Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 7:02 pm Post subject: Re: Saudi Production - trying to piece together the various
bobcousins wrote:
You really are quite clueless aren't you. Of course I have read the thread in its entirety, which is why I made the comment I did. You only need to read the last 2 posts to see my point.
I don't know what the Saudis have, I admit that. You are just guessing. So don't insult our intelligence with what you "know".
I have no intention of insulting your or anyone else's intelligence. I apologise if that is the impression you got.
Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2005 10:44 am Post subject: Re: Saudi Production - trying to piece together the various
Quote:
Your personal experience seems to be clouding your objectiveness on this issue. See:
Quote:
We demonstrate that in the weak, high porosity and almost impermeable rocks, the rock microstructure changes
dramatically during hydrocarbon production and water injection. In the North Sea chalks and the California
diatomites, rock damage is a phenomenon of crucial importance to ultimate recovery and profitability. There is
overwhelming field evidence of ubiquitous rock damage in the diatomite. (1) Water production rate increased
manifold before waterflood, i.e., the intra-particle water was released from the grains crushed by the changing
effective stress. (2) Aqueous tracer breakthrough times are two-three orders of magnitude shorter than expected
for flow in the intact diatomite. (3) Some newly drilled wells free-flow before hydrofracturing at rates
impossible to sustain by the undamaged diatomite. (4) Surface subsidence continues at a substantial rate, despite
seemingly balanced injection and withdrawal, i.e., water is injected only into few diatomite intervals and does
not provide uniform pressure support. (5) Produced water is an almost constant fraction of the injected water in
both fields regardless of the operator, waterflood stage, and location. (6) More water injection causes more
subsidence. (7) Hydrocarbon production is an S-shaped function of subsidence, i.e., compaction remains a
dominant production mechanism. The classical models of elasto-plastic rocks cannot capture the dramatic
rearrangements of rock microstructure caused by fluid withdrawal and injection. New micromechanical
approach is required to understand and predict reservoir behavior in the diatomite and chalk, and limit well
failures.
Berkeley
Of course in the case of Saudi Arabia we are dealing with predominately sandstone so waterflooding in greater size and over a longer period of time is necessary to cause a comparable level of damage which is precisely what has been occuring for many decades and the damage has been observed since at least 1974 (Chevron chief reservoir engineer's admission).
Good Lord...save me from people who have read a paper and suddenly believe they are experts in reservoir mechanics. They are referring to reservoirs that are chalks (diatomaceous reservoirs are the same as chalks). They are incrediably fine grained reservoirs with ineffective matrix porosity. Chalks do not produce unless they are fractured... They are susceptible to water bypass and hydraulic fracturing of the reservoir....the simple reason being that if you are trying to inject water into a reservoir with zero permeability the back pressure you create exceeds the fracture gradient or elastic yield point of that rock. You create a large fracture. Because the difference in the permeability between the fracture and the grain boundaries is so huge basically you end up with water by-passing.....you flush out any hydrocarbon stored in fractures but very little stored in the matrix. This reservoir is absolutely completely different from any of the reservoirs that produce in Saudi with the exception of portions of Shaybah. They all have high porosity and high permeability and are by any sense of the word conventional reservoirs unlike the unconventional reservoirs you point to as an example.
Also your statement that most of the reservoir in Saudi is sandstone demonstrates a considerable lack of knowledge about the subsurface. In fact a maximum of 16% of the recoverable hydrocarbons (IHS numbers) are reservoired in clastics....84% are found in carbonate reservoirs...most of which are conventional. There is absolutely no rule of thumb as to how a water flood will behave in a given lithology....it is all related to presence and distribution of anisotropy, fractures, relative permeabilty to the various fluid phases, wetting conditions etc. The comment that a reservoir engineer recognized such damage in the early seventies is pretty meaningless unless we know exactly what he meant by that. Certainly he could not be referring to Ain Dur where Aramco shows pressure increase due to flood efficiency only starting in about 1975.
