[QUOTE]Technical papers are a stupid way to do analysis because they just deal with the problems"

Funny you should mention this. I am currently working on a technical paper on produced water separation and the in-efficiencies. Produced water is the water needed to push the oil out of the ground.

Hey its contraversy- there is no doubt we are running out of oil period. But when water cuts go up alarms go off and steep resevoir output declines. fractured rock and all IF Gahwars 120 by 36 mile underground tank is half empty we need to push the Gov'mnts of the world to look at it.

I offer you the miraculous super-k zone that has produced the majority of Ghawar's cumulative production:








http://www.myfilehut.com/userfiles/15798/Dolomitetable1.GIF



http://www.myfilehut.com/userfiles/15798/Dolomite3d1.GIF



http://www.myfilehut.com/userfiles/15798/Dolomitemap1.GIF
http://www.myfilehut.com/userfiles/15798/Dolomitemap2.GIF
http://www.myfilehut.com/userfiles/15798/Haradh1.GIF



http://www.myfilehut.com/userfiles/15798/Haradh2.GIF

Aramco Geologist and co

Can you see the light yet?




Abqaiq like Ghawar had "super-k" zones as explained above. The others do not. That is essentially the basis of the Saudi oil miracle. Shaybah is being produced with similiar technology to Yibal from the beginning that is why I give such a low recovery factor (2.4/16 =15%) as horizontal MRCs will give steep decline rates. Khurais has to date produced at a peak of 144kbd in 1981. Aramco's belief that they can obtain 1.2mbd by 2009 seems to be pure fantasy based on previous production history. Twilight in the Desert:



It could produce 300kbd if everything goes right however considering the field is bring completely reworked (heavy fracturing etc) and the use of horizontal wells that shut off and the heavy level of water injection it will suffer a similar steep decline rate. The 1.2mbd figure would probably refer to total liquids production (0.9mbd brine/300kbd oil):

Energy Bulletin

Manifa is different. Its crude is mixed with other blends due to the high levels of vandium, hydrogen sulfide etc from the heavy sour crude. There is certainly a reasonable amount of oil there. Wood Mackenzie give URR of 4 billion barrels so giving a RF of 33% assuming OOIP of 12 billion barrels.



No hearsay is more like this:

Energy Bulletin
and this:
Morton

Some context. Simmons:


EV World Interview


Sorry meant to write vertical. Simmons:

Hudson Institute Transcript


No disagreement.


Glad you say I'm correct on this. The 18 figure refers to Aramco not IHS should have meant that. I am not confused IHS numbers are incorrect as they are politically derived see below.



Petroconsultants may have been credible in the 1970s what I am refering to is IHS Energy today. Laherrere has this to say:



ASPO Lisbon

Let me clarify by telling you the following story. In 1933 oil exploration began in Saudi Arabia with significant discoveries beginning in 1940 when Abqaiq was found. Other giant fields were found in subsequent years (Ghawar in 1948, Safaniya in 1951 etc). Chevron (then Socal) was the owner and operator of these great fields later Exxon, Mobil and Texaco became partners of Aramco. In 1970 Saudi Arabia was producing 3.9mbd third in the world behind the US at 11.3mbd (just peaking) and USSR at 7.7mbd(Western Siberian fields were still to come onstream), total world oil production was 48.1mbd. Other significant producers were Iran 3.8mbd (peaked just four years later at 6.1mbd), Kuwait 3mbd (peaked in 1972 at 3.3mbd) and Venezuela 3.8mbd who peaked that year. These six made up 33.5/48.1 = 70% of world production. Production had never before and never since been concentrated in so few hands. In the following years both Saudi Arabia having been friendly with America since 1945 and Iran friendly since 1941 under the Shah were involved in a race to gain market share and establish themselves as the premier OPEC producer both in the process overproduced their fields despite knowledge of problems in this approach (SPE papers go backing to 1961 indicated water problems at Abqaiq). Simmons takes up the story:


Aramco was fully nationalised in 1980. Reserve and production data down to field by field figures were abolished, proven reserves were boosted immediately from 108 billion barrels to 160 billion barrels. Following a recently (in 2001) declassified 1977 CIA study of Soviet oil which predicted a peak in the early 1980s (the peak occured in 1987) America was set to destroy the USSR by hitting them financially. Reagan called up King Fahd and asked them to increase production from 3.5 mbd in 1985 to 10mbd in 1986 so as to depress the price, in return the Saudis got arms. It worked in just 3 months the price fell from $28 to $12. The Soviets system collapsed soon after as foreign debt payments exceeded their foreign exchange income making debt servicing a serious issue. Meanwhile as a result of the price collapse the other OPEC members were not too happy with the Saudi's behaviour and so formal production quotas were proposed for the first time related to reserves consequently previously rich nations that wanted a return to the glory days of the 1970s one after the other increased their reserves without any technical justification merely for political reasons, Lynch (yes him!):

