This pretty much seems to throw a wrench into PO.

Production; Extraction; ExplorationRIYADH: The World Energy Outlook issued by the Paris-based IEA has helped ease concerns about the continued productivity and the remaining life of the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia.

The Ghawar field that has been producing well above 5 million bpd for decades has remained at the centre of the recurring oil debate. Proponents of the peak oil theory argued that Ghawar was undergoing rapid depletion implying the world was soon to run out of oil.


...Contrary to claims from peak oil theorists that water cut at the 5 million bpd Ghawar field has fallen in recent years, Mr Nasser said. “Water cut in Ghawar is 28 per cent, whereas the industry norm for the water cut is 80 per cent.

The IEA report on Ghawar, when seen in the above perspective, is reassuring in many, many ways. The report does not include Ghawar among the post plateau fields, as production in 2007 was still less than 15 per cent below the peak of 5.6 million bpd reached in 1980.

As per the ‘audit report Ghawar produced 5.1 million bpd of crude oil in 2007, down from a peak of 5.5 million bpd in 1980 (when the field’s capacity was fully utilised in response to the loss of Iranian production following the revolution), and a recent peak of 5.3 million bpd in 1997. The observed post peak decline rate is thus a mere 0.3% per year.

Even if someone figured out that oil was abiogenic after all, and we had an infinite supply, it wouldn't make me feel that much better considering what's going on with the environment. We'd just wind up like the real world in The Matrix, a big toxic soup of pollution.

Geodesic,

Your assumption that if everything is fine in Ghawar than all oil issues are resolved is assinine, if for no other reason than Ghawar produces only 5 mbpd of 86 mbpd needed. If the IEA is correct that existing production declines at an average of 6% per year, then we are still screwed, because we are not finding any new Ghawars to replace those tremendous losses.

Even the insiders are kept "dumb" about Saudi's oil fields.

Gov shill...............

He's not a shill. He can spell geodesic and that make him green

Repeat after me . . . permaculture. permaculture. permaculture

Comparing the watercut to the world average is pretty meaningless. Did they weight the average based on production?

What is important is the projected rate of change in the watercut for individual wells and the avialability of new locations to drill in Ghawar. The average water cut in Ghawar has decreased in the past few years due to horizontal drilling techniques and because other wells have been shutdown due to too much water. The average is still holding up but I suspect that has alot to do with the development of Haradh. I will believe the Saudis don't see any upcoming problems with Ghawar when they cancel one of their projects due to low oil prices. If they continue to be full steam ahead with increasing their capacity then I think they are aware that Ghawar may not be as robust in 5 years time as they would like us to believe.

"Mr Nasser said. “Water cut in Ghawar is 28 per cent, whereas the industry norm for the water cut is 80 per cent. "

Not in my wells in Alberta. If my lease operator tells me the wells are 80% water, I'll be out there the next day with a team of auditors. 80% water cut means that it is a water well contaminated by oil.

That's not to say that an 80% cut well isn't economically viable. At today's high prices it still is.

I'd like to see Nasser's source of statistics. Or is he talking only about Saudi wells?

Abiogenic doesn't mean infinite.

The theory is used in order to prop up that impression.

What a shock, aboigenic theory used incorrectly!

Edit- For the most part I'm getting the impression that most people don't really understand what infinite means.

So they compare total current production to total production that occurred in 1980 and 1997? Given how large Ghawar is, and how many oil wells are actually drilled there, almost certainly the wells that are producing the bulk of the oil these days were not producing in 1980, and possibly only a few of them would have been producing in 1997.

It'd be good to see production numbers for individual wellheads from 1980 and 1997 and compare those numbers for exactly the same wellheads today.

and exactly what would you use that information for? Aramco has been pretty forthcoming with what is happening in Ghawar. There are a number of publications demonstrating the sweep efficiency of the water flood. This information shows that many of the wells drilled on the flanks are now producing a considerable amount of water, the Aramco methodology was to shutin individual wells when water cut rose too quickly. They've been pretty upfront with the application of MRC wells to avoid formation water coning. They have never argued that the field hasn't produced somewhat more than half of it's reserves. Their comment that water cut has remained relatively flat is a result of application of MRC wells and SMART completions which allow them to shutin laterals that are producing too much water and using expandable liners they can drill new laterals from existing wellbores in order to get production with lower water cut. Auite a bit of this info is referenced in the Saudi Production thread of several years ago.

Infinite = enough to usher in a new "age of exuberance" where we don't worry about how much is left for the forseeable future.

That's about as useful as saying we have a lot of oil left.

I mean, I can understand informal/common usage, but people try to mix and match that w/ all sorts of formal notions and get all sorts of nutty statements. I guess I dislike it for the same reason I think anyone who uses and abuses "free lunch" wrt thermodynamics should be slapped upside their head.