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Northern Ghawar is in decline

econbrowser.com — If you end up being surprised by the big story of the next decade, you can't say, "nobody told us." Instead you'll have to say, "we didn't listen."

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  • bradshaw, on 10/11/2007, -9/+2Tip Jar.
    • mykos, on 10/11/2007, -3/+17Grow more plants, make cheap biodiesel, plants eat C02 from burning biodiesel. The middle easterners can keep their sand.

      http://www.brevardbiodiesel.org/germany_biod.jpg
    • donwilson2, on 10/11/2007, -6/+3Global warming debate already lost? Wow, that was a quick one. I was expecting it's life span to be around a year or two longer.

      So this is the agenda... figure out, at any way possible, to move away from the oil industry. Interesting.
    • NikoKun, on 10/11/2007, -2/+14@mykos and the perfect plant to make bio fuel from? Hemp
      Makes great biofuel, and it pulls plenty of CO2 from the air as it grows. And it burns cleaner and doesn't put out as much bad emissions.
      Plus it's got deep taproots so it holds soil together better, and it works well as a 3rd rotation crop, leaving the soil healthier than before it was planted. not to mention the economic gain it would provide farmers.

      http://www.hempcar.org/petvshemp.shtml
    • Duncan3, on 10/11/2007, -3/+3Or just live near enough to work to bike, be very healthy from the exercise, save the money in a Roth IRA and very easily retire a many-millionare.
    • DBNKR, on 10/11/2007, -4/+1Damn, people! Get into the numbers! US is using 25 of its fields at growing corn allready, yet just over 2% of car fuels is covered! This is competing with food needs. In Mexico, tortilla is now more expensive than it used to be.

      Long story short, we are all fugged, especially you americans.
    • HomerS1, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2mykos --
      biofuels are a fools hope. If the US converted its entire corn crop (73 million acres), it would only produce the equivalent of about 17 billion gallons of gasoline (ethanol has 2/3 the energy value as gasoline gallon for gallon). The US currently consumes 170 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel annually.

      Planting more corn (or other biofuel crops) around the world will stress the world's fresh water supply (irrigation) and devastate forest ecosystems (land cleared for new agriculture). We can't grow our way out the problem.
    • jsmith39, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0@HomerS1

      Guess I should start taking the bus then.
    • magus_melchior, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2@HomerS1

      I think I'm really starting to get tired of people complaining about how we have to cut into food crops to make biofuels...
    • Berkana, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1What beats even hemp (which, as far as I can tell, has its qualities exaggerated by hemp enthusiasts at the expense of better crops) is algae. Algae have the largest proportion of oil mass to all other biomass. Large pools of algae convert more CO2 into usable biodiesel than any other organism, including hemp.
    • GhostCow, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Biodiesel is not the answer, educate yourself: http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
  • sfoucher, on 10/11/2007, -3/+9Wow! very impressive investigative work based on hundreds of pieces of scientific evidence.
  • everettr, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3It is practically an education in itself!
  • ckaupp, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3People need to pay close attention to the energy situation and make changes in their energy consumption. Read this herculean effort by Stuart and be very worried.
  • cyberdork, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8I always find this graph of the Abqaiq 'supergiant' oil field in Saudi Arabia interesting (part of the Greater Ghawar uplift):
    http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2005/08/depletion_pic.jpg
    Over time the field has been injected with water (the blue zone) and this has pushed up the oil (the green zone) into the wells. The red is the overlying gas cap. When the reservoir was untapped it was likely all red and green.

    People should realize that Saudi Arabia declines to release information on how depelted their oil fields are. It is very likely that Saudi Arabia has peaked in oil production in 2006 and from there on it's downhill for them.

