dwellers will wait to hear from you.
Ahhh,...patience grasshopper, the low recovery may only mean they haven't bothered to hit that particular zone with secondary recovery. This is what I need to see if I can sort out with a bit of data mining. Luckily Al-Husseni has put together the data which should make it fairly straight forward.
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