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 Is the Ghawar Oilfield Running Out of Oil? - Enterprise Venture Capital

However, an increasing number of industry analysts feel that this indeed might be the case. Those who are of this persuasion point to the situation in Saudi Arabia, the largest oil producer for the past 30 years, or so. It has been rumored for years that its largest oil field, Ghawar, is in permanent decline.

If you don't know anything about Ghawar, it is by far the biggest conventional oil field in the world, measuring an estimated 175 miles by 20 miles. Currently, the huge field is said to produce between 4.5 and 5 million barrels of oil per day by outside observers, which is over six percent of global production. The officially stated maximum Enterprise Venture Capital venture capital list crude production capacity is 8.5 million barrels per day, though actual daily output is a closely-guarded state secret. Thus far, approximately 60 billion barrels have been pumped out of Ghawar since production began back in 1951.

Ghawar's total proven reserves, also known as 'recoverable' oil, still left in the ground, have been pegged at just over 70 billion barrels by Saudi Aramco, the nationalized oil company which is the largest of its type in the world. The word 'recoverable' is extremely relevant, as the entire amount of oil in the ground is much less important than the amount that can easily be harvested at a given level of extractive technology. While modern techniques can certainly boost the amount of oil that vending machine parts be extracted per oil field, the question of how expensive the operation turns out to be remains extremely pertinent. Once oil extraction becomes too difficult, and therefore expensive, it becomes economically infeasible to attempt to remove the remaining supply.

Saudi Arabia is watched very closely because of its importance in the worldwide oil markets. It has long held the mantle as the world's biggest producer of oil, vending machine parts has acted as a 'swing producer,' increasing and reducing oil extraction rates to balance to the global market in concert with the other OPEC members.

A significant amount of worrying signs clearly indicate that Saudi Arabia's largest field might be in permanent decline. Early in 2006, a Saudi Aramco spokesman made the stunning admission that its first discovered fields are now declining at a rate of 8 percent per year. This, of course, implies that Ghawar may have 'peaked.' t shirt spokesman went on to say that measures were being taken to offset the decline, but that the only viable solution to declining oil supplies is to locate new fields, and it has been frequently noted by industry insiders that new findings have not kept pace with burgeoning worldwide demand.