And finally further to your comment about Shaybah again I have to reiterate that you are making unwarranted assumption about what is recoverable versus what is in place. The 5% Aramco suggests (end 2003) as recoverable to date refers to their OOIP of 30 billion barrels...not your number which is closer to their 2P recoverable reserve. Also the recoverable number you show from the map must be from decades ago...I actually have access to all of the IHS Energy estimates sitting in front of me...and up to date as possible. The following is a comparison of your OOIP with that of IHS Energy (by the way the company that Campbell says he uses for his own analysis):
It is pretty apparent that your estimates are vastly different from theirs. Indeed your OOIP estimates are less than their recoverable reserves. If you had good technical reason to do this I would not be so critical. However in most of the cases you claim at least one reason for dropping OOIP estimates is due to poorer permeability or poor source rock quality. Both of these are non starters in terms of oil in place calculations. Permeability does not come into play in this calculation....only porosity, net reservoir thickness, reservoir area, water saturation and oil Boi. As well the source rock has nothing to do with what is calculated in the reservoir.
Again I stick by my contention that you have been completely arbitrary in chopping back the numbers....without proper technical justification it is pretty much a meaningless estimate....based solely on your belief the Saudis must be lying.
I am not saying the IHS numbers are completely correct. But I do know how they arrive at them. They pick up information at presentations made by Saudi and Aramco personnel as well as information they obtain informally from insiders. There is no way of qualifying these numbers without actual hard production data.
Joined: May 15, 2005 Posts: 4142 Location: THE MATRIX
Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 4:41 pm Post subject: Re: Saudi Production - trying to piece together the various
The rudeness I see here does alot to discredit those who are being rude.
Its seems to me that there are issues some people choose not to even consider.
Things may be far worse then you or I can imagine.....hmm imagine that.
Bobbyboy has been nothing but nice and what does he get in return??
Your LORD is not here............. dig it???!!
I hope your Lord can save us from people who see the truth yet fail to recognize it as such.
If the Sauds are not in bed with the Neocons and someone can prove it...... I will put my head between my legs and kiss my own arse!!!
If I could do that I may never leave the house!!!
Its quite alright really.
When we are post peak lets here your brilliant thoughts on how truthful the Sauds were.
Its so evident whats going on.
Thanks Bobbyboy for showing me at least that things might be far worse then these "educated experts" would like to admit.
Afterall PO is an equal opportunity killer and they along with the rest of us will suffer and be forced to revert back to a more efficient way of life
Painful thought for most I AM SURE OF IT!!!
Education = right?
Heck!! I thought might = right
I thought we covered education already.....
Who educated Edison??? His mom and himself
Yet in all his wisdom Edison thought AC power was asinine.
Just goes to show you that even the most brilliant minds can be wrong on occassion.
Posted: Wed Oct 19, 2005 5:34 pm Post subject: Re: Saudi Production - trying to piece together the various
Neopo thankyou for the useful information you have contributed to our understanding of Saudi production/reserves it will help our understanding immensely.
I don't think it ever became accepted as being rude to clarify incorrect assumptions with data and corrections to analysis error. The danger in not doing so is that those who are less learned in this matters can be easily led astray.
By the way feel free to start up a thread titled something like "the Saudis are lying arseholes....I can't prove it but I know it anyway!" I'm sure it will be immensely popular.
Bryan Bartlett, former chief engineer for Aramco, thinks that with a major capital program, the kingdom could expand output capacity to 15 million barrels a day and sustain that level for 50 years or more.
But Bartlett dismisses supply and demand forecasts that assume the Saudis will produce more than 22 million by 2025 in order to help cover a doubling of oil demand over the next two decades. Those projections, he says, are merely putting off consideration of how to deal with an impending energy crunch that he believes will have major implications for the U.S. and other consuming nations.
Quote:
While Bartlett's views are consistent in some ways with the peak oil school, he rejects Saudi critics like Houston investment banker and analyst Matt Simmons, who has questioned the longevity of Saudi reserves. Saudi output can increase significantly, but it does have limits, Bartlett said.
"I believe the Saudis would make 15 million barrels per day for 50 years if they have to," he said. But Saudi Arabia has "never promised 20 million... Where is this 20 million coming from?" he asked.
Even though the kingdom's huge reserves would seem to theoretically allow for higher production, operators risk reducing the volume of ultimately recoverable oil if they try to produce fields too quickly, Bartlett said. Even if it were possible to produce at higher rates, Bartlett said such a strategy would risk robbing the fields of the natural pressure that makes the Saudi fields uniquely copious.