[URL=http://www.peakoil.com/post168576.html#168576]Lynch Thread
[/URL]Another Thread

Then came Saddam's annexing of Kuwait and Ghawar been overproducing (over 6.5mbd) as Iraq and Kuwait's oil was embargoed. A quick war and sanctions kept Saddam in check at the expense of the Iraqi people for the remainder of the decade. Throughout th 1990s the world economy boomed the atmosphere was reminscent of the roaring 20s as supplies gradually increased meeting demand and prices averaged just over $20/barrel. Then came 1998 and the Russian debt default, LTCM going bust with over $1 trillion in derivatives exposure, the dollar falling 18% in one day against the Yen, the Dow Jones Index recording its single largest one day points drop ever. The financial system was on the brink of collapse so LTCM was bailed out, interest rates slashed, liquidity flowed into the system leading to the final stages of the great technology bubble. Meanwhile oil dropped in just 7 months from $28 to $10 as speculators assuming OPEC had opened the floodgates bid the price down. They were wrong and OPEC reversed its position leading to an oil price spike from in 18 months from $10 to $32 (in euros it went from 9 to 42! causing protests and fuel shortages). Meanwhile discoveries in the Caspian which were predicted to be another Saudi Arabia in size turned out to disappoint a handful of giant fields were discovered (Kashagan, Karachaganak etc) but it was not enough for some and IOC sell outs were common. Recession followed the oil price spike (as it often does) in the industrialised world. Then 9/11 happened and the military adventures began first in Afghanistan where the Taliban were stalling on a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan. Then Iraq where no WMDs were found contrary to assertions. The Saudis knowing of a Iraq invasion were confident of increasing production to make up for the shortful unfortunately they has hit their limit, Deffeyes:

Deffeyes Interview
Fortunately the invasion was swift as the Republican Guard put up little resistant and has instead reverted to guerilla warfare that has continued to this day supposedly under the leadership of Al-Zarqawi. Oil prices having spiked to $40 fell back top $28 at year end as the largest non-opec producer Russia was able to boost production by 11%. Next came 2004 and China finally after 26 years of continued economic growth began to assert its influence on the oil market boosting imports by 33% as its domestic production which had not been able to keep up with demand since 1993 finally peaked. Meanwhile both Russia and OPEC were running close to capacity for the first time in decades spare capacity finally went to nothing in August when the OPEC Secreatary-General came out in a state of shock at the situation before him uttering the following apocalyptic words:

Guardian
The oil price set all time records for the next 16 consecutive trading days in response. Problems in Russia with Yukos meant that Russia peaked for the second time in September.Coupled with Iraqi pipeline attacks and hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico meant that global peak oil production occured in August 2004 at 81.5mbd never to be surpassed ever again; the end of the age of oil had began. Meanwhile the price hit the psychologically important $50 level in late September a level the Iranian oil executive Bakaktari had predicted earlier in the year. Having peaked the decline was masked by inaccurate data from official sources that showed an OPEC peak in October 2004 and a plateau since. Demand destruction began to occur in many poorer countries such as Zimbabwe, Yemen, Indonesia and Nigeria. China began to feel the effects as its oil imports stalled as refiners were discouraged by the government's capping of retail fuel prices. Then came the hurricanes named Katrina and Rita which caused prices to spike to $70 briefly before declining in the face of European and American strategic reserves flooding the market, normally this coupled with the record levels of short positions in the futures market would cause the price to collapse. In fact it held up well falling to just $59 at its low before beginning its run up to $100 in 2006 as one Australian professor has foreseen. The rest is but a mystery..........

Bobbyboy...please quit paraphrasing huge chunks of Saudi history from Simmons book...we have all read it. Simply saying in one sentence that all of the Middle Eastern countries upped their reserves at the same time would avoid the history lesson that few of us really need. By the way it still does not dismiss the idea that there may have been good technical reason for upping those reserves....it is not necessarily the smoking gun.



