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Banned
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Originally Posted by samcol
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In this post http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...4&postcount=30 , I provided two, early 2004, articles that refuted Saudi oil reserves claims:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/business/24OIL.htm
http://www.iags.org/n0331043.htm
To further refute the Saudi claims, in the first quote box below,(from the Saudi Embassy's own website) Al-Jubeir tells Paula Zahn a year ago, that, <b>"we have informed our customers that we will make available over 9 million barrels of oil for them. We have also informed them that if they need additional quantities, they should just ask for them and we will make them available. We have a capacity of up to 10.5 million barrels, possibly even close to 11 million barrels. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that there are adequate supplies of crude oil.</b>
In the second quote box, a news report states, (11 months later, in April, 2005, that current Saudi output is "9.5 million barrels a day".
In the third quote box, a quote from The Bank of Montreal's analyst Don Coxe, working from their Chicago office, <b>"Coxe dismisses Saudi claims that the country can produce extra capacity to satisfy surging demand. He notes that Saudi promises to increase production last year failed to materialise. Aramco had pledged an extra 500,000 barrels of oil immediately and an extra 5 million bpd by 2012.
He says the markets had "assumed this first flow would be a half million barrels daily of the benchmark Saudi Light, the high-end product that any oil refinery can process. Instead ... the new oil was heavy, sulphurous oil that only a few refineries had the spare capacity to use". "</b>
The fourth quote box contains a detailed analysis of "Oilfields Megaprojects", predicted to come onnline in the next few years. It is a grim assessment that provides much information about the potential of Saudi oil production in the next few years, and it predicts the possibility of a global oil production peak as soon as now.
Another problem is that U.S. refineries are designed to refine petroleum equivalent to "light Texas crude", no the heavier, sulphurous oil mentioned in the description of new Saudi output. No new U.S. refinery has been built since 1976, and one company that you probably have never heard of, owns much of the infrastructure required to refine the cheaper, and more easily available "sour" sulphurous crude:
http://petroleumworld.com/Lag052405.htm
"Valero benefits from its refineries' ability to convert dirty, heavy oil that has high sulfur content into lighter, cleaner and more profitable gasoline. The company has invested heavily in such conversion capacity because, it says, most of the world's remaining oil reserves, like those in Saudi Arabia, are medium to heavy grades while lighter oil, like that from the North Sea, is declining.
Maya crude from Mexico, for example, sells for $16 to $18 a barrel less than West Texas intermediate, the light, sweet grade that is used as a benchmark on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Most of Valero's refining capacity can process the heavier grades, which are on average $1.50 a barrel more expensive to refine, the company said."
Valero now will refine 20 percent, or 3.3 million barrels per day, of total U.S. refining output.
To summarize, my research indicates that the Saudis have not followed through on pledges to increase daily oil output, and with prices as high as they are, eleven months after Al-Jubeir's claims to Paula Zahn, if they could increase out put to 10 million barrels a day or higher, they would have by now.
There is a possibility that Saudi Arabia has damaged it's existing large fields via water injection, and that they have exaggerated known reserves. It is disturbing that, on an issue where it is so vital to obtain accurate info, that we have to take them at their dubious word, and their actual followup can be observed to be lacking; they are not lifting and shipping the promised increased supply of light, sweet, Saudi crude.
The other factors that are disturbing are that even current levels of availability of refined petroleum products in the U.S. are premised on a scenario of perfection, with no interruption in the receipt of crude shipments, no unplanned downtime at domestic refineries, and a huge reliance on Valero as a single source to refine the alternate sour, heavy crude oil that is the only substitute for the sweet light crude that most U.S. refineries are limited to refine, since they cannot handle the heavier crude.
In this post, I provided on the reserves and the peak production dates of the largest eleven oil exporting countries. It is a sobering scenario:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...7&postcount=37
Quote:
http://www.saudiembassy.net/2004News...asp?cIndex=418
05/25/2004
Adel Al-Jubeir discusses oil with CNN'S Paula Zahn
Crown Prince Abdullah's Foreign Affairs Advisor Adel Al-Jubeir was interviewed on May 25 by Paula Zahn on CNN concerning the oil situation
Mr. AL JUBEIR: We are the largest--we are the country that has the largest reserves in the world. Almost 30 percent of the world's oil reserves are in Saudi Arabia. We have no interest in seeing oil become a non-competitive source of energy.
