Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Aramco, the world’s largest oil exporter, is considering redeveloping the onshore field in response to “tight market conditions,” the London-based researcher said in the report issued yesterday. It shut Dammam, and several small fields, in the early 1980s due to low demand.

The world’s top oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, appears to have cut both its oil production and export in December, according to the latest update by the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI), an official source of oil production, consumption and export data.
The OPEC heavyweight saw production decline by 237,000 barrels per day (bpd) from three-decade highs of 10.047 million bpd in November, the JODI data showed on Sunday.

The draw-down was sharper for the actual amount exported, declining by 440,000 bpd, or 5.6 percent, to come in at 7.364 million bpd, the data also showed. The level would still be similar to exports after a steep ramp-up last June.

In its monthly report on February 10, the IEA put Saudi Arabia’s production number for December slightly lower at 9.55 million bpd, a disparity of 260,000 bpd versus the JODI data.

Iran appeared not to have filed data in time for the latest release, providing no additional clues about how many export barrels were already lost in December, as some reports have suggested.
JODI, an initiative coordinated by the International Energy Forum (IEF), depends on participating member states for data collection. The IEA estimated Iran’s oil supply in December to have been 3.45 million bpd, marking a drop of 100,000 bpd.

For the third month in a row, no details were available for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Libya, the immediate reasons for which are unclear.

Together with other Gulf oil exporters, the UAE has been in focus as a possible source of alternative supply for at least some of Iran’s crude. Widening sanctions have seen several Asian clients of Iran’s oil, including top importer China, send high-level delegations to the region in the last few weeks.

No Peak Oil - Why Then is Saudi Aramco Opening Old Wells for Heavy Crude?
James Burgess / OilPrice / February 17, 2012

In the 30 years since its closure the Dammam area has changed vastly and is now surrounded by metropolitan areas, which could make drilling for oil a very difficult challenge, and one that will receive much protest and opposition by local residents.

Dammam school may get into Guinness records
SIRAJ WAHAB / ARAB NEWS / February 14, 2012

The International Indian School in Dammam (IISD) might be listed as a Guinness World Record as the largest educational institution with 16,000 students, 800 teachers and 600 nonteaching staff.

As of yet, there is no official confirmation that the IISD is indeed the biggest school. Among the 13,500 schools affiliated with India’s Central Board of Secondary Education — both within the country and abroad — the IISD has the highest number of students.

Does anyone know what kind of progess has been made on the Dammam project in the last two years?

Seems like we used to get good details about world and KSA projects a few years ago but all we get these days is endless hype about Texas and North Dakota fixing everything.

rockdoc123 wrote:

Does anyone know what kind of progess has been made on the Dammam project in the last two years?

Seems like we used to get good details about world and KSA projects a few years ago but all we get these days is endless hype about Texas and North Dakota fixing everything.

the work conducted by the Saudis previously was the megaprojects which entailed a number of projects including MRC wells, SMART completions, installation of greater water handling capacity etc. These projects were spoken of often by Aramco given that they had just been caught with their pants down...virtually no spare capacity that could be immediately accessed coupled with a sudden increase in global demand for oil. It was their way of saying...."hey sorry about that we are fixing it". The Saudis are always pretty tight lipped about what they do. It wasn't until years after it was in use that anyone knew about Aramcos intensive full field simulations using a super computer likely more capable than anything used by the US gov't.

At this point in time I suspect they see no need to tell the world what they are doing. My guess is rather than being completely desperate they are conducting business like any other prudent operator would do. Although when they shut the field in originally it was just "a bridge too far" given technology of the day right now whatever they have to do to make a profit from it is probably easier than the continued work they are involved in with Manifa and some of the other fields, no doubt cheaper as well. Also there may have been a small increase in demand for this type of oil that we are unaware of. Aramco's speed of development of their heavy oil resources has been driven to some extent by demand (not every refinery can deal with the heavier oil and the end users are somewhat specific).

As I have said numerous times in the past the only clear signal that SA is in extreme trouble is when they are asked to deliver oil when no one else can and they are unable to do so. That hasn't been the case yet. Doesn't mean they aren't having problems internally though that deal more with balancing a budget that is heavily skewed to public works and subsidies.

Could you dumb that down a little bit for those of us who do not follow it for a living? What. The difference in a regular completion and a SMART one? MRC might be max reserve contact, but I am not certain.