    People who don't believe in 'peak oil' should take a look at graphs of US oil production. It has peaked in the early 70s and is constantly decreasing since then.
  • DIYer357, on 10/11/2007, -3/+5The phrase "peak oil theory" has been used to dismiss these studies. However, the only contrary evidence offered is "cornucopian theology" -- take your pick, I guess.
    • arpad, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2"Peak oil theory"? That's giving the notion a lot more credibility then it's due. The use of the word "theory" suggests that there's been some work - observational or experimental - to verify the peak oil hypothesis. Instead, it's an endless series of factoids without context if they suit the agenda or an endless series of purposeful misrepresentations if that works better.

      Say there Mr. Peak Oil, do you have any testable hypothesis or a record of successful predictions? Or is this all a matter of the truth being so obvious that only someone who's stupid wouldn't see the light?
    • mrfish, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Then WTF was all that I just read? Certainly not FUD? *sarcasm*
  • swrostmore, on 10/11/2007, -6/+2Don't worry, the undeveloped oil fields in Iraq will more than make up for it. Why do you think Bush withdrew from Saudi Arabia and moved into Iraq?
    • swrostmore, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2Iraqi oil reserves are considered to be the second largest in the world, after Saudi Arabia’s. The SECOND LARGEST for *****'s sake! Bush is revoltingly close to the Saudi royal family, so much so that Saudi Prince Bandar's subjects have nicknamed him 'Bandar Bush.' Do you really think Bush didn't know about the Saudi's declining oil supply when he made the decision to pursue Iraq's oil? This means US interests controll the TWO LARGEST OIL PRODUCING COUNTRIES. So I wouldn't be too worried about gas prices becoming overly outrageous anytime soon.
    • kingraoul3, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1@swrostmore:
      In preperation for their coming struggle with China.
    • arpad, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Notice the weasel-wording:

      "are considered to be the second largest in the world"

      You mean this hasn't been established in some fashion? That it's all someone's carefully considered opinion? Gee, I wonder what the source of wisdom might be?

      Say, if these mysterious wizards know how much oil exists they must also have a theory based on evidence and a series of successful predictions. If they know how oil is made they ought to be able to say why oil has to be one place, and find it, and not in another and not find it.

      In point of fact, the genesis of oil is anything but clear and if you don't know how oil is made how are you going to predict where it's made?

    • swrostmore, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1arpad, Iraqs reserves are "considered" to be the worlds second largest, because they are undeveloped. Nobody knows for sure how much oil is there because its hard to do exploration in a war zone. But I guarantee whoever came up with this "theory based on evidence and a series of successful predictions" knew a hell of a lot more about Iraqi oil than you do, you weasel. I'll refer you to my sourced statement further down this webpage if you have any more questions.
    • arpad, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Sorry rocket scientist, they're considered to be the world's second largest because only enough of the potential has been prospected to make it the world's second largest. How much there actually is is anybody's guess since no one has x-ray vision.

      See - now follow closely because this is complicated stuff - once you've found enough oil to meet production needs for, oh, the next twenty or thirty years you stop looking. Prospecting costs money and what's the point of spending the money when you can put it off for a decade or two?

      It's kind of like when you go looking for your pecker. When you find it you stop looking, right?
  • DeskFlyer, on 10/11/2007, -3/+12We're *****.
  • oilmanbob, on 10/11/2007, -4/+8Save your American money boys, the U.S. will rise again ! or, maybe not.
  • gtrout, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7Ghawar is the worlds largest oil field by far. Ghawar is longer than the country of Kuwait. It is starting to run dry, just like the oil fields in Texas are running dry (that's why the US imports so much oil). 5% of the worlds oil comes from just this one oil field.