I know all about the super K zone, have read the GeoArabia paper you post from and several SPE papers and also have first hand experience with it elsewhere. Yes it creates issues with production but it has zero to do with in place reserves. There is still oil in the other parts of the Arab....by shutting off the high flow zones....drilling infills where it is not perforated etc. the lower perm zones ( and by lower perm we are still talking about several hundreds of millidarcies) can all be produced effectively, hence ultimate recovery is not affected. Not sure what you thought you were accomplishing here other than demonstrating you still do not understand the difference between inplace resource and recoverable reserve. Perhaps you had a point to make here but all you did was post from the paper. Highlighting the poor reservoir quality comments is also lost on me. So what ....the porosity for that zone would be taken into account in the reserve calculation.....it also demonstrates that your notion you should use a permeability cutoff is completely inappropriate.....A plot of permeability versus porosity for the Arab including Super K would be all over the map, you could not derive a proper transform.




So on the one hand you are arguing Super K is bad and then on the other it is good.....which is it? So it creates water by-passing that is going to destroy Ghawar but it did not in Abaiqiq?? A bit of special pleading I think.
Please show me the reference for steep declines from MRCs. As well decline rate per well has zippo to do with ultimate recovery. If you saw the SPE presentation on MRC at Shaybah that Aramco gave they demonstrate the wells are drilled cheaper than previous horizontals.(meaning they can drill lots of infills)..they can be produced at lower drawdown and still achieve maximum flow. Khurais' production previously cannot be used as a model for what it will do now....especially given the fact they plan to develop it entirely with MRC. If you are inferring that MRC will cone bottom water faster...that is just stupid....the whole point of long reach horizontals is to decrease drawdown and achieve proper standoff. The only problems they have had with horizontals is where they have intersected fracture swarms....according to recent publications they think they understand where these fractures are and how to avoid them.

And posting the whole story from Simmons on the testimony of the senior reservoir engineer still does nothing to argue against the point I made....his testimony was well before the effects of the water flood was recognized....he or no one else had any proof at that time they were doing damage by injecting. This was a long time ago....the Saudis have done considerable work since then with considerable technology as I already mentioned.



Actually according to IHS you are incorrect on almost everything to do with reserves. The fact your recoverable numbers are almost the same as IHS in place numbers suggests either you are confused or you have good technical reason to drop the reserves in each...you have not demonstrated that here. All you have done is say...I think the Saudis are lying because Simmons and Campbell say so...as a consequence I take their in place numbers and use them as recoverable. Without demonstrating this is a plausible approach (and the Super K paper doesn't do that) you leave the door open to any yahoo to come along and say ....well I think Ghawar is only going to produce for 6 months more...or I think the reserves in Saudi are X amount. Doesn't get us anywhere.

And as to using Laherre's comment to prove that IHS is political...give me a break. Because Laherrere says something we should all believe it? As I said I have direct experience with this company...they have no reason to be politically motivated.....telling their clients that oil is limitless is not something they want to hear as it would drive the price down if it were true. They make their living based on simply reporting information...that is what we want from them and that is what they have delivered pretty much everywhere I have used them. To be polite Laherre is full of it....this was his response to IHS pointing out his Petroconsultants database was twenty years out of date.



I have to disagree with you on this. The Rub Al Khali was completely unexplored by the former Aramco. Making statements like this without backing them up with data is pretty hollow there are large undrilled areas and also areas where the pre-Khuff has not been penetrated. Stratigraphic plays have been completely ignored or found by accident (i.e. the Jauf on the flanks of Ghawar). It is safe to say that the big fields have been discovered but there is likely going to be a lot of 10 - 50 MMB pools yet to be found...a plot of cummulative field sizes illustrates that. As to deep water....the definiition of deep water as applied by the petroleum industry world wide is 400 m, ....most of the Arabian/Persian Gulf is in depths of 40 - 60 m and at it's deepest it is in 90m....we call this shallow water. The offshore is fairly well explored for oil potential but at some stage they will be chasing Khuff gas.......likely well in the future since they have all the gas they need currently. You make it sound like offshore exploration/development is difficult here....probably the cheapest offshore drilling and quickest tie in I am aware of.



What it means is that Aramco claim they are using the same methodology that major oil and gas companies use....the SPE/AAPG standards for oil and gas reserve calculations. And again you ignore the possibility that they may simply have started to report proven plus probable rather than just proven reserves or they may have moved possible to probable categories. This is not uncommon pretty much everywhere in the oil and gas business. The main difference is Western companies do it annually in order to report under SEC regulations and appease shareholders......Aramco does not have those issues. Again they may be fibbing but what you show is not proof of anything.



