| mar 02 2007 | | Saudis with their heads in the sand. | Are they really unaware of the extent of the depletion of the Ghawar oil field, the largest in the world? No they are lying. Well someone has to keep the con-game going and ensure an orderly market.
Saudi Aramco refuses to allow audits from outsiders. Ghawar reserve is over fifty years old, way past peak for other fields, and unlikely to be any different. The best case is that they are producing 35 percent ‘water cut’. This is because they pump sea water underground to keep the pressure on forcing the oil out. This is standard practice once a mature oil field passes its peak and loses pressure. At the end of 2006 they were producing 9 million barrels a day but still predicting 12 million barrels by 2009. Don’t hold your breath.
Oil production in America peaked in the 70’s as had been predicted. As an example East Texas now has a water cut of 99%, i.e. near total depletion. A much younger field Prudhoe Bay in Alaska has a 75 percent water cut. America will produce 5 million barrels a day in 2007, compared with 10 million barrels in 1970. When you consider that demand in America is around 20 million barrels a day, you can see that imports are needed.
That foreign oil comes from Canada the biggest provider, followed by Mexico and then Saudi Arabia. How secure are these sources? Well, in Canada’s case, very secure, particularly in light of the recent disclosure of secret talks to merge Mexico, America and Canada and pool their resources. In fact this may happen sooner rather than later with the news that Mexico’s Cantarell field is collapsing. Penmex the Mexican national oil company has, like the Saudis, been trying to conceal the catastrophe. Cantarell is declining at an astonishing rate of 40% per year! That’s right, gone in two to three years.
Where else is the oil? Well, there is the Burgan field in Kuwait, which even the Kuwaitis admit is in decline; Iraq (now you know why Cheney can sleep at night counting barrels, while tens of thousands die); the North Sea, well passed its prime, and that’s just the friendlies.
Elsewhere there is the small Daqing field in China; Russia probably more gas than oil, Iran also in serious decline; Venezuela; Nigeria and a few others, not very favourably disposed towards America.
Enough about the Evil Empire, where will the poor nations of the world get the oil they need with the bullying democracies out-bidding third world nations? Answer is they won’t. In the same way as the West holds back from them food to eat, water to drink or shelter to live. NGO’s like charities will have to provide what subsistence they can.
Even so, the available oil will not be sufficient to drive our cars and make plastics, fertilizers, etc. forget alternative forms of energy, while useful and able to contribute a few percent of the total energy needs, a tidal-wave facility will not fuel your car and a wind farm will not produce nylon or polyester.
Without sufficient hydrocarbons our whole way of life will be changed. It is a question of how we transition through that change, who will lead us and where we end up. Totalitarian state or utopia?
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