"The problem is the field itself has certain dynamics," said Bartlett, adding that a decision by Saudi Arabia to produce at 22 million "is a very dangerous thing for them to do." Sustained production at that level would be amazingly expensive and is "almost impossible," Bartlett said in a recent interview in Houston, which he visits during periodic consulting assignments for Aramco.
Interestingly he pretty much agrees with what former head of exploration Sadad Al-Husseini says. i.e. they can get to 15mb/d but the forecasts of getting more than that are too optimistic. _________________ "Production of useful work is limited by the laws of thermodynamics, but the production of useless work seems to be unlimited."
Joined: May 15, 2005 Posts: 4142 Location: THE MATRIX
Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2005 7:35 pm Post subject: Re: Saudi Production - trying to piece together the various
rockdoc123 wrote:
Neopo thankyou for the useful information you have contributed to our understanding of Saudi production/reserves it will help our understanding immensely.
I don't think it ever became accepted as being rude to clarify incorrect assumptions with data and corrections to analysis error. The danger in not doing so is that those who are less learned in this matters can be easily led astray.
By the way feel free to start up a thread titled something like "the Saudis are lying arseholes....I can't prove it but I know it anyway!" I'm sure it will be immensely popular.
No need for thanks - glad to be of help
No, but it is rude to go about it the way you seem to do.
and bobcousins saying that Bobbyboy is clueless.
Yeah thats not rude is it?
Oh no worries as I do feel free to start a thread entitled whatever I want it to be titled within the range of the CoC.
I am sure there are plenty of people here at PO.COM who are just as concerned about SA production as you and I.
Did you read that article I posted?
"SA says they do not have 260bb but 1.2 trillion barrels of reserves."
This doesnt strike you as odd???
You may have chosen to believe that but I believe you are in a very tiny minority and yeah that doesnt make you wrong but it does seem a bit ignorant to easily dismiss such absurd claims.
And lets not even dwell into the relationship between the neocons and the Sauds...........
I think if you want a realistic view of SA production possibilities without the politcal shroud then we could look at Iran whose only excess production is sour.
It seems the same applies to all this "extra capacity" SA keeps trying to find buyers for to no avail.
This "excess" everyone talks about seems to be sour crude.
And that is one indication of a depletion is it not???
Hmm perhaps understanding petroleum production is similar to understanding religion and they have colleges for that so if one wishes to understand one must attend and serve their life in the industry just to begin to grasp these concepts.
yeah right!!!
Its time to put your mouse, graphs and charts away and listen to common sense.
Judge them by their deeds and listen closely to what they say.
I think you will have a completely different outlook on it all regardless of what your peers and your education has programmed you to think.
Deity save us from nintendo/joystick geekologists!!!!
Antimatter - now just stop it!!!
You and I both know that SA production knows no limits.
The road goes on forever and the party never ends.......
Fear, denial and rationalization.
As stated in another thread - the educated are far better at this then the uneducated.
They have their beliefs and plenty of rhetoric to back it up.
People like Rockdoc will continue to believe in what they have been "taught" rathen then depend on their own intelligent observation.
My president has never even spoken the words PO so I suppose everything is just PEACHY and this is just a conspiracy on a grand scale.
Been wanting one of those new hummers anyways!!!!
Saudi and Aramco statements + "insider" knowledge = truth???
Yet according to the Sauds the price of a barrel should be $25???
All they have to do is produce a few extra million barrels of sweet light per day and we would see the price of crude fall significantly.
Since part of SA's strategy is to keep the price reasonable so as to not provoke alternatives and conservation - wouldnt they be doing that right about now if they could???
Yeah thats just my undereducated assumptions based on my own uneducated observations....silly me.
Someone must be conspiring against us and it is becoming fairly apparent that some of these people post here on the PO forum!!!!
Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2005 9:49 pm Post subject: Re: Saudi Production - trying to piece together the various
Quote:
I think if you want a realistic view of SA production possibilities without the politcal shroud then we could look at Iran whose only excess production is sour.
that is a bad comparison....not the same geology...source rocks are completely different as is the reservoir etc. Apples and Oranges I'm afraid.
Quote:
People like Rockdoc will continue to believe in what they have been "taught" rathen then depend on their own intelligent observation.
actually that is incorrect...as I've said before outside of graduate school I've been working in this industry for 30+ years...much of it dealing with Middle East petroleum geology. What I am trying to achieve here is putting together all of the information out there without any belief system...this is called data mining. By doing this one often finds out important trends, clues to what is actually going on. I do this rather than read two books (Campbell and Simmons)....which I suspect you have done, to formulate my opinions.