ZAHN: Is there else anything Saudi Arabia can do, at this point, to help bring down the cost of crude oil?
Mr. AL JUBEIR: Yes. We have been -- we have informed our customers that we will make available over 9 million barrels of oil for them. We have also informed them that if they need additional quantities, they should just ask for them and we will make them available. We have a capacity of up to 10.5 million barrels, possibly even close to 11 million barrels. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that there are adequate supplies of crude oil.
ZAHN: How long could you sustain a demand of 10.5 million barrels a day to 11 million barrels a day?
Mr. AL JUBEIR: We can produce at that level for a fairly indefinite period. In fact, we are engaging in projects now to increase that capacity even more, so that we can take care of future demand growth. But the 10.5 million to 11 million level is sustainable almost indefinitely by Saudi Arabia. Indefinitely meaning for a number of years.
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Quote:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/25/bush.saudi/
No promises from Riyadh on short-term output
Monday, April 25, 2005 Posted: 7:37 PM EDT (2337 GMT)
CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) -- With gas prices soaring at the pump, President Bush met with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah on Monday to discuss oil output and a host of other issues, but officials said the meeting ended with no promises from Riyadh to increase its short-term oil production, as the White House had hoped.
National Security Adviser Steve Hadley told reporters that Abdullah and his delegation did present a long-term plan to increase production by the end of the decade to 12.5 million barrels per day, up from its current output of 9.5 million barrels a day.
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Quote:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...CB9B0F8894.htm
Bank says Saudi's top field in decline
By Adam Porter in Perpignan, France
Tuesday 12 April 2005, 13:52 Makka Time, 10:52 GMT
Speculation over the actual size of Saudi Arabia's oil reserves is reaching fever pitch as a major bank says the kingdom's - and the world's - biggest field, Gharwar, is in irreversible decline.
The Bank of Montreal's analyst Don Coxe, working from their Chicago office, is the first mainstream number-cruncher to say that Gharwar's days are fated.
Coxe uses the phrase "Hubbert's Peak" to describe the situation. This refers to the seminal geologist M King Hubbert, who predicted the unavoidable decline of oilfields back in the 1950s.
"The combination of the news that there's no new Saudi Light coming on stream for the next seven years plus the 27% projected decline from existing fields means Hubbert's Peak has arrived in Saudi Arabia," says Coxe, referring to data compiled by the International Energy Association's (IEA) August 2004 monthly report.
Problematic effects
The Canadian bank is the latest in a line of oil opinion-makers to speak out about.
Others, notably banker Matt Simmons and the head of the Association for the study of Peak Oil (Aspo), Colin Campbell, have called into question the validity of its stated reserves, supposedly 258 billion barrels.
Some say Gharwar may have
been damaged
If Gharwar, the world's biggest field, is seen to be in decline, as Coxe says, the effects could be problematic. Markets could panic, forcing prices up, creating shortages and profoundly affecting the world economy.
"The kingdom's decline rate will be among the world's fastest as this decade wanes," predicts Coxe. "Most importantly, Hubbert's Peak must have arrived for Gharwar, the world's biggest oilfield."
Coxe dismisses Saudi claims that the country can produce extra capacity to satisfy surging demand. He notes that Saudi promises to increase production last year failed to materialise. Aramco had pledged an extra 500,000 barrels of oil immediately and an extra 5 million bpd by 2012.........
...........He says the markets had "assumed this first flow would be a half million barrels daily of the benchmark Saudi Light, the high-end product that any oil refinery can process. Instead ... the new oil was heavy, sulphurous oil that only a few refineries had the spare capacity to use".............
..........However, Campbell noted that in 1990 Saudi Arabia, along with other Opec producing countries, notably Kuwait, revised their reserve estimates overnight.
