Kuwait's biggest field starts to run out of oil

AMEInfofn ^ | 11-12-05 | Peter J. Cooper

[NYorkerInHouston]

It was an incredible revelation last week that the second largest oil field in the world is exhausted and past its peak output. Yet that is what the Kuwait Oil Company revealed about its Burgan field.

The peak output of the Burgan oil field will now be around 1.7 million barrels per day, and not the two million barrels per day forecast for the rest of the field's 30 to 40 years of life, Chairman Farouk Al Zanki told Bloomberg.

He said that engineers had tried to maintain 1.9 million barrels per day but that 1.7 million is the optimum rate. Kuwait will now spend some $3 million a year for the next year to boost output and exports from other fields.

However, it is surely a landmark moment when the world's second largest oil field begins to run dry. For Burgan has been pumping oil for almost 60 years and accounts for more than half of Kuwait's proven oil reserves. This is also not what forecasters are currently assuming.

[NYorkerInHouston]

First I have heard of this. It's not Ghawar but as the second largest oil field in the world, it's close. So much for the it can't happen in the middle east crowd. Anyway with luck it will still be several more years before Saudi Arabia needs to make a similar announcement.

[Semper Paratus]

Thanks to the RINOs more Alaskan oil is 12 years out now instead of 10.

[SoFloFreeper]

The peak output of the Burgan oil field will now be around 1.7 million barrels per day, and not the two million barrels per day forecast for the rest of the field's 30 to 40 years of life...

Oh my LORD!! Only 30-40 more YEARS?????

[pabianice]

Wait, wait; don't tell me! This "news" is direct from people in the oil futures market. Right?

[Just mythoughts]

Ah Putin the heir apparent in Oil and our Soros funded moderate publications cheer.

[Dallas59]

Then we start with our coal...

[Paladin2]

Only 30-40 more YEARS?????

Yep, we're DOOMED!

[SlowBoat407]

Then we open up our own oil fields and clean up! What a brilliant plan the enviros and libs cooked up - preserve our oil resources until the rest of the world runs dry. I congratulate them on their foresight, shrewd planning, and inventiveness.

I can dream, can't I?

[mysterio]

I think gas stations can justify raising the price at the pumps 20 or 30 cents just on this news alone, don't you? But it will go back down. Slowly, over the next six months.

[Brilliant]

Remember when Saddam set these fields on fire? All the more reason to fry him.

[Eagles Talon IV]

Do NOT use this as an excuse to drill ANWR!!! The Caribou, oh the poor Caribou!!! The inhumanity of it all!!!

[untrained skeptic]

The article tries to spin this as much as it can a an imminent disaster.

The oil field is still going to be producing oil for another 30 to 40 years, and it's not producing the amount of oil it was at one time, but it's still producing a huge amount of oil.

It does show a need to aggressively persue new sources for oil, and for alternative energy sources.

[Graycliff]

Time to put them on a pump. No big deal. Thats what we do when they quit flowing.

[MeanWestTexan]

In West Texas and New Mexico -- some 75-85% of the oil and gas is still in place -- just got to pay the big bucks ($60/barrel will do nicely). We have just as much as the ME ever thought about.

In reality, the USA is using up the world's cheap oil first, while sitting on the reserves of the expensive oil.

It's not a bad position to be in, for long-term USA strength.

[angkor]

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/bg/bg159/

"Are We Running Out of Oil?"

NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS

Oil production from tar sands in Canada and South America would add about 600 billion barrels to the world's supply

Rocks found in the three western states of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming alone contain 1,500 billion barrels of oil.

Worldwide, the oil-shale resource base could easily be as large as 14,000 billion barrels — more than 500 years of oil supply at year 2000 production rates.

[Author] David Deming of the University of Oklahoma's School of Geology and Geophysics is an Adjunct Scholar with the NCPA.

[NYorkerInHouston]

The fall in production at Burgan is readily overcome, if this is an isolated event. However the great Saudi oilfield are of a similar age, and if the Saudi giants start declining as well, (Ghawar, Safaniya, Abqaiq, etc...) then that is not something easily overcome.

As you say we need to agressively deal with this issue. Geology is not going to wait for politicians.

[NYorkerInHouston]

Oil shale contains not a drop of oil. What it does contain is keragen, which can if properly processed be converted to oil.

Read here for an alternate view of the prospects of shale (mind you I'm still optimistic about Shell's new process, cautiously optimistic but optimistic).

http://www.aspousa.org/assets/pdf/OilShale.pdf

[Doodle]

Every oil field "starts to run out of oil" as soon as the first production well comes on line.

[paul51]

Oh my LORD!! Only 30-40 more YEARS?????

If they were wrong about the 2 million barrels a day, they could be wrong on other estimates also.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

I've often thought this myself - guess it's another part of the law of unintended consequences - the libs as usual are trying to hurt America but they may end up helping her!