ASPO-USA Prediction

The following was taken from an article by Dave Cohen of ASPO-USA:

Saudi Aramco Update

Business Week published Saudi Oil: A Crude Awakening on Supply? on July 10, 2008. Steve LeVine's story should leave us with no doubt about what to expect from the Kingdom in coming years. Mysteriously, this story was not Front Page News in every media outlet all over the world.

IMAGE:Businessweek Saudi Fields projections to 2013
Important

Business Week received a "detailed document obtained from a person with access to Saudi oil officials." The new information simply confirms what I already knew, but independent confirmation helps us reach firm conclusions. PFC's Roger Diwan, a respected oil analyst, vetted the Business Week document.

The data describes Saudi maximum sustainable capacity (table above). Capacity remains around 12 million barrels per day (b/d) for the next 5 years. An important shift occurs which should give us all pause.

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.

The long anticipated decline ("twilight") of Ghawar, the world's largest oil field, is reflected in the Saudi Light data (blue circle). If these numbers are accurate, Ghawar output declines 17% between 2009 and 2013. This works out to about 4%/year for each of the next 5 years. Production of "good oil"—not Manifa heavy sour oil (gray circle)—to offset these declines is supposed to come from Shaybah.

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.

Simple arithmetic tells us that additions from Shaybah after 2013 will not offset Ghawar declines for more than one year. Business Week's source indicates that 10.4 million b/d is Saudi Arabia's maximum sustainable production level between 2009-2013. This number confirms what I wrote in The Saudis Are Blowing Smoke Again (ASPO-USA, March 12, 2008). Whether the Kingdom will actually produce at their maximum sustainable capacity is another question. See Sleepwalking Toward the Oil Precipice to learn about setting correct expectations about OPEC production in the coming decade (ASPO-USA, April 30, 2008). This passage is from Blowing Smoke—

Khurais and Manifa are very likely the last large (about 1 million b/d) increments that Saudi Arabia will be able to put on-stream—ever. A "paradigm shift" means the Kingdom is not going to knock itself out raising crude oil production to (best case) levels beyond 10.5 million b/d in the medium term out to 2012 or so, and will likely not be able to do so thereafter—Ghawar will not last forever, despite what Mr. al-Naimi or CERA think. Investment in additional capacity available after 2011 would have to be on the drawing board now, but there is no indication that Saudi Arabia has thought that far ahead.

[I should add now that Khurais and Manifa must meet capacity expectations for the Business Week scenario to come true. Also, most Manifa oil will likely be refined in Saudi Arabia, not exported. The Saudis will export refined products beyond what they use themselves.]

The Saudi peak is now in sight. Saudi Arabia is the only OPEC member that can raise production by any significant amount in the medium-term to 2013. The longstanding argument about the Saudis is over.

Khurais

Giant Saudi field is key to boosting oil output
Remote Khurais project should be supplying crude by June of next year
The Associated Press
June. 29, 2008

This massive oil field surrounded by the desolate sands of Saudi Arabia's vast eastern desert feels like the middle of nowhere.

But what happens over the next year at Khurais, one of Saudi Arabia's last undeveloped giant oil fields, could hold the key to what drivers will pay at the pump for years to come.

Under way at Khurais and two other smaller fields nearby is what Saudi Arabia calls the single largest expansion of oil production capacity in history.

With consumers howling over record fuel prices and the United States pushing Saudi Arabia to produce more oil, this patch of sand 100 miles west of the Saudi capital of Riyadh has become one of the most important places in the world economy.

Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company, Aramco, is spending $10 billion to build the infrastructure to pump 1.2 million barrels of oil per day by next June from the Khurais field and its two smaller neighbors. That alone would be more than the total individual production of OPEC members Qatar, Indonesia and Ecuador.

The project forms the centerpiece of the Saudi plan to increase the total amount of oil it can produce to 12.5 million barrels per day by the end of 2009 — up from a little more than 11 million barrels per day now.