This was in order to pump more oil as part of Opec's quota arrangement. The more reserves you claimed to have, the more money you made.
Same reserves
Saudi Arabia announced "a massive increase from 170 to 258gb in 1990. It had evidently decided to follow Kuwait's practice of reporting original, not remaining reserves," Campbell says.
Since that time, despite pumping around 9mbpd, Saudi Aramco says the size of its reserves have not only remained the same but increased slightly from 258gb to 259gb thanks to better extraction techniques.
However, Simmons believes Gharwar, responsible for about 5mbpd of Saudi output, may have been damaged by poor management.
Pumping large amounts of oil at the maximum rate can damage the geological structure of the field, usually referred to as "rate sensitivity". Basically the hole falls in on itself, making large amounts of oil within it un-extractable.
Lack of transparency
The rising speculation among analysts may ultimately be the fault of the Saudis. The lack of outside independent scrutiny has created space for sceptics such as Coxe to question their facts and figures.
In 2005 alone, the OECD, the G7, the IEA and the IMF have all openly called for increased transparency over oil reserve calculations, mainly from Middle Eastern states.
The market cannot hope to understand its current position without knowing how much oil lies in reserve. This is at the heart of much of the current oil market's problems.
But Coxe's figures may even be on the sympathetic side. According to Saudi Aramco's own statistics, existing Saudi fields deplete by 600,000 to 800,000bpd each year. If such levels are maintained until 2012, Saudi depletion will have reached a minimum of 4.2mbpd.
Water injection
In other words - by their own admission - Saudi Arabia will have added only 800,000bpd of supply in the next seven years. That is the best-case scenario.
To put these rates into context, the IEA predicts a year-on-year rise of 1.6mbpd by the fourth quarter of 2005.
One factor contributing to the scrutiny the Gharwar field faces is the huge amount of water injection used. Water is pumped into an ageing oilfield in order to maintain high pressure inside.
This allows the oil to be pumped out at the original constant rate. Eventually, however, the water reaches the well-head, and the field effectively dies.
Coxe goes on to ask why new Saudi fields, not just ageing ones, are also water injected.
"As if that weren't bad enough news, the Saudis claim they need at least $32 a barrel to justify new production, because ... new production ... requires water flooding. Water flooding on newborn Saudi wells? Isn't water flooding [the] Viagra of ageing wells?"
Abd Allah on the other hand states that it is modern techniques, not water injection, that will let Aramco meet any future demand..............
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Quote:
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/transcripts/379
In Brief: For Global Public Media, Chris Skrebowski, author of the important Oilfields Megaprojects Report for the UK Petroleum Review, explains to Julian Darley why 2005 will be a critical year for global oil.
Since its first appearance more than a year ago, UK Petroleum Review Editor Chris Skrebowski's Oilfield Megaprojects Report has come to be regarded as a new and vital milepost on the way to Peak Oil. For Global Public Media, Julian Darley asks Chris to explain the complexities of global depletion and new supply, and why he thinks that this year may well be the year of Peak Oil.
Chris Skrebowski, Editor of Petroleum Review (UK) interviewed by Julian Darley, 11 April 2005
Julian Darley: Can you explain what a ‘megaproject’ is?
Chris Skrebowski: Yes. The definition of a megaproject that I use is any field development which is going to produce in excess of 100,000 barrels a day. Now the reason I pick that figure is that because on normal sizing of projects, this is the equivalent of about 500 million barrels [reserves]. Now that is in effect the cut off point where a project will make a useful difference to a company's or a country's production. Once you get much below that you're into quite small projects. There are large numbers of them and they're difficult to tabulate and they make rather less impact on the whole.
JD: So what is your Oilfields Megaprojects Report?
CS: What I've done is I've simply tabulated all the known, that is to say publicised, projects that we know about in the world. Now these days the companies aren't reticent, they don't keep projects secret. They're keen to tell the world and tell their shareholders what new production they've got coming up. So we have fair confidence that if we've got the listing right we've got most of these. In addition there is a tendency to publicise fairly quickly any large discovery that's been made. So in addition to tabulating projects that have gone into projects that we have dates for, I have a listing of large discoveries which are likely to become projects perhaps with a bit more work and then we'll get the full description of the dates to go with them.