Several technical papers by Aramco folks published in the SPE. It amazes me that you love to quote Simmons reading of the SPE papers in which he conveniently ignores the ones that argue they have the water production issues largely under control. You can't use SPE papers to support your argument and then dismiss them when someone else uses them to argue the opposing view.



I think you give him a lot more credit than he deserves here. First of all it isn't like he had to dig through old library archives.....this stuff is mostly downloadable from the SPE library....the remainder is easily obtained from SPE and library exhange. Second off Simmons book is hardly a technical publication.....his method of not citing references (but putting a list of publications in an appendix) would guaranty Elsevier would never publish it. These guys make a relevant point....there are a bunch of SPE papers that Simmons ignored that argue the Saudis understand the problem and have it under control. If you want to debunk these guys then access those papers and critically review them.

Most of the technology that could increase those reserves wasn't available at the time. Besides, the reserve additions still can't be justified.



However, the decline rates will eventually be much higher than they would have been while achieving the same ultimate recovery. With vertical wells, Ghawar would have already collapsed. Just as the Senate staff report indicated, North Uthmaniyah probably would have declined by 1989, and Ain Dar and Shedgum by 1992-1994. First, Aramco mothballed or at least partially rested all of its oilfields in the 1980s. (Hawiyah and Haradh were mothballed; the whole section of Fazran through Uthmaniyah might have been producing, but at a much lower rate.) Secondly, the horizontal and MRC wells. Does the technology recover a greater percentage of the oil in place? In some cases, maybe a bit more. However, Ghawar has been living on borrowed time, and the decline rate will be very high when these MRC wells can't hide from water channeling any longer. The evidence is there that the oil column is almost gone in many parts of Ghawar and Abqaiq. Even Aramco itself claims that Ain Dar and Shedgum have depleted 50% of OOIP. It would be a miracle to get more than 60%-70% recovery in a heterogeneous carbonate reservoir, and that doesn't exclude tertiary recovery. North Uthmaniyah has already fallen off, and Aramco insiders claim that Ain Dar and Shedgum will do the same in 2008.

Basically, I don't see any evidence to contradict Simmons' claims that the technology is creating a dangerous illusion. What additional proof do you need after seeing the North Sea, Russia, Oman, etc.?

The 1979 concerns that are deemed "irrelevant" by Jarrell are probably spot-on.



Shaybah was discovered in 1968, so the former Aramco was obviously exploring in the Rub Al Khali. Also, when we talk about Shaybah, keep in mind that it produces from the Shu'aiba formation, the same formation as Yibal. We all know what happened after high-technology wells were applied there.

In fact, at least some parts of Shaybah already have a 15% water cut. That doesn't seem too high, until you remember that Shaybah has only been producing for 7 years. Water problems only accelerate as a field ages.

In summary, rockdoc has a few good points. Indeed, bobbyboy can't claim to be able to estimate field-by-field reserves. However, bobbyboy has the correct idea. Saudi Arabia almost certainly won't be able to grow its sustainable capacity beyond 12 mb/d, and there is a good chance that they already peaked in 1981.

Well I think we need a super thread focusing on any signs of unusual repatriation of petrodolars that's a definitive sign of global meltdown aka recession and long depression if you are an optimist

So, far I've seen in the news these "bombs":

1. China Daily, an article about the right time to stop subsidizing america's debt. Calls for diversification into Euro bonds etc..

2. Norway started shuffling its post peak oil revenue based funds away from the US bond/stock market..

.. Saudis???
.
Anybody is welcomed to contribute..
(I'm not highjacking this great thread, we can move this debate elsewhere)

+
Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are openly hedging against $ past few years. They believe significant devaluation (20-30%) and higher interest rates are necessary..

that is basically incorrect. During the 80's there were advances in seismic, the advent of 3D etc. etc.....Aramco was at the forefront of applications. Notwithstanding that, as I point out there is a huge difference between reserves and resources and proven versus proven plus probable versus proven plus probable plus possible. We have no idea what sort of reserves they were reporting prior to the revision....if indeed it was just proven producing reserves it is completely possible that the number could be doubled by simply also reporting proven non-producing and probable reserves. This may not even have taken any additional drilling....just a change in how categories are reported. They might be playing a game but that is just supposition.




That is ridiculous....the horizontal MRC wells are intersecting up to 5 km of reservoir....draining areas behind the water flood front that are isolated pods of unswept oil. Aramco notes they have directed the MRC wells away from fractures and high permebility zones where it is advantageous and towards these areas where the full field model suggests greater sweep efficiency can be maintained. Aramco claims ultimate recovery will actually increase simply due to the fact they can access areas they could not produce economically with vertical wells.



