[jdmartin]

For me, the actual "peaking" of oil production is not as important as peak cheap oil, which I believe we've reached. Even if these finds could add a couple of million barrels per day to supply, it's only going to ramp up the ability of another few million or tens of millions of Chinese, Indians, Vietnames, etc to drive cars, crank up manufacturing, and generally burn it up as fast as it can be brought online.

On a side note, there's not a whole lot of positive to be gained by people believing that there's always going to be "another solution" or "millions more" out there - we'll just crank up the destruct-o-meter another few pegs as we assist in the acceleration of global warming, massive resource depletion & extinctions. I love a hot shower and taking a drive as much as the next person, but I think an orderly shutdown is preferable to all-out oil warfare. Because the bottom line is at some point, whether next week, next year, or next decade, or longer, we're going to hit a point of declining returns. If we've brought another 10 million barrels per day of users online when we hit that mark, it's just going to be that much more painful.

[Valdemar]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oil-Finder', 'L')onger being . . . "several years." Oil production in the Bakken is *already* increasing, but the play is still in its infancy so there's still a lot of room for it to increase. It'll be a gradual process.

[shortonoil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he usual peak oiler minimization.

[TheDude]

Elm Coulee Field at searchanddiscovery.com. OF linked to the Bakken formation on this site.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')rom wells drilled to date, the field is expected to produce in excess of 270 million bbls of oil from an area of over 550 square miles. The field is currently producing over 1.7 million barrels of oil per month (55,000+ bbls/day) and has produced over 33 million barrels of oil since its discovery in 2000. Current and planned exploratory drilling activity may expand the limits of the field dramatically.

[shortonoil]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheDude', 'W')ould really like to see a statistical analysis of the Bakken's discovery potential. You need 100 Elm Coulees to come up to US conventional production, 350 wells each would be maybe $8 billion? $2 million a well.

[Oil-Finder]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheDude', '
')Would really like to see a statistical analysis of the Bakken's discovery potential.

[Oil-Finder]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('shortonoil', 'T')here are few people here that would not admit that there is a gigantic amount of oil left in the ground. 4.5 trillion barrels of it, by last estimate. The problem with it is that the available energy content of most of that oil is insufficient to justify getting it out of the ground. So big deal, if some one finds 300 billion or a trillion barrels, if you can’t extract it, it is not usable - period.

[static66]

Oil Finder, you are a feisty cornucopian with the finish of "It's at least another Ghawar" at the end of some of your posts.... the point your not seeing is that we will need another Ghawar right now to keep levels current with Ghawar obviously in decline. That only prolongs things a short time and your unabashed infatuation with our drilling technology advancements in the near future are only hopes at this time.... surely we will get better at getting the blood out of her but she is dying and we will surely feel her wrath.
You must be feeling it now wherever it is that you live..... It's all connected.

[Oil-Finder]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('static66', 'O')il Finder, you are a feisty cornucopian with the finish of "It's at least another Ghawar" at the end of some of your posts.... the point your not seeing is that we will need another Ghawar right now to keep levels current with Ghawar obviously in decline. That only prolongs things a short time and your unabashed infatuation with our drilling technology advancements in the near future are only hopes at this time.... surely we will get better at getting the blood out of her but she is dying and we will surely feel her wrath.
You must be feeling it now wherever it is that you live..... It's all connected.

[Oil-Finder]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'A')NYWAY YOU CHANGED THE SUBJECT. CARE TO DISCUSS GHAWAR? OR IS THAT ABOVE YOUR HEAD?

[DantesPeak]

Ghawar is being viewed from space to analyze how fast depletion is occurring. There are mixed conclusions about what the satellites have found, with Matt Simmons saying satellite imagery is not very useful as the Twilight in the Desert occurs.




$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')racking Saudi Oil From Space
Satellites Check Big Field's Health;
Jitters Over Supply
By NEIL KING JR.
May 6, 2008

At a time of high anxiety over soaring fuel prices and scarce supplies, oil analysts are resorting to satellite imagery to crack one of the industry's biggest unknowns -- whether Saudi Arabia's massive Ghawar field is slipping into depleted old age.