JD: Can you explain the significance of your report, in other words, why you do it.
CS: The reason I do it is because this tells us fairly clearly how future production flows are going to work. The reason it's able to do this is that the oil industry actually is a quite slow moving industry. These projects have very long lead times. For example a typical large offshore project is taking at least five years from when you first hear about it to when it produces its first oil.
Even large onshore projects take 3 to 4 years from when you hear of it to when it's in production. And the faster project you can have on this side is maybe the reworking of a large oil field in maybe Saudi Arabia, but even then you're talking about two and a half years so you don't really have surprises, nothing really creeps up on you. So if you continuously update this you get a really good idea of the flow of future oil.
JD: This side of 2010 we can't really have any miracle new production coming on board that you don't really know about?
CS: Not of a magnitude that would really alter the outcome. That's to say yes, people can scrabble around, they can put little extra wells here and there. There may be some small projects they can conduct, but it really won't make a significant difference to the outcome. So in that sense the dye is pretty well cast, out certainly to 2010 and maybe beyond that....................
.............JD: Can you then tie together and say what does that mean for this year, thinking about the amount of depletion, the amount of demand, and the amount of new supply that can come on to meet that?
CS: Yes I can. My best estimate for new supply for new supply in 2005 is around a million b/d of OPEC production and maybe 1.5 mb/d of non-OPEC production if everything worked perfectly. But already the countries are saying that they think it will be a lot closer to one. So that would give us potentially two mb/d of new capacity. Now the EIA is already estimating demand growth at 2.2. The IEA is still estimating it at 1.8 but I suspect will revise it in this next month's report. So we're already looking as though it's barely going to cover our immediate requirements. The immediate conclusion is that the price is going to stay high. The situation's going to remain tight.
And we'll bet testing if that little bit of spare capacity in Saudi Arabia is really there or not.
JD: Spare capacity is important because it mollifies, quietens down prices. And when it gets very small, prices become very volatile. How much space capacity do you think is really left in the world now?
CS: We are told that there is about 1.5, 1.8in Saudi Arabia. That is probably true. The question is how much of that is in any sense usable, given that some of this is rather high sulfur crude which we've no refinery capacity to cope with. So I think the short answer is, not very much. Which is an unsatisfactory answer, but probably the best answer you'll get.................
...................JD: In your list of fields coming on in the next five to seven years, many of which as you've said are in the 100,000 b/d category, which would have been by previous world standards quite small. But there are a couple of very large ones due to come on before 2010, though not many, and the largest of those due on in the next five years is the Saudi Arabian field of Khurais. Now this has been described in less than kind terms by analysts such as Matt Simmons. Do you really think that Khurais can deliver 1.2 mb/d by 2009 as is suggested?
CS: I think on these occasions, it's probably wise to suspend disbelief. If the Saudis are telling us it can produce this and are prepared to invest on this basis, then the answer is yes, it probably can do this. The question is, can it do this for any length of time? The problem with many Saudi fields is that they are basically carbonate reefs which don't necessarily give up their oil very easily. There's a certain amount of oil which moves into to the fissures and fractures. And that can be produced at quite high rates. But then once you've cleared that out, the rate of movement out of the main body of carbonate is really quite slow. So I think the key question with a lot of the less productive Saudi fields is not whether they can achieve the numbers the Saudis claim but whether they can maintain that for any length of time.
JD: And is it not also true that certain fields that have been suggested as new fields, by the Saudis for instance, are not really very new? Can you say something about Khurais again as an example? It's not really a new field is it?
CS: No, it was discovered in 1957. As far as we can tell it was put into production in 1964. It produced at no very dramatic rates until the mid-80s, and appears to have been turned off when prices went weak and the Saudis turned a lot of their peripheral fields out, to concentrate a lot of their man power on a limited amount of their more productive fields.
