Wednesday, July 16, 2008
According to Business Week: *
But the detailed document, obtained from a person with access to Saudi oil officials, suggests that Saudi Aramco will be limited to sustained production of just 12 million barrels a day in 2010, and will be able to maintain that volume only for short, temporary periods such as emergencies. Then it will scale back to a sustainable production level of about 10.4 million barrels a day, according to the data. BusinessWeek obtained a field-by-field breakdown of estimated Saudi oil production from 2009 through 2013. It was provided by an oil industry executive who said he had confirmed it with a ranking Saudi energy official who has access to the field data. The executive, who has proven reliable over several years of reporting interaction, provided the data on condition of anonymity to protect his access to the kingdom and the identity of the inside contact who confirmed the information.
Among those who dismiss Peak Oil fears oil reserves in Saudi Arabia were supposed to provide so much increased production that world oil consumption could continue to rise along with economic growth and increasing demand. But the great Saudi hope is a dud...
...On oil matters, the kingdom's credibility has been clouded by intense secrecy. The Saudis, for instance, refuse, unlike Russia, Venezuela, and Norway, to release detailed assessments of their oil reserves, which has made many skeptical. "They are just a bunch of empty boasts," Matthew Simmons, chairman of Houston investment bank Simmons & Co. International, says of the kingdom's recent promises of 12.5 million barrels a day. He is also skeptical of Saudi reserve estimates.
One dramatic part of the data concerns a site called Ghawar, which has been the kingdom's workhorse field for decades. It shows the field producing 5.4 million barrels a day next year, but the volume then falling off rapidly, to 4.475 million daily barrels in 2013. "That's why Khurais is so important—to make up for that decrease," said the oil industry executive who released the data. He was referring to a supergiant field that is to come online later this year and produce an estimated 500,000 barrels a day of crude. In last month's gathering in Saudi Arabia, officials of the kingdom told journalists that Ghawar had produced just under 5 million barrels a day from 1993 through 2007.
Mainly the data show flat production; apart from the addition of Khurais and a heavy oil field called Manifa, no increases appear in any of the fields during the next five years. Production at Manifa is to begin in 2011 with 125,000 barrels a day, according to the data, and rise rapidly to 900,000 barrels a day two years later. Though 2014 is not included in the data, one of the fields listed—Shaybah—is to have a volume increase to 1 million barrels a day that year, from 750,000 barrels a day from 2009 to 2013, according to the oil executive.
Still, despite its enormous reserves and bullish statements, Saudi Arabia appears likely to fall well short of the daily production it has targeted in the near term.
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to invest all of our hopes and dreams in the hub of world terrorism. But, now that we know better, isn't it about time we told them to f*ck off?
* Link thanks to Instapundit, who also has good news about solar.
Tell them to f*** off and then go where for our oil? Alaska isn't the answer to our problems, and what would happen when that oil ran out, if we were to drill there?
The fact of the matter is that we should have started intensive energy research back in the 1970s or early 1980s, after the first embargo (1973) made it clear that we couldn't depend on cheap oil and the second one (1979) drove the point home.
The handwriting was on the wall then. Now, decades later, we have nothing to show for it but solar panels and windmills. OK, the big oil companies opposed research into alternative fuels. Maybe the big car companies did, too. But should that opposition have been sufficient to stop us?
Tell them to f*** off and then go where for our oil?
We get most of our oil from the western hemisphere. Brazil has just made some huge discoveries, and they're the best source of renewable fuel, ethanol made from sugar cane.
And they're not troglodytes who treat their women worse than we treat our dogs. What a deal.
Actually, if we started treating the Saudis the same way we treat our other enemy-allies, like China and Russia, that would be a great step forward. Our current attitude towards them is so obsequious. There's no reason for that.
The handwriting was on the wall back in the '80's, and it was on the wall on 9/11, when the Saudi-sponsored, Saudi-financed Saudi terrorists attacked New York and Washington. Hopefully at some point, people will pay attention.
Joanne and Mary - what they said.
It's long past time we declared our independence from petroleum as well as the states which produce it.
GO FIND ALTERNATIVE FUEL AND DONT CAUSE THE FOOD PRICES TO RISE WHEN YOR ON THE WAY. afcourse meanwhile enjoy sustaind oil flow to the world from saudia and contunio your bashing articals collection(which most have nothing to do with reality, and some like oil peak cause oil prices to raise).
by the way I am not angry, those articals , and ) Drill drill drill) teype of articals wich I dont know how move to take about the sahriee legal system instead of oil drilling are not a suprise.
son if you take more on how to force american oil giants to onvest more in new fields, new energy sources, and find new sources for gas which is begining to drought in america and the only suplliers are russia and iran and qatar, maybe will see some progress.
really those articals should be a form of backward thinking.
"The fact of the matter is that we should have started intensive energy research back in the 1970s or early 1980s, after the first embargo (1973) made it clear that we couldn't depend on cheap oil and the second one (1979) drove the point home."
Maybe america should ov stood to its word that they told king faisal about not helping anyside in the arab israel conflict, instead they sent 2 billion worth of weapon to israel and finncial aid. so this lead to the oil embargo.
moreover the embargo, along with the president nexon declaration that he will force limits on salaries and prices of products in the market(which preceeded the oil embargo by two years) caused alot of problems, ofcourse the easisets way is to blame saudia.
*alaan greenspan book is a good source on economical problems in the states at the seventies.
We get most of our oil from the western hemisphere. Brazil has just made some huge discoveries, and they're the best source of renewable fuel, ethanol made from sugar cane.
Yes, but none of that is going to readily replace Saudi petroleum. Weaning ourselves off the addiction, even belatedly, is still necessary but it's a pure fantasy to think that we can just "tell them to f*ck off", drill in ANWR and go on living the way we do now.
Weaning ourselves off the addiction, even belatedly, is still necessary but it's a pure fantasy to think that we can just "tell them to f*ck off", drill in ANWR and go on living the way we do now.
No, but a first step in weaning ourselves is to stop our obsequious behavior towards them. Compared to how we've catered to them in the past, that would be the equivalent of saying f*ck off.
But drilling in ANWR is not a solution. We have to re-arrange our whole lifestyle and invest a lot of time and money in the development of alternative technologies. People are finally starting to do that
The problem is that it won't be too easy for us to adjust our lifestyle. Many American cities grew tremendously when oil was cheap, with suburban sprawl spreading outwards. And then there are the rural or semi-rural areas. The point is that, in many parts of this country, public transportation is sparse, it would be hard to provide much public transport to such spread out areas.
So, people are dependent on their cars, and carpooling may not be that practical. Also, in a country in which any public spending is deemed as "throwing money at a problem," who's going to vote the public funds necessary to increase public transportation on the scale we'd need?
Also, in a country in which any public spending is deemed as "throwing money at a problem," who's going to vote the public funds necessary to increase public transportation on the scale we'd need?
Other countries have been dealing with these problems for a long time - it might be a good idea to see how they're doing it.
In the Australian outback, there isn't much public transportation, theres hardly any water and fuel is expensive. The cars and trucks people drove were much lighter and more fuel efficient than the "RAM Tough" trucks Americans favored. Off the grid homes powered by solar, with rain collection cisterns and greywater recycling, were pretty common.
The market can solve these kinds of problems, but the market only reacts to demand. It never plans ahead. If gas prices stay high, alternate energy and fuel-efficiency may finally become profitable. Also, people may overcome their aversion to 'throwing money at a problem" long enough to vote for some long-term solutions.