You are entitled to your opinions as is the weatherman, Bill Clinton and Curious George. That doesn't make them, however, worth anything
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 12:11 am Post subject: Re: Saudi Production - trying to piece together the various
rockdoc123 wrote:
This reservoir is absolutely completely different from any of the reservoirs that produce in Saudi with the exception of portions of Shaybah. They all have high porosity and high permeability and are by any sense of the word conventional reservoirs unlike the unconventional reservoirs you point to as an example.
You asked for evidence that water injection could damage a reservoir and I provided it. I have to dispute your assertion that this does not make the evidence relevant to the likes of Saudi Arabia's fields. Fractured carbonate reservoir rock (typical Middle East rock) has been shown to give a lower recovery under water injection than primary recovery:
Quote:
Most of the oil production in the Middle East comes from carbonate reservoirs, the
majority of which are fractured. These reservoirs tend to produce at high rates in their
early production period followed by low rates later on, leading to low overall recovery.
Quote:
Another major factor controlling the distribution and flow of fluids in carbonate
reservoirs is wettability. It has a significant importance in reservoir development and
management because of its strong influence on capillary pressure and relative
permeability. A wettability evaluation by Treiber et al. [7] on 50 carbonate rocks showed
that 84% of carbonate reservoirs were oil-wet with contact angles between 105o and 180o.
Chilingar et al. [1] also performed contact angle measurements on 161 carbonate samples
and concluded that 15% of the rocks were strongly oil-wet and 65% were oil-wet.
Quote:
Primary Depletion
In this option, only the natural energy of the reservoir is used as the drive mechanism to
continue the field development. This is a combination of pressure depletion, oil
expansion, rock compression and some flank aquifer influx. These mechanisms act
together in both models to varying degrees. These simulations showed that oil recovery
on a whole field basis would be about 6.5% STOIIP for Sector 1 (fractured)
Quote:
Water Injection
For this option, down dip water injection provided a stable displacement process because
of the high angles of dip (≈20o) prevalent in the field. Water injection is seen as
complimentary to the well re-completions, artificial lift and infill wells of the primary
program. The simulations showed that the cumulative oil recovered from the field would
be less than 6% STOIIP for the fractured sector model
Quote:
1- At early times, fractures increased the oil recovery compared with non-fractured
case, since they allowed higher production rates.
2- Water injection did not improve recovery over primary production in the fractured
regions of the field. This appears to be due to low water imbibition into the
matrix due to its intermediate to oil-wet wettability.
Additionally I would add that it helps explain why the likes of Shaybah, Khurais, Manifa and co have been left until last. They are extremely complex reservoirs and consequently have low recovery factors. Also it dispels the myth that Middle East fields are somehow special and are able to have a higher recovery factor than in the rest of the world; this may be so for Abqaiq but not for other fields such as Shaybah.
rockdoc123 wrote:
In fact a maximum of 16% of the recoverable hydrocarbons (IHS numbers) are reservoired in clastics....84% are found in carbonate reservoirs...most of which are conventional.
Thanks for pointing this out. I meant to write carbonate but got confused with the Saudi aquifers which are predominately sandstone.
rockdoc123 wrote:
There is absolutely no rule of thumb as to how a water flood will behave in a given lithology....it is all related to presence and distribution of anisotropy, fractures, relative permeabilty to the various fluid phases, wetting conditions etc. The comment that a reservoir engineer recognized such damage in the early seventies is pretty meaningless unless we know exactly what he meant by that. Certainly he could not be referring to Ain Dur where Aramco shows pressure increase due to flood efficiency only starting in about 1975.
Meaningless? You consider someone who is the chief reservoir engineer for Chevron going under oath against his peers stating that their collective behaviour had been damaging the Saudi reservoirs when everybody else denied it to have no meaning . That sort of whistleblower behaviour is not common, it would have been far easier for him to have gone along with the group yet he had the guts and a conscious to tell the truth. The water cut line is misleading. For example since 1999 they have stopped drilling horizontal wells as they were watering up so quickly hence when a well waters up it is shut off and left out from the statistics showing the average well's water cut; rather cunning I may add. It is thus dangerous to take the water cut figures at face value.
rockdoc123 wrote:
And finally further to your comment about Shaybah again I have to reiterate that you are making unwarranted assumption about what is recoverable versus what is in place. The 5% Aramco suggests (end 2003) as recoverable to date refers to their OOIP of 30 billion barrels...not your number which is closer to their 2P recoverable reserve.
