While going over a bunch of articles on Saudi production capacity in an effort to grasp their condition (yeah, yeah...how friggin' likely is that) I sorta noticed:
In March 2004, Saudi Aramco officials, Abdel-Baqi and Saleri, announced that the current production capacity of 10 million barrels per day
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/gene/peakoil/node2.html
Now they're saying, "Ali Ibrahim Naimi, Saudi Arabia's minister of petroleum and mineral resources, said at the conference that his country has undertaken a major oil-capacity expansion programme aimed at increasing its production capacity to 12 million barrels per day by 2010 and to 15 million barrels per day by 2015 from the current 9.5 million."
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/006200505190305.htm
Typo in the Hindu News Service?
Did Naimi misspeak?
Is it for real????????
I had posted this on another forum when a reread hit me right between the eyes:
Saudi Aramco was saying this over a year ago, "In March, 2004, Saudi Aramco officials, Abdel-Baqi and Saleri, announced that the current production capacity of 10 million barrels per day could be increased to a sustainable 12 million (medium-term) and eventually 15 million barrels per day in the future."
At around that time: Recent Saudi statements and external analysts have cautioned not to expect too much additional Saudi oil production in the near term [1]. In January, 2004, ``OPECs secretary general Purnomo Yusgiantoro told the Financial Times in Jakarta Wednesday, that OPEC members are producing `near maximum capacity', and could do no more to stabilise the market.''
By June 2004:
Saudi Arabia decides to unilaterally increase its crude oil production beyond its quota to 9.1 million barrels per day in June. (Reuters)
Now they're saying, "Ali Ibrahim Naimi, Saudi Arabia's minister of petroleum and mineral resources, said at the conference that his country has undertaken a major oil-capacity expansion programme aimed at increasing its production capacity to 12 million barrels per day by 2010 and to 15 million barrels per day by 2015 from the current 9.5 million.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/chrn2004.html
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/006200505190305.htm
http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/gene/peakoil/node2.html
In Jan '05 however:
Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil in New York surged more than 4 percent after Saudi Arabia said it had reduced output as demand for petroleum products strengthens.
The country has lowered production by 500,000 barrels a day, Reuters cited Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi as saying.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=a2keO_bqrT3Y&refer=europe
I'm just wondering...How many times has Saudi Arabia said during this time that they had raised production by 1/2 mil/day? I think I can recall at least 3 times. It looks to me like they've only done a total increase of 400k/day over a year.
What's up with that?
Are all these jumps and drops an effort to conceal evidence of what Simmons has been saying?
If their peak right now (and for the last year) is 10 mil/day, how can an added 2 mil/day by 2010 meet growing demand like they're now saying they'll be able to do?
It's definitely not adding up. They're right up against being shown to be inadequate already. Why do they think they can risk being found out in a very short time unless something's coming along that will hide that exposure?
The most dire statements I've seen from Simmons came in Feb 2004:
Q & As
During the question period which followed all the presentations, Simmons was noticeably reticent about when Saudi Arabia would peak, but did note that Saudi Aramco had briefly produced over ten million barrels a day in 1981. Afterwards, however he was more forthcoming. "We could be on the verge of seeing a collapse of thirty or forty percent of their production in the imminent future, and imminent means sometime in the next three to five years - but it could even be tomorrow."
Simmons asks why the Saudis are expending so much effort on the old reservoirs if they have so many new ones in the wings, many of which have not even been tested. Could the reason be that many of the other 300 recognized reservoirs "seem to lack permeability, porosity, or aquifer - or all three"?
The `Big Five' (Ghawar, Safaniyah, Hanifa, Khafji and Shuaiba) giant oil fields, all found by the mid 1960s, produced 90% of all Saudi oil in the last half century, but now, Simmons said, they were only being kept going by massive water injection, so that the "sweep of easy conventional oil flow is ending".
This may be most alarmingly true for Ghawar. According to Saudi Aramco, Ghawar is only 48% depleted, though they do admit that the northern and most productive region is 60% down. Simmons says that if Aramco's 1975 reservoir estimate of 60 billion barrels is correct, and he intimates that it is, then Ghawar is in fact 90% drained.
http://www.postcarbon.org/DOCS/2004/03/JulianDarley.Saudi-Simmons.2004-03-15.htm
If this is the year for Simmons' estimates to begin to bear out, this site will be interesting to watch:
http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/index.html
because when you go to the link provided for this...
"Quarterly Summary Review of October-December 2004 Production"
...it doesn't go there.
Go ahead...give it a try from their site:
http://www.saudi-us-relations.org/newsletter2005/saudi-relations-90.html