Everything about Ghawar totally explained
Ghawar is an
oil field in
Saudi Arabia. It is located about 100 km WSW from the city of
Dhahran in
Al-Ahsa county of the
Eastern Province. Measuring 280 km by 30 km, it's by far the largest conventional oil field in the world. The field is entirely owned and operated by
Saudi Aramco, the nationalized Saudi oil company. Relatively little is known about Ghawar because the company and Saudi government closely guard field performance information and per-field production details. Available information is predominantly historical (pre-nationalization), from incidental technical publications, or anecdotal.
Geology
Ghawar occupies an
anticline above a basement fault block dating to
Carboniferous time, about 320 million years ago;
Cretaceous tectonic activity, as the northeast margin of Africa began to impinge on southwest Asia, enhanced the structure. Reservoir rocks are
Jurassic Arab-D limestones with exceptional porosity (as much as 35% of the rock in places),
sourced from the Jurassic Hanifa formation, a marine shelf deposit of mud and lime with as much as 5% organic material (1% to 2% is considered good oil source rock). The seal is an
evaporitic package of rocks including impermeable
anhydrite.
History
Historically, Ghawar has been subdivided into five production areas, from north to south, 'Ain Dar and Shedgum, 'Uthmaniyah, Hawiyah and Haradh. The major oasis of
Al-Ahsa and the city of
Al-Hofuf are located on Ghawar's east flank, corresponding to the 'Uthmaniyah production area. Ghawar was discovered in 1948 and put on stream in 1951. Some sources claim Ghawar
peaked in 2005, though this is strongly contested by the field operators.
Production
Approximately 60-65% of all Saudi
oil produced between 1948 and 2000 came from Ghawar. Cumulative production to the end of 2005 was about 60 billion
barrels. Currently, Ghawar is estimated to produce over 5 million barrels (800,000 m³) of oil a day (6.25% of global production).
Ghawar also produces approximately 2 billion cubic feet (57 Mm³) of natural gas per day.
Field Reserves
Saudi Aramco has stated that it has more than of proven reserves remaining.
Matthew Simmons, in his book
Twilight in the Desert, suggests that production from the Ghawar field and Saudi Arabia, may soon
peak.
When appraised in the 1970s, the field was assessed to have of original oil in place, with about recoverable (1975 Aramco estimate quoted by Matt Simmons). The second figure, at least, was understated, since that production figure has already been exceeded.
[Further Information]
Get more info on 'Ghawar'.
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