Actually you are wrong here. They mean 5% of 2P which according to IHS is 18 so giving 0.9 billion barrels not the "over 2 billion barrels" you state. Furthermore just to show that they are not refering to OOIP consider this:
Page 15 Ghawar 48% depleted.
Page 21 Ghawar cumulative production 55 billion barrels.
Therefore 55/0.48 = 114.6 billion barrels OOIP confirming my OOIP figure of 110 billion barrels. Are you really suggesting that Aramco are confirming my OOIP figures?
rockdoc123 wrote:
Also the recoverable number you show from the map must be from decades ago...
Well no thats not correct they are up to date as at February 2005 when the numbers were published.
It is pretty apparent that your estimates are vastly different from theirs. Indeed your OOIP estimates are less than their recoverable reserves.[/quote]
rockdoc123 wrote:
I am not saying the IHS numbers are completely correct. But I do know how they arrive at them. They pick up information at presentations made by Saudi and Aramco personnel as well as information they obtain informally from insiders. There is no way of qualifying these numbers without actual hard production data
No really? IHS Energy is a politically compromised organisation. Just look at their CERA division and their flawed analysis (depletion underplayed). They have to implicitly present data that there is plenty of oil left in the world. That is what their clients expect and that is what they provide. You said it yourself, they just ask the Saudis how much they have got and just take it at face value! . As for Saudi insiders they are no more reliable just look at what Antimatter posted:
Quote:
Bryan Bartlett, former chief engineer for Aramco, thinks that with a major capital program, the kingdom could expand output capacity to 15 million barrels a day and sustain that level for 50 years or more.
That works out to 15 million x 365 x 50 = 273.75 billion barrels before production decline sets in. That is beyond optimistic.
rockdoc123 wrote:
If you had good technical reason to do this I would not be so critical. However in most of the cases you claim at least one reason for dropping OOIP estimates is due to poorer permeability or poor source rock quality. Both of these are non starters in terms of oil in place calculations. Permeability does not come into play in this calculation....only porosity, net reservoir thickness, reservoir area, water saturation and oil Boi. As well the source rock has nothing to do with what is calculated in the reservoir.
Again I stick by my contention that you have been completely arbitrary in chopping back the numbers....without proper technical justification it is pretty much a meaningless estimate....based solely on your belief the Saudis must be lying.(my emphasis)
"permeability does not come into play in this calculation". Coming from an experienced petroleum geologist I am amazed! I can only assume you thought I was calculating my numbers on a gross pay basis. The OOIP numbers are calculated on a net pay basis where permeability is a factor so to claim I have been 'completely arbitrary' is incorrect. Secondly you are misrepresenting my position. It is not as simple as saying the Saudis are lying you are thinking on the microscale when you need to try and understand the bigger picture. As I have pointed out before in this thread to FatherOfTwo:
bobbyboy wrote:
You have misunderstood my position. The Saudi exaggeration is primarily a result of the arab language's syntax. Read up on Chomsky and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis on how language can influence one's way of thinking. Al-Naimi and co are PR men (professional liars). They do not consciously believe Ghawar's production is about to fall off a cliff, they would have to be sociopaths to come out with their claims and believe such a scenario. Rather the actions that Aramco are taking is primarly driven by unknown technical people within Aramco. Watch what they are doing more than what they are saying.