Saudi Arabia has long contended that its famed Ghawar field, responsible for around 7% of global supply, remains in fine shape and will continue to churn out around five million barrels a day for years.

But Saudi Arabia doesn't publish data to back that up. Skeptical analysts in the West insist the field is in decline, an event they say presages a peak in world oil production.

Analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd., a New York-based investment research firm, just spent months trying to resolve the debate. Their tools? Cameras fixed to satellites that hover miles above the Saudi desert.

Combing through dozens of high-resolution satellite images of Ghawar going back to 2001, the Bernstein team has concluded in a study sent to clients at the end of April that only part of the vast field "is suffering signs of old age." On the whole, Bernstein says, the field "is being properly managed" and is experiencing only "mild production-decline rates at worst."

Critics of the study, including some who have crunched their own overhead imagery, say the Bernstein study is insufficient and the debate over Ghawar's health is far from over.

"This is junk science," says Houston investment banker Matthew Simmons, who insists that only detailed, on-the-ground records can speak to the field's real condition. Mr. Simmons's 2005 book, "Twilight in the Desert," cited technical papers to argue that Ghawar and Saudi Arabia's other giant fields were showing signs of increasing stress and would soon slip into decline. Mr. Simmons is a well-known proponent of the theory that world-wide oil production may already have hit its all-time peak.

One skeptical sleuth doing similar work is a hobbyist in Seattle who keeps a Web site called Satellite O'er The Desert and works under the pseudonym of Joules Burn. Using detailed images from Google Earth, the Web site has chronicled what it calls a "remarkable" uptick in drilling across large swaths of Ghawar.

The Web site's assessment so far is that Aramco is engaged in a massive redrilling of Ghawaras part of a "constant struggle to maintain the field's current production level."

[copious.abundance]

Um, that not's the WSJ saying that satellites are seeing a decline in Ghawar, that's the opinion of one of the people in the article saying that satellites indicate Ghawar is declining.

I read that article when it came out in the paper. It did not conclude that Ghawar is declining, only that there is disagreement on the matter.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')ombing through dozens of high-resolution satellite images of Ghawar going back to 2001, the Bernstein team has concluded in a study sent to clients at the end of April that only part of the vast field "is suffering signs of old age." On the whole, Bernstein says, the field "is being properly managed" and is experiencing only "mild production-decline rates at worst."

[Leanan]

Joules Burn (of the Satellite O'er the Desert blog, mentioned at the end of the article) had some sharp criticisms of Bernstein's work. He says they got the boundaries of Ghawar wrong. Also, they used a computer to analyze the images and count wells, and it did a terrible job.

He's probably going to write a post about it, either at his blog or at TOD (or both).

[Leanan]

He's got a response he wrote back in January, here.

[JohnDenver]

Matt Simmons' critique of Saudi Arabia has been totally discredited. He's been sounding the alarm about KSA going over a cliff since 2003. Meanwhile, here's the actual stats from the EIA:

2003: 8.8mbd
2004: 9.1mbd
2005: 9.6mbd
2006: 9.2mbd
2007: 8.7mbd

Saudi oil production has been steadily rising since Feb. 2007 and currently stands at 9.2mbd. No cliff. No decline. Production rising. Just another boring day in the desert.

[americandream]

The thread title is misleading.

[Leanan]

This article is now out from behind the paywall.

[PeakingAroundtheCorner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', 'M')att Simmons' critique of Saudi Arabia has been totally discredited. He's been sounding the alarm about KSA going over a cliff since 2003. Meanwhile, here's the actual stats from the EIA:

2003: 8.8mbd
2004: 9.1mbd
2005: 9.6mbd
2006: 9.2mbd
2007: 8.7mbd

Saudi oil production has been steadily rising since Feb. 2007 and currently stands at 9.2mbd. No cliff. No decline. Production rising. Just another boring day in the desert.