tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76873870845308006102012-01-24T13:33:43.570-08:00An unofficial web companion to the book Twilight in the Desert by Matt Simmons. Satellite imagery from Google Earth is used to help analyze the doings of Saudi Aramco.JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.comBlogger271100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-23075803067317832522011-02-09T08:17:00.000-08:002011-02-09T11:31:26.818-08:00

It seems some Saudi diplomatic missives have turned up in the trove of documents that is Wikileaks, and there are claims that Sadad al-Husseini, a former Vice President of Saudi Aramco, was heard dissing the prospects of his former employer. But if you actually read the relevant wikileak, it becomes clear that the Guardian journalist misinterpreted the wikileaked cable -- which perhaps misquoted

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-85946721631247703652010-06-25T06:57:00.000-07:002010-06-25T07:04:13.746-07:00

A mishap during the loading of an oil tanker off Saudi Arabia in 1993 initiated a cascading disaster, resulting in what was the largest offshore oil spill ever, but the oil was mostly recovered by deploying supertankers to vacuum up the spill. This is the story told by a former Saudi Aramco engineer in concert with his efforts to convince BP and the U.S. Coast Guard to consider this approach for

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-64465863259952534892010-03-03T20:04:00.000-08:002011-09-01T18:19:12.806-07:00

The Haradh III development at the southern tip of the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia, completed in 2006, has been portrayed by the national oil company Saudi Aramco as the turning point in the battle between geological adversity and engineering prowess. The poorest reservoir rock in Ghawar has succumbed to the latest in well and drilling technology. Aided by 3D Seismic images showing fracture

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-66969701618871795472009-06-11T09:37:00.000-07:002009-06-11T09:40:17.379-07:00

Something of interest from the announcement that the Khurais project has started pumping: - The project involved drilling 420 wells and building four oil processing facilities and two more for gas. More than 28,000 workers and 26 contractors worked at Khurais.- The field needs two million barrels per day of water injection but lies 190 km from Aramco's Qurayyah seawater treatment plant. That

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-61405878794138624242009-06-04T16:53:00.000-07:002009-06-08T07:44:51.032-07:00

A few months back, Saudi Aramco commissioned a story about the first wells in the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest. With the title "Ghawar's Magnificent Five", it was published first on the Saudi Aramco website but has subsequently appeared elsewhere. Saudi Aramco later published the same article along with the companion piece "Still Going Strong" (subtitled "57-year-old

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-56100740202957069682008-12-16T06:26:00.000-08:002008-12-16T10:18:45.414-08:00

[cross posted from The Oil Drum]Given the central role Saudi Arabia will play in the world's energy future, the continued fuzziness regarding its oil prospects is cause for concern. According to the IEA 2008 World Energy Outlook, Saudi Arabia will remain the world’s largest producer through at least 2030 as its output climbs from 10.2 mb/d (million barrels per day) in 2007 to 14.4 mb/d in 2015

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-36393155979304461042008-07-01T11:41:00.000-07:002008-07-01T11:43:32.568-07:00

Get your tickets now:Khurais Media Tours

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-85690533014481858392008-06-20T15:52:00.001-07:002008-06-24T12:05:08.071-07:00

Using the updated Google Earth view (and DigitalGlobe imagery) for Ghawar which includes the Shedgum area, here is an update of the comparison of where older (before 2000) and later wells have been placed.In the left image, red and blue placemarks indicate locations of oil and water wells respectively. In the right image, green circles denote recent well locations and diamonds indicate drilling

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-8952151438746639412008-06-08T08:18:00.000-07:002008-06-12T10:16:27.349-07:00

A bit over a year ago, Saudi Aramco announced two oil discoveries near the Ghawar oil field. From their 2007 Annual Review:The first, Mabruk, struck on April 26, is the first discovery in the Hadriyah reservoir south of Ghawar.The Mabruk-1 well flowed 5,600 bpd of Arabian Heavy oil with 2 million standard cubic feet perday (scfd) of gas. Under normal production conditions, the well is expected to

