ERHC Energy Inc (ERHE)

[mugwump]

suadis admit oil field output decline
711. Saudi Arabia struggles to maintain production
Saudi Aramco admits that the natural decline of its old fields is now running at 8% a year. Infill drilling
can of course help offset the decline but it is a losing battle. Overall it begins to sound as if Saudi Arabia has
passed its Peak (see Item 713 below for a re-evaluation of this country).
Saudi Aramco's mature crude oil fields are expected to decline at a gross average rate of 8%/year without
additional maintenance and drilling, a Saudi Aramco spokesman said Tuesday.
But Saudi Aramco has taken a number of measures to offset a decline in output from the country's
aging oil fields, the spokesman added. "A variety of remedial activities are always being taken in oil
fields influencing their effective decline rates," the spokesman said. "The drilling of additional
development wells in the producing fields is Saudi Aramco's standard practice to offset normal declines
of older wells."
This is particularly important when oil fields are progressively depleted under a well thought out
strategy of maximizing the sweep and displacement efficiencies, leading to high ultimate oil recovery, the
spokesman said.
"This maintain potential drilling in mature fields combined with a multitude of remedial actions and
the development of new fields, with long plateau lives, lowers the composite decline rate of producing
fields to around 2%," the spokesman said.
Underscoring these efforts, Saudi Aramco signed two contracts with J. Ray McDermott Middle East
and McDermott Arabia Company Ltd, subsidiaries of J. Ray McDermott, to detail design, procure,
fabricate, transport and install offshore facilities for the Maintain Potential and Khursaniyah Upstream