As I said because they can access areas that are unswept, because they can stay away from zones which cone water and because they can maintain lower drawdown rates and higher offtake the wells are much more economic. Hence ultimate recovery which in essence is determined by an economic cutoff (you won't drill infill wells if it is not economic to do so) will be larger. There are a number of SPE publications on the MRC wells which indicate exactly this notion. Water "channeling" as you refer to it has only been a problem in horizontal wells where they inadvertently intersected fractures. Aramco notes they are shutting off these higher permeability zones by mechanical and chemical means. And by the way who are these "insiders". I keep seeing this repeated here...I think it comes from either Simmons or Campbell. We have no idea of the validity of these comments..ie. what exactly was said and by who. There was someone posting in this thread earlier on who claims to be a consultant working for Aramco who notes there are no issues so maybe there are two camps of insiders? Also I would point out that the laboratory SCAL work done on core material from the Arab D in Ghawar and the Shuaiba in Shaybah note ultimate recoveries in the order of +60%.
Here are a couple of interesting figures from an SPE paper:
SPE 93439, Water Management in North Ain Dar, Saudi Arabia, Alhuthali et al, 2005




what stands out from these diagrams is that production wise the field is behaving itself quite well...the full field model (which is varified by well information) suggests a water flood that for likes like it is working.

In terms of the Rub Al Khali there were approximately 15 - 20 wells drilled in an area of somewhere in excess of 350,000 square km (about half the size of Texas) prior to 1975. From 1980 to 2004 there has hardley been any exploration drilling in the area. As recently as 2002 small oil was discovered at Takman inside the areas that Saudi Arabia offered out to foreigners in the gas round and Aramco hopes that the foreign companies will discover more oil with their gas wells...oil which Aramco will own.. This is hardly much more than cursory exploration to date. Indeed Shaybah only classifies as being in the Rub as it sits at the start of the dune field. The area was explored early on due to it's proximity to the UAE border, the rest of the Rub Al Khali is for all intents and purposes unexplored.



I think you need to get up to date on what is happening with the MRC well applications in Shaybah. The following are some good references

SPE 88986, Sahybah 220, A MRC well and it's implication for developing tight-facies reservoirs, Saleri et al, 2005

SPE distinguished lecture series: MRC a new generation of wells for developing tight reservoir facies, Salamy, 2005 (you should be able to download this for free from SPE.org)

As well as I noted above the SCAL work suggests 50 - 65% ultimate recoveries from Shuaiba cores taken from Shaybah. If they can manage the fracture network (they claim that planning for the location of the MRC is allowing them to do that) and continue to improve on drilling cost performance it should be achievable theoretically.



And I ask once more what is the evidence for this other than pure speculation? Which production profile shows a peak? The information Aramco is putting out in presentations suggests flat production from Ain Dur and Shedgun with a controlled water influx, they attest to be bringing back on several fields using the newer technologies (this is substantiated by press releases made by companies which have been hired for construction of facilities). Basically what I am trying to point out here is this whole idea that Saudi oil is in trouble or has peaked is not based on any hard information. Believe what you want but what I have read so far suggests they have a number of production issues to deal with (not unlike that we have to deal with everywhere) that they realize are there and have taken steps to ameliorate, most of which they claim have been successful. Fields that were previously shut-in due to high water or gas influx are being brought back on stream with the knowledge they have gained in their producing fields.
I continue to dig away at various sources....trying to piece together all of the information out there.

I've always held the assumption that Aramco has more responsibilities, not less, than any other major company in the world. If Aramco fucks up, the entire economy of SA comes crashing down.

Interesting data from Bloomberg in that it expects Saudi production to more than double to 18.3 mbpd by 2030 (despite disagreements from al-Husseini recently on that very topic).

Of note those is this curious little statement:



Why is this interesting? The projected number for 2010 previously was 12.5 mbpd. That's a 600,000 bpd shortfall.

I am tending to believe al-Husseini that Saudi production will level off somewhere between 12-15mbpd and never approach 18, 20 or 25 mbpd that other Western estimates keep assuming will occur. Of course, if Simmons and Price (former head of Aramco Exploration) are both right, then even those numbers may never be reached or sustained for any important length of time.

Also, even the IEA is expecting Ghawar to peak by 2015 and decline thereafter.




Over at The Oil Drum, this article is also under discussion. I highly recommend The Oil Drum as a site to read for good information about the oil industry.