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-11491390709672420692008-05-30T21:22:00.000-07:002008-05-30T21:38:13.620-07:00

In a shocking turn of events, Saudi Aramco engineers belatedly discovered -- to their horror -- that they had mistakely been using blue Jello-brand gelatin instead of drilling mud to drill several wells in the Fadhili field, part of the Khursaniyah redevelopment project which is six months behind schedule. "Things did seem to be taking an unusually long time", related one worker who wished to

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-54474146701792913142008-05-27T21:04:00.000-07:002008-05-27T21:15:38.103-07:00

With today's update to the Google Earth imagery, most of Ghawar is finally covered at high resolution. Shown at left below if how Ghawar looked for most of the last couple of years, and right shows the updated look. The welcome additions include the central swath down Shedgum into Uthmaniyah (upper right part of image) and the northern half of Haradh (the lowermost area). The new coverage dates

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-53497327038097487642008-05-23T13:53:00.000-07:002008-05-23T21:16:05.533-07:00

This post is somewhat of a change from the usual pondering about what is going on in Saudi Arabia (see the topic list at left), but it is every bit as intriquing. The Google Earth team occasionally updates the current satellite imagery in small selected areas. I don't have a real clear idea of how areas to update are chosen. I do know that DigitalGlobe (who provides the high-resolution photos

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-65278393024646971362008-05-15T16:02:00.000-07:002008-05-15T18:56:45.073-07:00

Abqaiq, an aging super giant Saudi Arabian oil field, has yielded over 11 billion barrels of oil since it was discovered in November of 1940. Its past provides us with the poster child for easy oil. The first well flowed at 9720 barrels per day, a far cry from today's land finds where multiple horizontal laterals are necessary to coax lesser quantities from stingier reservoirs. But Abqaiq's more

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-74529941705267083732008-05-07T21:00:00.000-07:002008-05-07T21:04:31.330-07:00

Analysts Neil McMahon and Ben Dell from Bernstein Research are back with more analysis. When we last heard from them, they were looking for Haradh in all the wrong places and reporting on the widespread dismantling and bulldozing of oil wells in Ghawar, the super giant oil field in Saudi Arabia. As promised, they have returned with a study purporting to show that Ghawar is not rapidly depleting

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-46687815449601745502008-03-25T15:50:00.000-07:002008-03-28T07:11:59.269-07:00

Now showing: a movie on the drilling of Uthmaniyah. Using a set of wells in a productive (but now rather depleted) slice of this part of the Saudi oil field of Ghawar, it is possible to deduce to drilling sequence of these wells using the identifiers assigned to the wells as they are drilled. Given a few known dates for well placement, a timeline for overall development can be constructed and

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-80645299977768143672008-03-18T13:32:00.000-07:002008-03-20T14:22:11.553-07:00

I have seen the future of Saudi Arabian oil production, and it is Harmaliyah. No, really. Sure, there are a couple more good doses of oil to be had from Khurais and Manifa -- and perhaps a bit more from Shaybah -- but after that, what is there but a lot of little fields discovered years ago and produced for a short while before being mothballed? Saudi Aramco essentially admits this by including

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-8162188213346808312008-03-08T14:53:00.000-08:002008-06-24T11:59:39.822-07:00

Khurais. It is the best of fields. It is the worst of fields. It is another chip off the old block, destined to prolong Saudi Arabia's dominance as an oil producer. It is a chink in the armor of the Saudi Oil Miracle, a symbol of a lesser future. Do tell, which is it? Amidst a lot of speculation, there are a few knowns. The Khurais Megaproject is the largest integrated development project in

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-52832143308179675352008-02-26T10:09:00.000-08:002008-02-29T18:55:56.767-08:00

Haradh is the southernmost operational area of the Ghawar oil field, and Increment III represents the development of the bottom third of the area. This project was completed and production brought online in early 2006, although the field wasn't producing at the planned output capacity of 300,000 barrels of oil per day until mid year. The infrastructure put in place includes 32 maximum reservoir