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 5:35 pm Post subject: Re: Saudi Production - trying to piece together the various
Quote:
You asked for evidence that water injection could damage a reservoir and I provided it. I have to dispute your assertion that this does not make the evidence relevant to the likes of Saudi Arabia's fields. Fractured carbonate reservoir rock (typical Middle East rock) has been shown to give a lower recovery under water injection than primary recovery:
Where is your reference for this? You link to a model study that does not deal with real rock (what kind of Middle East rock is this…in fact it looks closer to the Asmari to me and not the Arab)….. the most important reservoir parameter in this type of study is matrix permeability…the example they use seems mostly in the tens of millidarcies with a peak into the hundred plus range where in Ghawar the average matrix perm is in the 300’s getting up to 600 in the Ain Dur area. The issue here is that with minimal matrix permeability you have a very difficult time replenishing fractures rapidly during infinitesimal reservoir drawdown. As a consequence there is a tendency for water by-passing along fractures. When the matrix perm is high they continue to provide oil to the fracture highways. As well the model does not specify what the viscosity of the oil is. This is very important in terms of sweep efficiency. As well, and a very important fact is that wettability can change throughout the history of production...that being said if Ghawar was oil wet you would not see the kind of production you are seeing..the Aramco reservoir models referenced in the SPE incorporate water wet assumption and they get good match with observed data. Also Ghawar has an expanding gas cap….the model does not encorporate gas expansion drive from what I can see. Reservoir models are great things but they are not very reliable unless they are ground-truthed with the real thing.
Quote:
Additionally I would add that it helps explain why the likes of Shaybah, Khurais, Manifa and co have been left until last. They are extremely complex reservoirs and consequently have low recovery factors. Also it dispels the myth that Middle East fields are somehow special and are able to have a higher recovery factor than in the rest of the world; this may be so for Abqaiq but not for other fields such as Shaybah.
I would certainly like to know where you get your recovery factors from. The Aramco presentation talks about depletion, which relates to the amount of the URR that has already been produced, not the ultimate recovery factor. Perhaps you can explain to us the details of how Abqaiq is different from Shaybah, Khurais, Manifa etc ? From my own reading on the subject there are many similarities but also some differences. One of these differences (Shaybah is ultra light Arab which gives it the essential viscosity of refined diesel) should actually improve the recovey factor compared to parts of Ghawar where you are looking at medium to light Arab.
Quote:
Meaningless? You consider someone who is the chief reservoir engineer for Chevron going under oath against his peers stating that their collective behaviour had been damaging the Saudi reservoirs when everybody else denied it to have no meaning . That sort of whistleblower behaviour is not common, it would have been far easier for him to have gone along with the group yet he had the guts and a conscious to tell the truth.
First off the reason I said it was meaningless to this discussion is his testimony was well in advance of when they observed the water flood breakthrough, as shown in the curve and as noted in a few of the SPE papers. At that point in time he had no idea of what damage might or might not have been created . Also if you have ever worked in this industry the one thing you will realize is that there are always people with an axe to grind. This is what is called heresay evidence. You of course got this from Simmon's book....I don't remember any hard evidence being produced at that hearing?
Quote:
The water cut line is misleading. For example since 1999 they have stopped drilling horizontal wells as they were watering up so quickly hence when a well waters up it is shut off and left out from the statistics showing the average well's water cut; rather cunning I may add. It is thus dangerous to take the water cut figures at face value.
I am afraid you are dead wrong there. At Haradh, increment 2 which started in 2001 was implemented entirely with horizontal wells. During this period they also drilled the first of two maximum reservoir contact (MRC) multi-lateral wells with up to a 5 km reservoir intersected area. There plans are to implement increment 3 (supposedly started in 2004) with only MRC wells (SPE 93138, 2005; SPE 87959, 2005). At Ain Dur during the period 1999 through 2004 they drilled a number of short radius horizontal sidetracks from existing vertical wells in order to access “attic” oil which helped them reactive wells that had been formerly shut-in. They drilled a number of new horizontal long reach wells into the upper 10’ of the Arab D. It is indicated that all future drilling in Ain Dur will be with MRC wells based on the success at Haradh (SPE 93439, 2005). And if you know of any field that actually reports water cuts from wells that are not producing I think we would all like to hear about it…..by definition they have no water cut because they are not producing….duh.
Shutting in wells with excessive water production is all part of reservoir management. In SPE 93439 they talk about their water management scheme at Ain Dur where they conducted a number of water shut-off jobs from 1999-2005 using various types of plugs to shutoff high perm zones. They mention that 77% of those jobs resulted in reduction of water cuts by greater than 50% whereas only 4% were unsuccessful (ie. Water cut reduction less than 25%). Here's an example of the A9 well from Ain Dur before and after Water shut off work over...
Quote:
Actually you are wrong here. They mean 5% of 2P which according to IHS is 18 so giving 0.9 billion barrels not the "over 2 billion barrels" you state. Furthermore just to show that they are not refering to OOIP consider this:
Page 15 Ghawar 48% depleted.
