The Oil Drum: Understanding Ghawar

Stuart Staniford et al has put together an entire series of posts–that are not introductory at all–but are instead intended to summarize the status of the overall hypothesis that watering out of North Ghawar is the main cause of declines in Saudi production in the last couple of years.

If Stuart is correct, and he makes a very compelling case drawing upon his own research and the extant research of many others, this is not very good news.
Much more after the jump to The Oil Drum.