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-75489253243193841662008-01-31T10:22:00.000-08:002008-02-07T06:25:43.536-08:00

By using oil well locations and approximate ages identified using Google Earth, geo-referenced well spacing maps, and several SPE publications, a more complete picture of the status of the 'Ain Dar operational area of the Ghawar oil field is obtained. Recent wells have been drilled in the very top of the Arab-D reservoir and in areas where an uneven water flood has left oil behind. The location

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-59357967343113247922008-01-28T05:38:00.001-08:002008-01-29T14:47:34.892-08:00

A recent investors report was produced by Neil McMahon and Ben Dell of Bernstein Research entitled "Bernstein Energy: Saudi and Ghawar from Space! Using proprietary satellite data to test the conspiracy theory". (The report is not available online, but a press release has been widely circulated). It described computer analysis of ASTER satellite imagery taken in 2004 and 2007 and the authors

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-83164352632525543022008-01-25T11:57:00.000-08:002008-06-24T12:06:56.665-07:00

Ghawar has been churning out oil for over 50 years, and even this massive resource is finite; it has been depleting since day one. As the oil in the reservoir is replaced by injected water from the periphery inward, the outermost wells will begin to produce increasing amounts of water and less oil. To maintain production level, new wells will be drilled in the middle of the field. To what extent

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-32384878050514206222008-01-25T10:33:00.000-08:002008-01-25T11:13:50.542-08:00

Provided that one can distinguish between oil and gas wells, one thing to do is to find them all and document where they are. Google Earth makes this easy, as you can add a placemark at a precise location and save the collection of placemarks in a file. You can also display them all together to get an overall picture of where wells have been drilled.Shown below is a composite of all the wells

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-22888657164915802782008-01-23T12:05:00.000-08:002010-03-25T16:24:32.923-07:00

[Edit 03/25/2009: The current version of GE simplifies the task of dating images. When you zoom into an area, the photograph date is displayed at the bottom of the window. In addition, there is a "Historical Imagery" feature for going back in time to load earlier hi-res images (if available). But, this blog post describes how much more difficult this was when I began this research.]After figuring

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-65166646090529329052008-01-23T09:05:00.000-08:002008-01-23T15:40:52.540-08:00

There are many types of wells visible in the satellite images: oil wells, gas wells, water or gas injection wells, observation wells, etc. How does one distinguish them?At high enough image resolution, there are some consistent differences, as shown in the following image of two adjacent wells in Ghawar:Both wells are characterized by a broad rectangular area, roughly 100-150 meters on a side,

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-88827757235546019062008-01-23T07:15:00.000-08:002008-01-28T17:12:35.488-08:00

Well, you can see working oil wells, as well as those being drilled:Oil well in Uthmaniyah...and gas wells and those being drilled:...and Gas Oil Separation Plants (GOSPs):(Google Maps uses the same imagery)...and pipelines, roads, buildings, vehicles, drilling rigs, etc. By tilting the azimuth away from vertical, we can even create pseudo aerial views:The Shaybah oilfield from one mile up,

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-82539392466585135582008-01-23T06:32:00.000-08:002008-01-23T07:07:24.604-08:00

This analysis is brought to you by Google Earth, the freely available tool for viewing high-resolution satellite imagery for anywhere on Earth. This application stitches together multiple satellite photographs to create a browsable and zoomable view of the planet. The images used come from multiple sources. The highest-resolution images are obtained from Digital Globe (taken by the Quickbird

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7687387084530800610.post-52999200192035373042008-01-21T11:10:00.000-08:002010-07-26T19:16:11.415-07:00

This blog presents satellite imagery and analysis pertinent to the energy infrastructure of Saudi Arabia and Saudi Aramco, the state-owned petroleum company. Because Saudi Arabia is home to the world's most productive oil fields, it has attained an almost mythical status in its ability to delivery increasing amounts of energy now as well as in the future.While Saudi Arabian oil accounts for less

JoulesBurnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09691566582963347598noreply@blogger.com0