Consuming nations have pushed Saudi Arabia to boost production capacity even further and also want the world's top oil exporter to begin pumping more crude immediately to bring down record oil prices hovering near $140 a barrel. They say oil production has not kept up with increased demand, especially from China, India and the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia plans to produce 9.7 million barrels of oil per day, or 11 percent of the world's total, in July. It is the only nation with significant excess capacity that it could put on the market quickly.

But the kingdom has resisted calls to increase production further, saying financial speculators and the falling dollar are to blame for high oil prices, not a shortage of supply.

These disagreements came to a head June 22 at a rare meeting of oil producing and consuming nations hosted by Saudi Arabia. In the end, Saudi Arabia said it could increase oil production capacity to 15 million barrels per day if needed in future years. But it gave no indication that step, or an immediate increase in output, was necessary or planned.



The political tussle over output masks the challenge Saudi Arabia faces in boosting production capacity by developing giant fields like Khurais.

"That is what people don't appreciate," said Manouchehr Takin, an oil expert at the London-based Centre for Global Energy Studies. "These are major projects, and people don't realize they aren't that easy."

The Saudis estimate Khurais and the nearby smaller Abu Jifan and Mazalij fields hold a total of 27 billion barrels of oil encased in solid rock 5,000 feet below the baking desert.

Saudi Arabia is no stranger to developing giant oil fields. Its massive Ghawar field, with an estimated 70 billion barrels of remaining reserves, is the world's largest.

But oil experts say Khurais, which was discovered in 1957, is geologically more difficult to tap.


Aramco is using hundreds of mostly South Asian workers to build a massive processing facility at the field. More than 150 wells will pump crude to the surface, where water and gas will be separated out. The oil then will be funneled to the country's east-west pipeline for delivery to ships in the Red Sea.

Workers are also building a huge sea-water injection system to pump more than 2 million barrels of water per day from the Gulf into 120 wells. That will maintain the necessary pressure underground to push the oil to the surface.

Disputes over Saudi's decisions aside, "when you talk about the fields and the engineers and so on, I think you have to respect their technical ability," Takin said.


With its twisting maze of metal, the half-finished facility rises out of the desert like a massive space station. Workers wear gloves and wrap bandanas across their faces to hide from the searing sun as they work 10-hour shifts in temperatures well above 100 degrees.

Aramco officials say that in addition to geological challenges, they also face difficulty finding enough qualified workers and equipment. The project will use 145,000 tons of steel — almost enough to build two Golden Gate bridges.

"We are trying to do it in a world market where contractors are in high demand," said Muhammed al-Rubeh, head of Aramco's project department.

When completed, the processing facility also will be protected by two layers of fences, crash barriers, security cameras and government forces, Aramco says. Al-Qaida has called for attacks against Saudi Arabia's oil facilities to disrupt the flow of crude.

Aramco officials insist that despite the tight construction market, the Khurais project will be ready to produce 1.2 million barrels per day by next June.

But equipment and labor shortages have delayed production at another field, Khursaniyah, which was originally scheduled to begin pumping 500,000 barrels per day at the end of 2007. Aramco officials now say Khursaniyah will come online in August.

Also in the works is the development of the Manifa field, which sits offshore in the Gulf and is Saudi Arabia's only other giant oil field still untapped.


If all goes as scheduled, Aramco forecasts more than 50 billion barrels of fresh reserves from the giant fields by 2011. That amount alone would give Saudi Arabia the ninth largest oil reserves in the world, not even counting its existing reserves.

Outside analysts estimate the kingdom's total current reserves at about 260 billion barrels. But Saudi Arabia refuses to provide detailed data to allow independent verification.

Amin Nasser, senior vice president for production and exploration at Aramco, acknowledges the company sometimes faces criticism for that secrecy. "We have a tradition of letting our actions and accomplishments speak for themselves," he said.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25443913/