Intro to Satellite Sleuthing 101: Finding Haradh III

Everybody talks about the Saudi Arabian Oil Miracle, but most seem to be saying the same things. And those things usually consist of quotes or statistics provided by Saudi Aramco. This presents us with the following dilemma: if we believe what they say, why don’t we just quit worrying about whether or not their oil will continue to flow? Or, if we don’t believe what they say, why do we bother making future oil supply projections based on “production capacity” figures by them — figures which can never be verified because their production levels always remain below capacity? What we need is some independent verification of the things they tell us. Hence the birth of Saudi Satellite Sleuthing using Google Earth. Following a brief introduction, I will show how Google Earth can be used to shed some light on the Haradh III Megaproject brought onstream in 2006.


This project began early last year with a crude effort to map out Saudi oil fields using Google Maps. I soon discovered that recent releases of Google Earth facilitated this at a much higher level. After being inspired by the work of Stuart Staniford, Euan Mearns, and other TOD contributers on Ghawar, I persisted and was soon sucked in beyond the point of no return. This finally resulted in the creation of Satellite o’er the Desert where I will try to relieve the backlog of what I have learned (and am continuing to learn). It is planned that many articles will be posted here as well for discussion.

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