Page 21 Ghawar cumulative production 55 billion barrels.
Therefore 55/0.48 = 114.6 billion barrels OOIP confirming my OOIP figure of 110 billion barrels. Are you really suggesting that Aramco are confirming my OOIP figures?
OK …lets get this right once and for all. The depeletion figures noted in the Aramco slide relate to the amount of recoverable oil that has been produced to date. So in the example of Ghawar total 48% depletion means the recoverable reserves are 115 GB, not the OOIP. In terms of reconciling this with the various Aramco statements….the 2P reserves they carried in 1997 according to IHS Energy were 114 GB…..the 2P was subsequently upgraded in 2003 to 140 GB. So the Aramco presentation would make sense if indeed they had simply moved probable reserves into the proven category and possible reserves into the probable category from 1997-2003. This doesn’t seem that unusual given the size of the field and the fact they were building lots of gas/oil/water separation plants, drilling horizontal wells and doing other technics to recover stranded oil. In regards to Shaybah the production profile indicates you are correct about the total production to end 2003 (about .985 GB) but the depletion factor of 5% relates to URR. As a consequence the recoverable reserve ends up being 19.7 GB. According to HIS Energy as of May 2004 the 2P reserves for Shaybah were 21 GB and the proven reserves were 20 GB. This seems to match. So from what I can see you are still confused by the concepts of OOIP and URR.
Quote:
IHS Energy is a politically compromised organisation. Just look at their CERA division and their flawed analysis (depletion underplayed). They have to implicitly present data that there is plenty of oil left in the world. That is what their clients expect and that is what they provide
That is just silly. I have worked for several companies that buy IHS energy products. If there was any inclination that the data was being cooked in any manner those various subscriptions (which in my current case amount to about $2MM/yr) would be immediately cancelled. Oil companies are the main clients of IHS ….it is not in their interests to have the concept out there that oil supply is limitless. If IHS was actually interested in appeasing their main clients they would be putting out low numbers not high ones. I have had dealings with this company since the late seventies when they were PetroConsultants….if anything they have considerable professional integrity. Errors that are present are not made on purpose.
Quote:
"permeability does not come into play in this calculation". Coming from an experienced petroleum geologist I am amazed! I can only assume you thought I was calculating my numbers on a gross pay basis. The OOIP numbers are calculated on a net pay basis where permeability is a factor so to claim I have been 'completely arbitrary' is incorrect.
Well this must mean you have access to a whole bunch of wireline logs and core data from Ghawar! Please provide us with your plots to justify your downgrades in reservoir thickness. Nice try….when talking about OOIP the only time you might use permeability as a cutoff for net reservoir in these sort of rocks is to cutoff at lets say 0.1 md (note that Roberto Aguilera the original authority on fractured reservoir engineering would claim in fractured carbonates you should make no permeability cutoffs at all). Rule of thumb in most carbonates is that anything above 3% porosity will generally allow oil to get into pore space unaided. The following is a plot from one of the SPE papers showing generalized porosity in the Arab D.
Note that you need to have a cutoff of about 15% porosity to make any difference to net reservoir. So for OOIP ….ie. it doesn’t matter whether it will produce or not, it just had to get into the reservoir and be stored ……net carbonate reservoir is basically gross carbonate reservoir minus any shales or anhydrites. If you want to reduce recoverable reserves due to poorer permeability in certain zones that is fine….I still would like to see the evidence.
As you know I am a proponent of the Saudis publishing all of their supporting data.....but that ain't gonna happen. As such we are left with trying to figure out what is there through information that has been released in one manner or another. Your view that the Saudi view just has to do with "the Arab way" gets me a bit twisted off simply because I have many Arab friends who do not think in anyway different than most westerners.....notwithstanding that such a concept might apply to when they make statements such as "we have enough oil for a hundred years" but it doesn't apply to when they make specific statements on OOIP, proven and/or proven plus probable reserves...which they have made on numerous occassions.
And finally NEOPO
Quote:
Perhaps Rockdoc should write a book.
Suggested title : "sunshine in the desert" or maybe "Simmons got to where he is by lying about the sauds lying".......
I really dont care anymore what your type thinks.
