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July 10, 2006
Thinking about those Saudi oil reserves
This Bhushan Bahree-Russell Gold/WSJ ($) article reports on Chevron Corp's pilot project in Saudi Arabia in which it is using its steam injection technique to to loosen up sludge-like heavy-oil reserves in Wafra, the huge field in the so-called neutral zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Heavy oil is costlier to produce than light oils, typically contains more contaminants such as metals and sulfur, and is priced lower than light oil to boot. But because of the decreasing supply of easily-produceable light oil, a growing number of refineries around the world are acquiring the special equipment necessary to turn heavy oil into petroleum-based products such as gasoline, jet fuel and heating oil. Inasmuch as most heavy-oil fields in Saudi Arabia are not included in the country's current estimate of 260 billion barrels of recoverable reserves, a successful steam injection initiative in such heavy-oil fields would potentially add billions of barrels to Saudi reserves
Meanwhile, Clear Thinkers favorite James Hamilton explores the effect that a recent reduction in Saudi oil production may be having on speculation over oil prices. Interestingly, the drop in Saudi production has occurred at the same time as the Saudis are aggressively increasing their drilling efforts.
Posted by Tom at July 10, 2006 5:03 AM
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