Oil Depletion Levels in Ghawar

Max Dunn — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:24:00 -0800

The Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia is by far the largest oil field in the world accounting for more than one-half of all oil production in Saudi Arabia. It was discovered in 1948 and has been producing 5 million barrels of oil per day for the last 10 years [1]. However, many believe that Ghawar has passed its peak [2][3][4].

Here is another detailed and technical analysis of the oil depletion levels of Ghawar by Stuart Saniford [5]:

Depletion Levels in Ghawar

While much of this information is very technical and difficult to browse through, the pictures that show how much of Ghawar is now filled with water graphically illustrates the problem. Saniford shows:

“The northern half of Ghawar is quite depleted.”

and

“In particular, Saudi oil production has been falling with increasing speeed since summer 2005, and overall, since mid 2004, about 2 million barrels of oil per day in production has gone missing. That’s 2.5% of world production.”

Eschew Obfuscation: Oil Depletion Levels in Ghawar

Oil Depletion Levels in Ghawar