This is pretty classic....how do you know Simmons is absolutely correct? Have you worked in Saudi Arabia on these fields? Have you been into the SPE database and come up with the same conclusion? For Christ sake he is an investment banker....no doubt an intelligent one but not a technical person who could look at the SPE work and critically evaluate it. He might well be right....but he might also have his head up his rich ass.
Joined: May 15, 2005 Posts: 4142 Location: THE MATRIX
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 9:53 pm Post subject: Re: Saudi Production - trying to piece together the various
Bp was "caught" overestimating reserves and so was Chevron and I am sure the list of others doing the same is long.
SA has a very good reason to lie.
No one wants to cause the financial panic that will ensue once the world knows the truth.
I am sorry but they have very little reason to tell the truth and plenty of reason to hide their actual reserve numbers.
Lets not forget Opecs quota system.
Wheres the transparency???
Why hide anything at this point if indeed there is plenty of oil???
Governments have called for this as well as plenty of the worlds financial chiefs yet still no transparency or foreign audits.
I must add that Simmons is rich and could just as well take his money and hole up somewhere indefinately and quite comfortably.
When Bartlett met with Bush I thought to myself "watch what Bartlett does after this meeting".
If he would have calmed down and not been so adamant about preparing for PO with his constituents then I might wish to believe your very optomistic claims yet he did not and now he seems more determined then ever.
Bush is in bed with SA man...theres no denying it.
SA will say and do as the neocons want or SA will be the next Iraq.
Iran isnt so easily bullied.
I do not think it is a coincidence that we now have Iran virtually surrounded.
Yes this may not all apply to the title of this thread yet I feel it is all very relevant.
I appreciate your work wether I agree or not but I dont think you should discount the pessimist here so easily.
I would like to know if you are preparing for PO or think its just something that our/your children will have to deal with?
Maybe if I knew your inner thoughts I could better judge your motives for believing these optomistic numbers.
If you are not doing anything to prepare for PO....well thats sort of telling isnt it??
Kinda provides a motive doesnt it?
So...how do you really feel?
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2005 10:22 pm Post subject: Re: Saudi Production - trying to piece together the various
Quote:
I appreciate your work wether I agree or not but I dont think you should discount the pessimist here so easily.
I would like to know if you are preparing for PO or think its just something that our/your children will have to deal with?
Maybe if I knew your inner thoughts I could better judge your motives for believing these optomistic numbers.
If you are not doing anything to prepare for PO....well thats sort of telling isnt it??
Kinda provides a motive doesnt it?
So...how do you really feel?
I have no motives other than as a scientist I am captivated by puzzles. One of my Masters thesis supervisors worked with King Hubbert at the Shell Research Centre for a number of years back when they were all young Turks doing all the ground breaking work on rock mechanics...yes that is what Hubbert was most famous for was his understanding of pore pressure phenomena. As a consequence I was exposed to the whole idea of peak oil back in the seventies.(part of our course work)...and it has continually kept me thinking about it all these years.
As to am I preparing....how do you prepare for something that could happen in five years or perhaps in ten years or perhaps in thirty years? The one thing most folks agree on is there will be a peak of some kind (sharp, bumpy, whatever) but noone can agree on a date. This is extremely important as to how you plan. If you freak out right now and drag your teenage kids out to the wilderness and make them learn to drink birch bark tea......suddenly it turns out ...opps screwed up....looks like peak won't happen for another twenty years. Basically you just Fark up their entire lives because you freaked out. I'm one of the ones who believes in a soft landing , I also believe that what you are seeing in the market right now has little to do with peak oil other than awareness...and that is probably a good thing.
I am an old converted hippy by classification.....basically I think good about the human spirit....other than than the human spirits who want to horde and keep guns.
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. That sort of whistleblower behaviour is not common, it would have been far easier for him to have gone along with the group yet he had the guts and a conscious to tell the truth. The water cut line is misleading. For example since 1999 they have stopped drilling horizontal wells as they were watering up so quickly hence when a well waters up it is shut off and left out from the statistics showing the average well's water cut; rather cunning I may add. It is thus dangerous to take the water cut figures at face value.
IHS Energy is a politically compromised organisation. Just look at their CERA division and their flawed analysis (depletion underplayed). They have to implicitly present data that there is plenty of oil left in the world. That is what their clients expect and that is what they provide. You said it yourself, they just ask the Saudis how much they have got and just take it at face value! 
