ou and SPE may be willing to repeat assurances from the Royals at face value. I don't, nor do analysts like JoulesBurn over at OD. Here is his latest paper on that subject, regarding the Haradh III development at the southern tip of the Ghawar oil field. Simple tools, historical data and new GeoEye satellite images offer proof the Royals deceive, exagerate productivity of the field, and under report the extraordinary nature of their efforts. Similar analysis at OD using these same tools have shown over the last 7 years have shown the same pattern; that old production wells on the perimeter of the Ghawar field have become new injectors/observation wells and that production have moved into the center of the field, at the top of the oil reservoir anticline where it will water out sooner or later. Pictures tell a thousand tales. Ghawar has long ago peaked.
this article you point to is a tempest in a teapot and demonstrates the author doesn't know much about normal oil and gas practices. The ifield that is referred to in the article is simply a digital accumulation of all monitoring instrument data such that the field behavior can be measured against the full field model that was developed. This gives them the opportunity to intervene quickly and hence maintain production and pressure as optimally as possible. I can't qualify whether his assessment of new wells is correct as it comes down to interpretation of satellite imagery that is not meant for the resolution needed to determine where water lines, gas lines, separators etc go. He might be right, but so what? The whole idea of the original plan they had was not that this would be all they had to do...intervention is always assumed and given the monitoring they have it becomes that much more efficient. How many of the wells are producing currently or more importantly how many of the multi-laterals are producing can't be determined from a satellite image. The point of SMART completions is the ability to monitor individual laterals at surface and shut them in when water production increases beyond a certain point. The field model may be telling them that rather than drill another lateral from the main hole with the use of expandable liner it might be more useful to drill an additional well. This is all driven by cost benefit analysis and is not something new to the industry....we have been downspacing for as long as I can remember.
I am not sure why you are on this kick about whether Ghawar has peaked or not. There are a couple of SPE articles that I quoted from years ago on this site that state current recovery as being in excess of 50% and that full field models benefiting from the understanding of MRC well production, mobility ratios and wettability changes in the various reservoir units that ultimate recovery will be in the the area of 73% from the northern part of Ghawar and somewhat less from the remainder. The production rate is determined not by how much reserve is there anymore but by economic factors coupled with reservoir management.
This whole worry about whether SA has peaked or not is a red herring to my mind. Their production rates are largely impacted by political and economic issues. What is important is how much reserves were originally inplace and what ultimate recovery will be. Yes at somepoint natural decline will take over but given the current assessment of spare capacity and the notion that as natural decline happens that spare capacity can be eaten into a long flat rolling peak is likely achievable.
