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.

[HamiltonJay]

Even if every liquid oil field in the world dried up, we know where enough oil is for another 200+ years.. its just harder to extract.... so this doom and gloom of running out of oil is nonsense at this point.

[LaMudBug]

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

Would you feel more comfortable if the news had come from the sugar cane industry??

[Fresh Wind]

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

You mean those people who bet on oil going to $100/barrel a few months ago, and who are now s****** bricks because it isn't?

[Lazamataz]

I've read about new tech that makes it easy and profitable to get oil shale -- of which we have massive amounts domestically -- to yeild oil.

I'm not worried.

[hosepipe]

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

Somebodys Lamborghini payment is due... or it needs a brake job..

[GreenAccord]

That is an excellent article and it pretty much serves as the 'sock' for peak oil devotees to stuff in their pie-holes.

Thanks for the link.

[tertiary01]

I heard waaaaaaay back in the '70's how we only had thirty more years of oil in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD. Why are the doomsday estimates always for thirty years? Hmmmmm.....

[thackney]

If I recall correctly.... my understanding about oil wells is that, as years of production pass, the light sweet crude (the easily refined stuff) comes out of the ground first and is (obviously) the first to be depleted. What's left ("at the bottom") as an oil well ages is heavy, sour crude -- a sludgy concoction with lots of sulfur and other impurities.

You do not recall correctly.

[untrained skeptic]

I have little doubt that there's a lot of oil left to squeeze out of Kuwait's oil fields. However, it will become more expensive to extract the oil as time goes on.

I don't think we aren't facing a shortage of oil any time soon. However, unless we continue to explore for new sources, and alternatives, it's going to become increasingly costly.

However, increasing costs starts making alternatives more attractive, so if the government would not interfere, I think any energy crisis we might face would be short.

However, interfering is what governments do best.

[bert]

The field has been running out of oil since the first drop was pumped.

[NYorkerInHouston]

Thackney,

When you get a chance take a look at this pdf and tell me what you make of it. It takes 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

[Netheron]

U235

Pu239

That's all the oil we'll ever need.

[Eagles Talon IV]

The delicate tundra provides shelter and life support for a myriad of bugs and other creatures none of which this planet could possibly exist without.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

So, will this oil field be truly exhausted at the end of forty years, or will there still be 3/4 of its total oil waiting for better extraction techniques to come along?

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

We'll be fine. Expensive, yes.

But fine.

Provided the RINOs let us have access to the stuff.

[photodawg]

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

down 300 million barrels a day times forty years is a significant reduction. combined with the increased demand from China, India, and developing world, and reduced refining capacity and you have an acute problem in the near term. I hope you are not one of those people that whine about high gas prices and oil company profit gouging because you ain't seen nothin yet!. The facts are we have a short term problem that will create economic havoc for the industrialized world.That's fact, not alarmist "chicken little" pathology.

[thackney]

Shell is not the only companies producing from Shale. It is new and expensive technology. It will grow in use and come down in price. Extended oil prices in the current range will see an increase in production from Shale. Just as it have over the last few years increased the production from Alberta Coal Tar Sands.

[R. Scott]

…none of which this planet could possibly exist without.

Like the poor giant mosquitoes?

[Eagles Talon IV]

Gianty Mosquitos, yeah like the ones from New Joisey...err New Jersey.

[meatloaf]

Syncrude's production is up to about 250,000 bbl/day from the oil sands. Apparently Canada's currently known reserves are about two-thirds that of the Saudis'. Companies working the oil sands are expanding like crazy. With production costs around $18 per bbl, it's easy to see why. From what I've read most of that production is destined for the US.

The best thing that could happen is for the Middle East to run out of oil. Terrorists would have to hang out on street corners with tin cups and beg.