    This report is like a spy novel. Saudi Arabia won't tell anyone how much oil is left. So a bunch of bloggers got together to find out. This report is the final chapter.
    • heinousjay, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Bunch of bloggers? More like highly trained scientists. Let's not get confusion started by elevating the masses here. People that know how to do this stuff aren't bloggers by trade.
  • mykos, on 10/11/2007, -5/+5The rest of the world will smile and sigh with relief when the middle east is once again reduced to pre-1900s economic conditions. We already know about several viable and inexpensive alternative fuel sources; this will only speed their implementation.
    • Dumbledorito, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8Plastics will have to be replaced as well. I seem to recall some experiments that got plants to produce polymers. I'm not sure on what scale "plastic farming" is possible, but it might work in a pinch.
    • kingraoul3, on 10/11/2007, -3/+2Yeah, as long as their just starving, diseased, and illiterate, who the ***** cares?
    • WiseWeasel, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4They'll just go back to their staples: hash and opium...
  • swrostmore, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3"The latest estimates put Iraq’s potential reserves at around 150 to 200 billion barrels of oil and 106 trillion cubic feet of gas. These figures put Iraq in the forefront of oil-producing countries: Iraqi oil reserves are considered to be the second largest in the world, after Saudi Arabia’s. "

    http://www.geotimes.org/oct03/feature_oil.html
    • sclozza, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5Even if you could get every drop, that's ~6.5 years at today's consumption rates.
  • Dumbledorito, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5Of course it's in decline. Beavis & Butthead haven't been supporting their rock videos, and frankly, they need better costumes.

    What?
  • synapz, on 10/11/2007, -9/+2***** Giuliani
  • MrPlug, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2This is madness!
  • zovres, on 10/11/2007, -8/+3I can't wait for peak oil, seeing you all trying to sell your gas cars is gonna be hell of fun. That's what you'll get for poisoning the air.
    • arpad, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6Why don't you do the world a favor and hold your breath waiting?
    • zovres, on 10/11/2007, -4/+1why don't you take a hummer and shove it up your ass
    • arpad, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3And why don't you look around and notice how few people think you've got anything to say worth listening to?
  • HanSolo69, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1Hmm. For some reason i figured that a "Ghwar" had to somehow be related to narwhals. color me disappointed.
  • brandoj, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1The problem with energy is twofold, both of which are solved by a free market.

    First, American consumers do not pay the true cost of oil at the pump because the U.S. government is willing to counteract middle-eastern political instability that would otherwise reflect itself in the cost of oil in a more dramatic way. If oil companies had to pay the cost of extracting that oil without the benefit of interventionist foreign policy, the cost of oil would be much higher.

    Second, we cannot think that the federal government can solve any of our energy needs, only the free market can. The federal government is part of the problem already when tries to stabilize the middle east. It is a further contributor when it stands in the way of nuclear power by making startup costs prohibitive via regulation and otherwise. And for what? If nuclear energy were truly dangerous, the cost of nuclear energy would reflect it. Private companies would not assume the tort liability. Federal and other governments also subsidize recycling - and for what? If our landfills were filling up and our raw materials were costlier, recycling would step in to fill the gap. This has never been proven to be the case. Instead, recycling enters the market on the back of subsidy - the functional equivalent of flushing money down the toilet. The federal government also makes decisions that are far more foolish than the free market. We are currently subsidizing ethanol as a political favor to farmers when ethanol is just as pollutive, and not economically viable.

    There is no constitutional or logical basis for the federal government to involve itself in manipulating the energy market to favor renewables over fossil fuels. What we need is to release oil back into the free market and allow it to compete on a level playing field. Oil prices would rise, and alternatives would gain momentum. The fact that we're "running out of oil" is a good thing - we'll never completely run out, we'll just switch to something less costly.
    • esquilax, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1"It is a further contributor when it stands in the way of nuclear power by making startup costs prohibitive via regulation and otherwise."

      Actually, that's entirely untrue. The US Gov't passed a law in 2005 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Policy_Act_of_2005) that was full of all sorts of concessions to the nuclear power industry, including cost overrun protection, extension of indemnity from claims should there be an accident, and millions of dollars worth of tax credits.

      But nuclear power doesn't solve the same set of issues that oil does, so that's sort of moot.
    • brandoj, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2The certification lead time on a nuclear power plant is something like 12 years. The red tape, while introducing no 'apparent' cost, introduces a debilitating startup transaction cost in the form of time. How do you invest in something that gives you returns more than a decade down the road?