JD: And that not very impressive production was about 150,000 barrels a day, is that right?
CS: That's a figure I've heard, yes.
JD: Which is nowhere near the 1.2 million barrels a day which is being projected.
CS: No. By the sound of things we're talking about a total rework of this field. This field has large multi-billion barrel reserves in it. The question, as I said earlier, is to make these barrels flow in a productive manner. Now presumably they will be using further applications of these large, maximum reservoirs contact wells. They'll presumably be going in for some kind of heavy fracturing program too, to try to open up the reservoir and make it flow better. And we're talking about quite an extended time-frame for a known field to be reworked. We're talking about nearly 4 years before it achieves this flow rate, so obviously they have plans to do a great deal of work on it.
JD: That's a projection for 2009. Are there any projections for this year, 2005 and 2006, which you think will be on the optimistic side which you think will slip and not reach their targets?
CS: I can't sort of point to any specific project, and say I think that will slip, apart from the point that would be slightly invidious. What I can say is that the experience of recent years is of considerable slippage. Areas that have seen particularly bad project slippage have been places like Nigeria where we have seen very extended time frames between the discovery of a field and its likely first production date. Some of these are now slipping out to 8 even 9 years. Which you know, is way beyond the average of the megaprojects which is just shy of 6 years. Which if we've seen anything in a consistent movement, it's the smearing out of the project profile. And if we're now starting to say that the project profile may be short of our immediate requirements, smearing it out further - well, we'll last longer but we still are missing all the time, if you see what I mean.
And an alternative analysis which is being used by the CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) is to look at the potential shortfall and what price you'd need to close that shortfall by destroying demand. And the figures that they're coming up with are quite dramatic. They see this sort of shortfall increasing from about one mb/d in 2006 which they believe can be closed by the price rising to $61/b, and then they take it up to 2.8 mb/d the year after at $70 oil. 2008 they've got shortfall of 5 million barrels and $80 oil. 2009 they're up to $90 oil. 2010 they're up to $101 oil.
Now this is a rather economist's approach because it assumes that everything works smoothly. I'm not sure that high oil prices can be accommodated in that sense. It seems much more likely that they will induce some significant economic set back.
JD: Such as economic recession or even depression?
CS: Hard to see what else they could do. I mean, you know, given that a very high proportion of oil use is in areas where it's not very easy to substitute. If you are forced not to do that, then that will have a huge impact on economic activity. I mean, if you lose your job obviously you don't spend so much fuel to get to work, because you're not going to work. But that's a rather dramatic way to cut back gasoline usage.
JD: That's what is sometimes called demand destruction.
CS: Well that's what they're talking about. Only they are assuming I think that this is a smooth and controllable process. What I'm just asking is, can we be that confident?
JD: In the light of much evidence, and in the light of your report, do you think that Ken Deffeyes' suggestion of Thanksgiving 2005 being the time of peak, is too bold in your opinion?
CS: No, that is entirely possible. We're now into, you know, a sort of unknown land. We haven't been in this situation before. I don't think we know quite how to analyse it. We're taking traditional, fairly conventional analysis. And we're saying let's see what happens when we do this. And I suppose the rough answer we get is that from this year on it looks difficult to get it to add up comfortably. It certainly looks as though after about 2008 it really doesn't add up. But it's not quite clear what more you can say.
JD: With that, thank you very much indeed.
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Since this is a topic that deals with a potentially "life and death" issue.
call this closing comment a "rant" or just an observation, but it frustrates me that due to what seems to amount mostly to differences in ideology, too often the potential for "informed" discussion, (i.e., taking advantage of the wealth of knowledge and expertise that participants here possess and often demonstrate),is instead, reduced to attempts to discredit and mock the structure of posts or the method of the presentation of information, instead of rising to the higher and more difficult task of challenging the accuracy of the information, itself. Peak oil is a subject that I have taken the time to study in depth. If you disagree with what I post on this subject, please extend the courtesy to all of us of countering what I present with documented references from your own research, not just a few lines of your own uncorroborated opinion. |