spike wrote:Simmons quoted 1975 estimates by the American partners in Aramco that Ghawar was 61.5 billion barrels and the country 108 billion.
Simmons compiled that data and other every bit of data he could find on the oil field at Ghawar etc. You can hardly blame him for quoting published data released by the US partners in ARAMCO when he was compiling all the data he could from every source.
Yes. But lets look more closely at those numbers. FIRST, if you track that estimate back to its source, it comes from a single sentence in a speech given by a prominent Saudi in 2008. No technical information has ever been released to support or document that reserve number in any way. Hopefully its right---but we don't know if its right. SECOND, Ghawar is producing about 2.5 BILLION bbls/oil every year so the 65 Billion number you are quoting is bogus. It is 8 years out of date. Lets do the math----2008 was ca. 8 years ago so at 2-2.5 BILLION bbls of oil per year we've got about 15-20 BILLION bbls produced over the last 8 years, bringing the total amount of oil already produced from Ghawar up to ca. 80-85 billion bbls.
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So the number you quoted for total oil production from Ghawar is bogus. You agree, I hope?
OK...if you agree the number you cited for total oil production was wrong, then now lets look at the technical data that is available more closely for the reserve number.
First, we can begin by using the updated number of 80-85 BILLION bbls I calculate above for oil already produced....we can then subtract 15-20 billion from the number you quoted for reserves right off the top. Based on the 2008 statement by the Saudi at a conference, the remaining reserves would be about 50-55 Billion bbls/oi.
But is even that corrected number accurate?
Hmmm.....
Given the lack of transparency at Aramco, we don't know if that one statement made 8 years ago is actually accurate.
We just don't know much about the condition of the field at this time. The reservoir is a highly porous dolomite about 280 feet thick. The dolomite has been gently folded into a broad anticline. Much of the reservoir is filled with natural gas, so the entire thing isn't an oil reservoir anyway. There have been decades of water flooding, and oil production wells have a significant percentage of water in them already. Normally a significant amount of water in the production is a bad thing. But at Ghawar---who knows?
Does Ghawar contain another 50 BILLION bbls of oil? Who knows?