Those Mysterious Oil Reservoirs

In his 36 years with BP, Jeremy Gilbert worked in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Iran, Alaska, and the North Sea. In the late 1980s, Gilbert became BP’s Chief Petroleum Engineer, with responsibility for all of BP’s petroleum engineering worldwide. In this wide-ranging interview with ASPO-USA’s Randy Udall, he reflects on the myriad challenges we face in forecasting the future course of global oil production.

Q: A recent series of posts at www.theoildrum.com attempt to divine the current status and future prospects of Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar field, the world’s largest. Your thoughts?

A: I am amazed at the energy and diligence which the authors exhibit in carrying out their analyses. It is tragic that the Saudis won’t release more detailed performance data and their own analyses which would show the situation more clearly. It seems likely to me that the conclusion that Ghawar is in decline is correct. But it’s a big step to conclude that its decline will be steep. Oil companies employ reservoir engineers and reservoir geologists to deal with just the situation we have here: “a mature field is showing signs of declining production with its current development, what can we profitably do that might change this situation?”

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