New? Saudi oil field?

[Bigmack]

I know Ghawar has peaked, but is all this talk of a new oil field just BS? Says a half-million bbl per day. Seems like they've been trying to get this thing up for a couple of years now.

Anybody got any info other than the Saudi version?

"The kingdom will start pumping oil from its new 500,000 barrel-a-day Khursaniyah field within the next month, a board member of Saudi Aramco said."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=ajynjbyUgDss&refer=energy

[hatrack]

1. Khursaniya is far from new - this is a substantial rework still under way

And it's been delayed at least two or three months already.

[GliderGuider]

2. Much discussion and much skepticism about Khursaniyah on the Oil Drum

Form http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3726:

When OPEC agreed to raise quotas near the end of 2007, Saudi Arabia did in fact raise its production. Its highest single month of production in 2007 was 9.1 million barrels a day, in December 2007. This represented a 500,000 barrel a day increase over its earlier low production of 8.6 million barrels a day, but still left production below both the 2006 average of 9.2 million barrels a day and the 2005 average of 9.6 million barrels a day.

One question too is whether this increase will continue, or if it is just temporary. It is sometimes possible to squeeze out a little extra production for a while, but then production drops back to a more normal level. Saudi Arabia originally planned to have an upgraded field (Khursaniyah) on line by late 2007, which was expected to produce an extra 500,000 barrels a day of oil. It may have thought it could make a spurt of extra production until this field came on line. Now the Khursaniyah field upgrade has been delayed until late 2008. Will Saudi Arabia be able to continue the increase, without the assistance of the Khursaniyah field?

The field has been delayed repeatedly, and Matthew Simmons is very skeptical about its actual potential.

It was originally supposed to come onstream in June 2007, then it was delayed to December 2007, then to March 2008. I don't expect expect it to be up until the fourth quarter, and even then only with token output so they can say they did it.