[Graeme]

World's Five Largest Offshore Oil Fields

In 1973, the Arab Oil Crisis made Americans care about energy security.

Forty years later, a survey of the world’s five largest offshore fields by estimated recoverable reserves is a stark reminder of why they still should.

The three largest offshore oil fields are located in the Persian Gulf, off the coasts of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Located about 165 miles north of Dharan, Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf, the Safaniya oil field contains an estimated total reserve of more than 50 billion barrels (36 billion of which are said to be recoverable). It is the world’s largest offshore field.

Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil and natural gas company, owns and operates the elephant-sized oil field, which was discovered in 1951 and has been producing oil since 1957. The field produces up to 1.5 million barrels of heavy crude oil per day.

The fourth and fifth largest offshore oil fields are Brazil’s Santos Basin and the Kashagan oil field in the in the North Caspian Sea, according to Offshore-technology.com.

forbes

[ROCKMAN]

Graeme - Always good to remind folks where the grease is. Also good for folks to remember that in addition to Kashagan being so huge that it's production is earmarked for China. Just that one pipeline system to get the oil to them is estimated to cost between $50 to $100 billion which gives some sense of the magnitude of that field. The field itself will probably the most difficult and expensive such project ever undertaken.

And one minor correction: the Santos Basin is not a "field" but a geologic province or trend. There are many unique and separate fields in the trend that collectively add up to a lot of grease. Just as the DW GOM trend does.

[Plantagenet]

Is the Santos basin the sub-salt trend, or is that still another giant offshore field in Brazil

[ROCKMAN]

P - The Santos Basin trend is actually a "pre-salt" play unlike the GOM "sub-salt" play. Here's a quick description of the pre-salt play:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 756AAGInxf

And, of course, neither is a post-salt play. Like I've said before: geologist's make up a lot of terms so you have to hire us to explain them.

[TheDude]

They mean Lula, formerly known as Tupi, not the entire basin. Sloppy journalism at work here.

What, no sugar for Cantarell? Even in its current decrepit state it outproduces Kashagan and Lula at the moment.

[ROCKMAN]

Here's some more details on the 3 DW Brazil basins and the post and pre salt relationships. It also lists almost 60 different DW Brazil oil fields.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... 2-zZvWqN1g