Peak Oil? For Saudi? -- April 7, 2013 -- Re-Posting -- April 17, 2021

One begins to wonder about the decline rate for Saudi's onshore wells and the longevity of their large onshore oil fields.

Link to Tsvetana Parskova: Saudi Aramco restarts projects to boost oil production capacity.

Saudi oil production, historical, five-year:

Five discussion points to debate:

• Saudi Arabia is in an existential struggle;
• there has been talk for years (decades?) that Saudi's onshore oil fields are getting weary;
• offshore wells are significantly more expensive to drill than onshore wells;
• offshore wells are at less risk as military / terrorist targets;
• Saudi's offshore drilling program has been an "an-again, off-again" endeavor.

When I saw Parskova's article, the first question I asked: why was Saudi Arabia drilling offshore again?

Saudi never fails to remind us they can get to 12 million+ bbls crude oil / day if they want. 

In the past five years, they have come "close" maybe once, and if I recall correctly, they even said they were going to produce 12 million+ bbls but then never did.

My thoughts back on April 7, 2013 (and then re-posted September 19, 2019: Peak Oil? For Saudi?

Something to think about.   

It would be interesting to get water flooding data from Saudi Arabia. LOL. Like that will happen. 

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The Tsvetana Article

In case the link breaks, some excerpts:

The world’s largest oil company and biggest oil exporter, Saudi Aramco, has resumed tendering and development work on major offshore oil expansion projects that would give Saudi Arabia another 1.15 million barrels per day (bpd) of production capacity by 2024, Argus reported on Friday, citing a contractor with knowledge of one of the projects.

After the oil price and demand collapse last year, to which Saudi Arabia itself contributed by breaking up the OPEC+ pact for a month, Aramco idled offshore rigs and postponed the start of the expansion of several projects.

Offshore drilling contractors Noble Corporation and Shelf Drilling said in June they had been notified by Saudi Aramco that their rigs offshore the Kingdom would be suspended for up to one year.Now Aramco is moving forward with the postponed start of the development work. The Saudi oil giant has issued tenders for development work at the offshore Zuluf oilfield with a capacity of 825,000 bpd, which is planned to be increased by 600,000 bpd, the contractor told Argus.

The expansion project, initially expected to start up in 2023, is now postponed with a few months and is expected to start operations either late into 2023 or in early 2024, according to Argus.

Work on the expansion of two other offshore oilfields, Marjan and Berri, had already started at the end of March, Argus notes. The 400,000-bpd Marjan field is set to boost its capacity by 300,000 bpd, and the Berri field, currently with a capacity of 300,000 bpd, will see its production capacity rise by 250,000 bpd by 2023.

And then this, which takes us back to those five discussion points:

In July 2019, Saudi Aramco awarded 34 contracts worth a total of US$18 billion to boost the oil production capacity of the two fields by a total of 550,000 bpd to sustain its 12-million-bpd production capacity by the early 2020s and to replace production capacity lost from aging oilfields.

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The DAPL: Where We Stand Today

Where we stand today:

Friday, April 9, 2021, day 0:

• US Army Corps of Engineers won't shut it down; will let judge decide
• Judge: thumbs down; kill it;

Saturday, April 10, 2021, day 1:

• Judge: thumbs up; let it flow;

Sunday, April 11, 2021, day 2:

• Judge: thumbs down; kill it;

Monday, April 12, 2021, day 3:

• Judge: thumbs up; let it flow;

Tuesday, April 13, 2021, day 4:

• Judge: thumbs down; kill it;

Wednesday, April 14, 2021, day 5:

• Judge: thumbs up; let it flow;

Thursday, April 15, 2021, day 6:

• Judge: thumbs down; kill it;

Friday, April 16, 2021, day 7:

• Judge: thumbs up; let it flow;

Saturday, April 17, 2021, day 8:

• Judge: thumbs down; kill it;

Sunday, April 18, 2021, day 9:

• Judge: thumbs up; let it flow;

Monday, April 19, 2021, day 10:

• Judge: thumbs down; kill it;

Tuesday, April 20, 2021, day 11:

• Judge: thumbs up; let it flow;

Wednesday, April 21, 2021, day 12:

• Judge: thumbs down; kill it;

Thursday, April 22, 2021, day 13:

• Judge: thumbs up; let it flow;

Friday, April 23, 2021, day 14:

• Judge: thumbs down; kill it;

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We'll Be Working On The Railroad

Maybe the "committee" studying whether to bring the JNJ vaccine back to market could also do a DAPL risk-benefit analysis.