Edit: There is also this fascinating article about Ghawar by G.R. Morton, who apparently does reservoir management these days.

Sorry - cant help myself.

Rockdoc - sorry to inform you but someone has already dug through the data and his name is Matt simmons!!

and

How much does SA pay people like yourself anyways??

Wow - is this a good time to present that SA article again??? Yes I think it is.....

Saudi Oil Is Secure and Plentiful, Say Officials

Thats a great article isnt it?? I mean really really great.....

Here - allow me to quote from it please....

WASHINGTON, 29 April 2004 — Officials from Saudi Arabia’s oil industry and the international petroleum organizations shocked a gathering of foreign policy experts in Washington yesterday with an announcement that the Kingdom’s previous estimate of 261 billion barrels of recoverable petroleum has now more than tripled, to 1.2 trillion barrels.

1.2 trillion!! woohoo - no worries matey's

Additionally, Saudi Arabia’s key oil and finance ministers assured the audience — which included US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan — that the Kingdom has the capability to quickly double its oil output and sustain such a production surge for as long as 50 years.

Wow this is better then a night at the IMPROV!!!

“Saudi Arabia now has 1.2 trillion barrels of estimated reserve. This estimate is very conservative. Our analysis gives us reason to be very optimistic. We are continuing to discover new resources, and we are using new technologies to extract even more oil from existing reserves,” the minister said.

Naimi said Saudi Arabia is committed to sustaining the average price of $25 per barrel set by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. He said prices should never increase to more than $28 or drop under $22.

BWAHAHAHAH thats good stuff - we should be contacting Naimi' agent ASAP as good comedians are in short supply.....

and this is what you base your position on???
A big bucket of sweet light bullshit???
I will pass.....

Al-Naimi was probably talking about OIIP, not proven reserves. Still, there is a major discrepancy between Al-Naimi's claim (1.2 trillion barrels) and the OIIP given in the presentation by Abdul-Baqi and Saleri last year (700 billion barrels).

I equate this to some government mule geologist stating that URR is not 2 or 3 trillion but rather 20 or 30 trillion.

Besides all their double talk - They had and still have reason to lie.
Its just baffling that otherwise smart and educated people choose to believe and attempt to justify this BS.

We will know soon enough - I just hope at that juncture we will be older and wiser yet for some reason I get the funny feeling we won't be

I think what Rockdoc is doing is commendable. He obviuosly has a bit more knowledge of these things than most of us do. I have read Simmons book and several others on this topic. One thing I took away from these books was that it APPEARS something may be up. It SEEMS that there COULD be a problem looming in the not too distant future with regards to Saudi production.

While I'm not a blind follower of Simmons et al, I do tend to think that Saudi Oil production could be reaching a critical point with respect to geology. Rockdoc is trying to show us that there are two sides to every issue and with regards to Saudi production it's the same story.

He believes that its not as big a deal as some others do. It all comes down to credibility, and here Rockdoc has some with me. I'm searching for answers too and this helps guys like me who want to see both sides of the issues. We need to be very clear and smart about what is going on, blindly following hunches and bad science won't help anyone.

Thanks Rockdoc.

I have to disagree.

I've read his posts carefully. He is using language, highly technical language, in a way to intimidate and to obfuscate.

If I can read Simmons, Deffeyes, Campbell, et al., as a complete outsider and understand everything crystal-clearly, and then read "rockdoc" and come away saying, "WTF?", guess whose material I'm going to give more credibility?

This is the most interesting thread on the board!!

I'm not equipped to contribute directly to the argument about Saudi Arabia, or the question of how much of the world's oiil has been used, but there is one thing I do want to ask.

Surely it is obvious that the curve of oil extraction will be anything but symmetrical??? Oil remains the best source of energy even at $60/barrel. With a booming world economy, demand will increase. It doesn't matter what the cost is - $100, $200 - so long as it's still cheaper than the available alternatives. So extraction will continue to increase and Peak wll be delayed until the cost gets so high that real demand destruction bites, and that will only happen at very high prices indeed.

Rather than be a nice up-and-down shape, the curve will be like a breaking wave - steadily increasing, despite rapidly rising extraction costs, and falling, when it does fall, very quickly indeed.

Maybe we need to modify, at least mentally, that Peak Oil curve that has such a grip on our imaginations??

And given that, it seems less intrinsically unlikely that SA could be more than half way through its oil and be starting to strain at the practical limis of its capacity and facing a rapid fall.