Can Saudi Arabia Increase Production ?

[yaowarat]

How many here think Saudi Arabia can increase production by 500,000 bpd ?

 

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/mi...oil-847830.html

[wren]

The real question is 500 000 bbl/day of what?

 

They can up production of heavy sour, but only so many refineries in the world are geared up to process it. A few months back, I believe, they were complaining that they couldn't sell their "upped" production.

[yaowarat]

The real question is 500 000 bbl/day of what?

 

They can up production of heavy sour, but only so many refineries in the world are geared up to process it. A few months back, I believe, they were complaining that they couldn't sell their "upped" production.

 

Good point, I should have qualified that as conventional "sweet crude" not sulfurous crude laced with vanadium, like in the Manfu field.

 

[yaowarat]

Good point, I should have qualified that as conventional "sweet crude" not sulfurous crude laced with vanadium, like in the Manfu field.

 

BTW.. in same newspaper edition there is a report saying: Peak oil a myth, says industry insider

 

There is more than twice as much oil in the ground as major producers say, according to a former industry adviser who claims there is widespread misunderstanding of the way proven reserves are calculated.

 

Although it is widely assumed that the world has reached a point where oil production has peaked and proven reserves have sunk to roughly half of original amounts, this idea is based on flawed thinking, said Richard Pike, a former oil industry man who is now chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/c...der-842778.html

 

 

(I'm so mad, I sold my Lincoln Navigator for a Ford Fiesta! )

[wren]

BTW.. in same newspaper edition there is a report saying: Peak oil a myth, says industry insider

Don't worry, people will be driving on a new type of petrol (gasoline), WishfulThinking^TM, available from Oil Fairy petrol stations, all guaranteed to be within easy walking distance.

 

(And in case you're worried about lack of competition, there will also be BlindFaith^TM, a bit more raunchy and much liked by the middle-aged guys).

 

Just a few weeks ago the Saudis were planning on saving some oil production for the grandchildren, so they said.

[wren]

So I voted that they have peaked.

 

Although when I voted, I got a fatal error which apparently I survived.

 

Old joke, but this short (7 minute) film, if you haven't seen it, isn't bad (well, is bad...):

[El Dali]

So I voted that they have peaked.

 

Although when I voted, I got a fatal error which apparently I survived.

 

Old joke, but this short (7 minute) film, if you haven't seen it, isn't bad (well, is bad...):

 

 

I quite like that. He should have known you'd never get $10m in a little case like that though!

[enrieb]

I agree that I think they have peaked, the average age of an oil field is around 50 years and given their unwillingness to open up their reserves to independent verification then I suspect they are close to peak or have peaked. If they truly did have huge untapped reserves then open disclosure would give a realistic date for peak oil in the distance and probably lower the short term price oil.

 

If people really do believe the oil price is a bubble then they should short oil, like the now bankrupt US airlines did last year.

 

I suppose it is possible to increase output but at what cost? I use the analogy of and oil field being like a tube of toothpaste, at first the toothpaste flows easily out of the opening with very little energy expended in production, but after a while the rate of flow slows and ever increasing amounts of energy are used to recover the remaining deposits of tooth paste. I expect we have all at some point squeezed a toothpaste tube flat and even rolled the tube up to extract the last precious deposits of toothpaste. This low tech method has its advantages though, because each time you need some toothpaste you have to go through this embarrassing ritual of secondary recovery. This though does have some advantages as it give you time to find new reserves and reminds you to purchase some more toothpaste when you are next out shopping and if you were to forget to buy some that day you can still recover enough from the tube to keep you going until you do buy some more.

 

However we could use modern technology such as a pump action toothpaste tube to get secondary production of toothpaste at the same time as the primary toothpaste production. This innovative use of technology will always ensure that you will always recover a given amount of toothpaste with a minimum amount of energy expended, no more embarrassing flattening the tube or rolling the tube up to get those last deposits. The only drawback is that one day you go to pump out your toothpaste and nothing happens, you get no warning signal you just hit peak toothpaste. There is no slow easy transition to a new toothpaste tube because you don't have a week or so to remember to find new reserves.

 

This type of decline is not hubberts bell shaped curve but a sawtooth rapid decline, I wonder sometimes if Saudis over estimates of reserves are in part due to including secondary production of oil with primary production if it is and they are expecting a hubbert slow bell-shaped decline curve and this is giving them the illusion of extra reserves.

[yaowarat]

I agree that I think they have peaked, the average age of an oil field is around 50 years and given their unwillingness to open up their reserves to independent verification then I suspect they are close to peak or have peaked. If they truly did have huge untapped reserves then open disclosure would give a realistic date for peak oil in the distance and probably lower the short term price oil.

 

Supposedly, a British army chief says the war in Iraq was charged by peak oil:

 

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Ex-Britis...080617-625.html

 

[No6]

BTW.. in same newspaper edition there is a report saying: Peak oil a myth, says industry insider

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/c...der-842778.html

 

 

(I'm so mad, I sold my Lincoln Navigator for a Ford Fiesta! )

 

From the article.

 

Current estimates suggest there are 1,200 billion barrels of proven global reserves, but the industry's internal figures suggest this amounts to less than half of what actually exists.

 

Even if these figures are correct the chances are that it won't be cheap to get at. We are living in the age of the end of cheap oil, almost regardless of reserves.

[Hogwild]

The Saudis are acutely aware of the increasing difficulty in producing enough oil for future demand. Witness, their out-bidding of all Western oil companies for 3 offshore drilling rigs at the time of Katrina. Why OFFSHORE rigs?? They clearly are no longer able to venture into the dessert and find oil at will. Saudi oil production has more than likely peaked at it's major on shore fields. The danger of these fields waterig out soon is emphasised by the fact that 12million barrels of brine per day needs to be pumped into the oil bearing shale in order to extract 9m barrels of oil. When the water-cut reaches 60% + there will be little left. Modern oil extraction techniques mean that the watering out could be very abrupt as suggested in one of the other posts. The major field in Oman watered out with little warning.

[nbarter]

Yes they can and likely will, but, yes it is the heavy kind initially. However, they are investing in refineries too. An extract from the Economist earlier this month.

 

So Saudi Arabia's motives for wanting to lower prices are clear. The trouble is that it cannot manipulate markets as before. The kingdom has a fifth of known reserves. It supplies an eighth of the world's oil and remains, crucially, the only producer with at least some spare capacity. A huge investment plan under way should raise its capacity from 11.3m barrels a day in 2007 to 12.5m by next year. Noting pleas from George Bush and Ban Ki-moon, the UN's secretary-general, the Saudis have upped actual production twice in the past month, raising it by 500,000 barrels a day to its present level of 9.5m.

 

But much of that new output, and most of the reserve capacity, is in the form of heavier oils that are costlier to refine and for which there is less thirst. The Saudis are unlikely to bring new, lighter crude, or bigger refining capacity for their heavier oils, onto world markets until next year. Even then the incremental rise may not offset demand. So energy watchers hope the Jeddah conference will reveal something bolder than promises of more oil.