Ghawar Numerology: Drilling in Uthmaniyah

NOW SHOWING: a movie on the drilling of Uthmaniyah. Using a set of wells in a productive (but now rather depleted) slice of this part of the Saudi oil field of Ghawar, it is possible to deduce to drilling sequence of these wells using the identifiers assigned to the wells as they are drilled. Given a few known dates for well placement, a timeline for overall development can be constructed and displayed as an animation. Enjoy the movie.
Uthmaniyah is both by area and by production the largest operational segment of Ghawar. The more productive northern part of Uthmaniyah was also the first part developed, is the most depleted, and has also been extensively studied. In fact, this analysis is only made possible by selected publications of Dr. Shiv Dasgupta, Microseismic Project Manager for Saudi Aramco. But rather than bore you up front with further details of how this short clip was put together, I’ll first just present the video. Green dots mark the individual wells as they are drilled. (Click the play button on the player below)

The Oil Drum