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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mistermj who wrote (21214)	4/14/2008 8:27:19 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

"Saudi Arabia has trimmed its output to around 9 million bpd to reflect lower customer demand," Lower demand in the face of 100 regional energy shortages? energyshortage.org You could bet Stu I'll bet $1000 with the first person who cares to take me up on it that the international oil agencies will never report sustained Saudi production of crude+condensate of 10.7 million barrels or more. Stuart Staniford, 2nd March 2007 theoildrum.com == SPK: There has been a lot of talk about Saudi Arabia's spare capacity, just how much do they have. Do you believe they have spare capacity and if so, what do you think it is? MRS (matt simmons): If they have any spare capacity left it would have to be in Safaniya, which is the big offshore field. That's 28 gravity oil which is heavy oil, and there really isn't any spare refinery capacity left in the world for heavy oil. And if Safaniya actually could crank up by 1.5 mbds and at peak Safaniya could produce 1.2mbd, maybe 1.5mbd 20 years ago, so the whole definition, if you define spare capacity by the amount of readily available oil that is useable then I think the answer is categorically no, they have no spare capacity. SPK: The criticism that you just laid out I have heard that from a friend who runs a hedge fund. Nice to hear it seconded. MRS: They toss around with great frequency that they have 11mbd of capacity, that they are producing at some number, but I think it is highly questionable that they are producing 9.5mbd a day. SPK: Now that I have not heard before. MRS: I'll tell you why I say that. SPK: Ok. MRS: It's a world of sketchy data, there are only a few pieces of reliable data, really very solid data, and on the Oil Monthly Supply Report from the International Energy Agency almost all that data is just an estimate. The best table of data is the table 6 that shows the OECD Member countries, their crude oil by country of origin, and if you trace the amount of oil that has come in from Saudi Arabia and add it up, well, it doesn't add up. agonist.org === A Nosedive Toward the Desert Posted by Stuart Staniford on March 8, 2007 - 10:15am ...Or, Why the Decline in Saudi Oil Production is Not Voluntary long article === In Paris, March 2, 2008, Ali al-Naimi, oil minister for the world's largest crude producer, Saudi Arabia, and one of the oil industry's most influential figures, has been discussing Peak Oil. He has stated that Saudi Arabia, which already has the world's biggest proven oil reserves, plans to add another 200 billion barrels of oil to its proven reserves. He said this was "to reassure the world that we are not going to run out of oil in the next five to ten years as peak oil theorists say." Full story at AFP So what are the facts behind this claim of an extra 200 billion barrels? According to a seminar given in Washington in 2004 representatives from Saudi Aramco reported that Saudi Arabia had an initial 700 Gb barrels in place. Today, with cumulative production from Saudi standing at 119 Gb and 260 Gb in reserves (but admitting to only 131 Gb in developed reserves), the Saudi’s claim a recovery factor of 54%. If another 200 Gb of the 700 Gb of oil in place is added to reserves, the recovery factor now increases from a very large 54% to an incredible 83%. The average global recovery factor to date is only 29%, and even the great expert on the subject Merling of Statoil believes that there is only a possibility of increasing this average number to 38% in the future. peakoil.net ==== All time peak was about 10M, and cut back from that, so not really the peak. Hit about 9.6 MBPD in '06, when they hit the wall. That most recent cut-back ain't voluntary.