      Furthermore, it's worth stating that it is completely nonsensical for the federal government to subsidize nuclear power in the form of tax cuts. It already produces the cheapest kilowatt hour - the barrier is not one that can be solved by a tax scheme. Equally silly is the idea that nuclear power should have indemnity for tort claims - another form of subsidy that would reduce motivation to avoid the tort in the first place. If the nuclear power plant melts down and it's the owner's fault, why should they not be held accountable? The barriers are bureaucracy and the politics of environmentalism, not the cost of nuclear energy itself.

      Nuclear power doesn't solve the same needs as oil, but it solves a substantial need. Of course, I didn't consider nuclear power in a vacuum. If we want to have alternatives, we need to teach the federal government to stay out of it altogether.
    • mcthick, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Faith in the free market is a foolish security. While you are correct that a free market will adjust prices accordingly, you are very foolish to believe that this will be a good thing. The free market will soon price oil out of the reach of most people in the world, leaving only governments as customers. Also, once the market drives the price high enough, violence will be the currency used to obtain oil, not money.

      One day you will realize that bio-diesel and ethanol, despite being "new technology", do not have the power to offset the convenience of the oil that we can no longer get. Unfortunately, by then the "free market" will have left you behind.
  • digghasnoethics, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1I think its time that the question moved on. It should be obvious to most now that in amongst the bull most of the major fields are in decline. Everyone is rushing around to try and tap the smaller stuff, but they don't last very long and in any case cost a fortune.

    So we need to face that within the planning cycles of most businesses and government, oil will begin to fall away. It will probably real sizeable decline rates very quickly.

    However everyone is still burying heads in the sand. If you look its obvious, but most people are actively ignoring the realities. Collectively we are acting irrationally, like the drunk who can barely stand up but still demands one more drink. Some try to convince themselves that something will come along in the nick of time - convinced by Hollywood movies that they are the good guys and the countdown always stops before zero. But every sign is there is no alternative that scales fast enough to deal with the hole we've dug ourselves by not dealing with the problem early.

    So the question now is triage. Who and what do we save and what do we let go? All options are on the table and its the world deciding. This gentlemen is the balloon debate to end all balloon debates - which countries or groupings do we throw away in an effort to remain airborne.
    • kingraoul3, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Are you talking about killing people?
      No thanks dude.
    • arpad, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4"which countries or groupings do we throw away in an effort to remain airborne.(?)"

      What do you mean "we"? I must have missed the announcement that elevated some anonymous, Digg-posting shmuck to take part in any decision, much less a decision which involves the lives of real human beings.
  • Urusai, on 10/11/2007, -1/+3Hopefully when the Arabs run out of oil we can go back to ignoring them like we ignore most of Africa.
    • digghasnoethics, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7You haven't really been paying attention, have you?

      By the time the 'Arabs' run out of oil, the US will be a footnote in the history books. The US is dependent on cheap, plentiful oil. When it stops flowing as fast or as cheaply as it does, the US implodes. The 'Arabs' will still have access to their oil; they will outlast you.
  • edebolt, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Such dramatic thinking. There are currently ~300 major oil fields in the world that produce economically viable oil. The Saudi and Iraqi fields are some of the cheapest since the are able to extract a barrel of oil for about $5 per barrel.. Here is the wrinkle though. The oil industry stopped looking for new oil when the prices collapsed in 1980's. Remember that oil was only worth $12 a barrel in 1999.

    Still investors are very cautious about investing in new oil exploration because they got burned so bad in the 80's. If prices can remain high it will stimulate new discovery and production and yet another overreaction and price collapse down the road. There is plenty of hydrocarbon in the world that if prices stay up then becomes profitable to extract. There is enough hydrocarbon underneath the Green River plateau in western Colorado to provide the worlds energy needs for many many decades. The hitch is that it costs about $50 a barrel to extract. Many other cheaper sources will be tapped before then along with alternative cleaner sources which will be economically viable for the first time. This is a good thing and will allow the phased in implementation of alternative sources. Peak oil in no way shape or form means oil production grinding to a halt.. It just implies the top levels of production for the easiest and cheapest oil.

