Peak Oil nears, world's 2nd largest field declines

[gasperc]

A truly ominous sign, couple this with Juan Cole's comments yesterday about the violence spreading and taking our whole energy supply down with it,(www.juancole.com) and next year will be quite a shit storm. The most shocking part of the article is how massive amounts of sea water are pumped back into some of SA fields. I don't know the technical reasons for this, I suppose it helps push up more oil but the key point is that alot of what is pumped out is the sea water. And they seem to count that towards the field's output. So the world's #1 field may also be in decline.

shit storm city


http://www.ameinfo.com/71519.html
<snip>
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.


Forecasts wrong
Last week the International Energy Agency's report said output from the Greater Burgan area will be 1.64 million barrels a day in 2020 and 1.53 million barrels per day in 2030. Is this now a realistic scenario?

<snip>

[depakid]

1. Link?

The article doesn't seem to be on that page.

[gasperc]

2. fixed

I had to go back to dailykos to find the article. It seems to be buried quite well at the ameinfo website. Interesting how even these explosive article's get buried. I guess the oil markets are banking on the Alberta oil sands. I think our only and best hope is massive energy diversification, wind farms, tidal farms, solar, biodiesal, even nuclear,
and the oil execs seem to be partly right, the markets do work and people will switch vehicles and change habits as the oil companies only alternative will be to raise prices to stabilize supply and prevent shortages which is by far worse.