    The dramatic and politically motivated rhetoric of "Peak Oil" predicting the world will ground to a halt are unfounded and unlikely. We listened to the same hysteria in the 1973. We will just be dealing with higher but stable prices which will stimulate industry to adopt different technologies to make efficient use of these nearly unlimited resources..
    • jakegordon, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Its not just one field in Ghawar that is in decline by any means. Dozens of entire countries are in decline, including Mexico (a big one for US imports) and the UK. The importance of Saudi Arabia though is that their rhetoric has always been that they have 'spare capacity' which can be turned on as simply as turning a tap on if they want more oil. But this is no longer the case. They're no longer holding back with spare capacity. They're at full capacity. Peak oil *has* arrived.
    • arpad, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Yeah, I can just see the announcement now, "Don't worry you guys, us Saudis have a *****-load of oil so you won't run out for a thousand years".

      Oh, now that'll hold the price of oil down, won't it?

      And do try to keep your excitement at the prospect of a "Mad Max" world in check, will you?
  • CaptainRadium, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5Saudi oil dries up. So what?

    Increases in prices stimulate further research and exploration. Thus, more diverse oil supplies will be found and exploited.

    We have 1.something Trillion barrels of oil in the Green River formation that can be extracted cleanly with insitu techniques. Thus, we don't all die.

    The US has 75% of the world's oil shale and will be on top of world supply once our straws in the Saudi sand start slurping air. Thus, the US doesn't "become a footnote in the history books"

    Go back to bed, children. The monster's are only in your mind.
    • digghasnoethics, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2005/08/question-of-shale.html

      "The Shell process involves drilling a well 2,000 feet deep and then heating the surrounding rock to between 600 and 700 degrees for two years. The heat allows the oil and gas to flow to the surface. A thick ring of ice is formed around the well which keeps contaminants from polluting groundwater. The heating and freezing is energy-intensive."

      Did you wake up in a knightmare?
    • jsmith39, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0Pay no mind that trifling little problem of actually trying to make ends meet when the prices rise?
  • Junkyarddawg, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1The world peak oil plateau was reached in 2004, so... no, this is nothing new.
    • Berkana, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1True. What's new is that the public and the people misleading it need to be hit with news like this to take the warnings seriously. Actually, even that isn't new, now that I think about it.
  • Narrator, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5Hi guys. Read the whole thread. I've been studying Peak Oil for years and well... The world is totally screwed. The most screwed will be those in non oil-exporting countries. Slightly less screwed are countries with large coal reserves like the U.S. Pray for a techno-fix. Ethanol may solve a tiny part of the problem but only in countries with tropical climates and a better solution would be to just move to electric cars. Trucking/Plastics/Fertilizer/Aviation are the three areas where there are no good alternatives right now to oil.
  • Konketsu, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1This is a big deal, since the entire infrastructure of consumer society is dependent on cheap, plentiful oil in order to get products to purchasers all the way down the supply chain. If oil is no longer cheap and plentiful then that entire model falls apart, along with the society that is dependent on the continuation of that model. What will happen if the supply chain that keeps avocados and tomatoes (grown in Mexico or California) in a suburban supermarket collapses due to a massive increase in oil prices? There will be no more tomatoes or avocados available in the suburb supplied by that supermarket, except at an extremely high cost since the suburb is incapable of growing its own. Now expand that shortage of tomatoes and avocados to include every single consumer good that is not grown or manufactured within the immediate boundaries of that suburb and you begin to appreciate the magnitude of the problem. The societal result of that degree of product shortage should be frighteningly evident.
  • organicreform, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Does anyone remember that Stephen King novel, "The Langoliers"? Where the people on the plane are trapped in a kind of limbo as these time-devouring monsters show up to eat the past?

    That's what Peak Oil "critics" are - Langoliers.

    They get us all worked up, eating away at our precious time and resources when we give them detailed rebuttals, despite the fact that their entire arguments are based upon false assumptions or willful ignorance.

    The bottom line is that even if there was UNLIMITED petroleum in the ground to extract, it is one of the most unsustainable, environmentally destructive practices known to man and is responsible for countless human rights abuses around the globe. That alone is reason enough to find alternatives to the current system.

    Any time you waste with these Langoliers trying to debate them about economics is time wasted where real, positive change could take place. And it's also time you could spend lessening your own petroleum consumption so that they can't hide behind the smokescreen of "hypocrisy" while you're trying to educate others. To this end, I am in year two of my journey toward total sustainability, which you can follow at my website:

    http://www.organicreform.org

    If you want the Cliff's notes version, I wrote a short essay titled "An Inside Job" that breaks down for you what I'm doing to make those changes in my own life. You can find it here:

    http://organicreform.blogspot.com/2007/05/inside-job.html

    Peace and health,

    "Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn."

    -Henry David Thoreau-
  • Berkana, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1The only solution in the long term is solar energy, and fuels synthesized via solar energy (which include biodiesel).

    In the span of 15 minutes, the sun exposes the earth with more energy than we use in an entire year. Much of this is used to power life on earth, but there is more than enough to fulfill our energy needs. The challenges we have are storage of the energy for use when the sun isn't shining. Plant based fuels are one storage method, batteries are another. Definitely, more research needs to be done, but at the same time, we spend more money researching and developing petroleum technologies than we do solar. In light of having passed peak-oil, we ought to shift our priorities.

    I highly recommend these book examining the issues surrounding solar power.

    http://www.hermannscheer.de/en/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=5&Itemid=7

    Solar power can definitely supply all our energy needs. This is not to say that there aren't challenges that need to be addressed, but considering how we've spent billions upon billions on research for technology like fusion reactors which are still four decades off (optimistic estimate), which haven't yet yielded anything practical, I think the money could be better spent harnessing the fusion power already being generated by the sun.
    • arpad, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1You might want to do the arithmetic and figure out how many square miles or kilometers of solar cells it would take to equal, just equal, the electrical output of the U.S. It's a shockingly large number and all the hand-waving from the PV crowd won't change it.

      You don't have to take my word for it. Just go and find some electrical power production figures from whatever reasonably authoritative source you care to accept and the power output of solar cells by the square unit of measure you prefer and do the arithmetic.

      The number you get, while pretty fantastic, isn't enough to *replace* electrical power production. You can't do that until power storage facilities are up to the task of storing the power and, you've got to increase the area of solar cells above immediate requirements so you have something to go into that storage facility.

      Like I stated, you don't have to take my word for any of this. Do the relatively simple arithmetic yourself. Then you don't have to accept on faith the words of the author or you'll see for yourself how dishonest some of these folks are.
  • memoryhole, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1I thought it said GWAR for a second there.
    • Alniner, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Ok...so I'm not the only metal head on here. I thought this article was gonna be about a new Gwar in Canada.

      Northern GWAR
  • enforcerpsu, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2From the comments:

    "What surprises me is that those who wring their hands the most about running out of oil are the ones who yell the loudest about alternative fuels. If you force conservation and a restriction on energy sources you are actually fighting against alternative fuels and energy sources. Free up the oil and let it flow. Allow companies to exploit their products to maximum efficiency. This is when you will see energy alternatives."

    Dead ***** on. If we want to move on to alternative sources we have to allow the consumption of the current sources or we'll never be forced to move on! This is how we have progressed as a race for 1000s of years! It seemed to work pretty good so far. If you honestly believe that one day the oil will run out and we won't have an alternative and we'll freeze to death, run out of money, fire will reign from the sky or just instantly die, you are a moron.
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