Saudi Arabia, Kuwait Face End Of 'Easy Oil' With Ambitious Experiment

WAFRA, Kuwait -- The Arabian Peninsula has fueled the global economy with oil for five decades. How long it can continue to do so hinges on projects like one unfolding here in the desert sands along the Saudi Arabia-Kuwait border.

Saudi Arabia became the world's top oil producer by tapping its vast reserves of easy-to-drill, high-quality light oil. But as demand for energy grows and fields of "easy oil" around the world start to dry up, the Saudis are turning to a much tougher source: the billions of barrels of heavy oil trapped beneath the desert.

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Comments

[Boobuzuela]

05:49 PM on 05/25/2011

If ya can't get past the WSJ paywall, read the comments.

I suspect they're more interesting than the article itself.

[StopMakingSense2]

01:42 PM on 05/25/2011

Fear not the republicans are on this! LOL! Drill baby drill? Sure holes in their heads to explore for neurons. It will be difficult with low chance of success. If we would stop favoring the fossil fuel industry with tax breaks, leases for a pittance, and other favorable treatment maybe the free market thing that republicans drone on about when they think it favors them, and ignore when it doesn't (no bid contracts, etc.), might actually work! Or at least subsidize alternatives at the same level. Regardless republicans once again have nothing that will do the nation any good but will up their campaign contributions and agitate their legions of lemmings.

[Kenz300]

09:28 AM on 05/25/2011

PEAK OIL ... .those that believe in PEAK OIL theory say that rising demand from China and India will soon outpace the world ability to supply ever more oil raising the price for all.

It is time to transition to safe, clean alternative energy. Wind, solar, wave energy, geothermal and second generation biofuels made from algae, cellulose and waste are the future.

THe price of oil is going up. Will we be ready will more fuel efficient vehicles? Bring on the electric, flex-fuel and hybrid vehicles.

It is time to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and quit sending our money to countries that want to do us harm. Our economic security and national security will depend on our transition to alternative energy sources.

[hculliton]

09:40 AM on 05/25/2011

I hate to say it, but all the green energy sources, electric, hybrid and flexi-fuel cars still require massive oil inputs to build. Given that today each calorie of food we eat requires anywhere from 4 to 10 calories of oil to grow, and it becomes clear that we are facing substantally more severe problems then trying to keep the same systems going using alternative fuels. Say goodbye to Walmart, the 'burbs, and a car in each laneway. We're going to have our hands full just trying to feed ourselves and mayby keeping the lights on.

[MrBadExample]

07:21 AM on 05/25/2011

Interesting decision of the WSJ to put this behind its pay wall. It's a far more honest discussion about the peak oil problem than has been common in US MSM--similar articles have appeared in the Guardian and other European outlets, but those sources don't become grist for the chattering classes.

And neither does the Journal. While the NY Times has been touting the rosy prognostications of Dan Yergin at CERA and Times columnist Clifford Krause (see 'there will be fuel' http://www.huffingtonpost.com/asher-miller/there-will-be-fuel-an-ope_b_786807.html), the Journal has the attention of the country's business class. And the business class is watching this problem extremely closely.  World economic growth is based on cheap energy. If there's no cheap oil possible in places like Saudi Arabia, then economic growth is over.

If we had an attentive punditry, this story would be topic A on all the news shows.

[GetAbike]

01:53 PM on 05/25/2011

Thanks for the synopsis friend.
Like someone pointed out, the MSM can't bring themselves to use the phrase "peak oil", but can say, "end of easy oil".
When it comes to KSA and the bs that they are doing and uttering, i smell desperation.
Guess i better get on-board with that sense of urgency, as i have gotten a bit soft the last couple of years.
;-)

[MrBadExample]

09:29 PM on 05/24/2011

The basics of the article (which is pirated on several peak-oil sites if you know where to look) is that the bulk of the oil left in places like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait is heavy sour and cannot be pumped out through conventional means. Here's the money quote:


With no fresh-water sources in the Ara­bian desert, Chevron has been forced to use salt water found in the same under­ground reser­voirs as the oil. That water is full of con­t­a­m­i­nants that must be removed before it can be boiled and injected into the ground.


Find­ing the energy to boil the water will be even tougher. Chevron could use oil instead of nat­ural gas—literally burn­ing oil to pro­duce oil—but that would burn prof­its, too. So the com­pany likely will be forced to import nat­ural gas from over­seas, an expen­sive process that involves chill­ing it to turn it into a liq­uid, then ship­ping it thou­sands of miles.

in other words, there's plenty of oil left. It's just too expensive to get out. Which kind of covers a lot of other oil 'discoveries' like shale and deepwater discoveries like Jack II. And if this is what the Saudis are reduced to, the world has a big energy problem.

[wernerholm]

01:12 AM on 05/25/2011

Thank you so much for that... I was going to make a caustic comment about HP linking to a "story" that says "oops... the subscription link was broken"....oh what the heck,

Nice job HP... drumming up subscriptions for Murdoch these days, eh?

[hculliton]

09:32 AM on 05/25/2011

Excellent summary. I agree with your assessment that peak oil/end of cheap oil - whatever one wants to call it - seems almost deliberatly overlooked by most media sources. Perhaps because it's seen as too frightening for the masses. Personally, I think that along with climate change, peak oil is going to be the major major driver of human history for the forseeable future. And we probably won't like where it drives us.

[democrats for life]

07:15 PM on 05/24/2011

peak oil was 1979, 32 years ago. the middle east will be completely be dried up within 5 years. the 1st country to find a good alternative energy source will be the richest country in the world

[liberalbug]

10:13 PM on 05/24/2011

Although i think the dry up will be farther out than five years, I can say with certainty that T]the middle east is gonna freakin explode when that tap dries up, just explode. the civil unrest we are seeing today will seem like a walk in the park to the corrupt governments the west has been propping up for so very long.

[GerryS]

12:29 AM on 05/25/2011

Post some serious links to your claim

Please and Thank You------

[wernerholm]

01:14 AM on 05/25/2011

http://www.kunstler.com

[democrats for life]

10:12 AM on 05/25/2011

http://www.ameinfo.com/71519.html

[Hank007]

06:05 PM on 05/24/2011

Easy Oil ends when the US taxpayer no longer supports the use of its military to get and protect foreign resources for private companies. The minute Saudi Arabia becomes a democracy, we're finished.

[wernerholm]

01:15 AM on 05/25/2011

the minute Saudi Arabia becomes Los Angles we're finished

[wernerholm]

01:16 AM on 05/25/2011

If Saudi Arabia lets women drive... we're finished.... Can you imagine the feets of SUV's??? Packing the kids off the the madrasa in the moring.... and soccer practice???

[Boobuzuela]

05:50 PM on 05/25/2011

Minivans are proof of evil incarnate.

[Hoz Hoven]

04:17 PM on 05/24/2011

hate these "click through" stories. IF I WANTED THE WALL STREET JOURNAL I'D ALREADY HAVE IT. Guess AOL needs the click revenue.

[logicanada]

03:35 PM on 05/24/2011

The Arabian Peninsula has fueled the global economy with oil for five decades.

Think about that.

Now consider that oil consumption is over 100 times what it was in the 1960's and current demands are about 1 billion barrels every 11 days.

New horizontal drilling techniques allow extraction over a hundred meters of zone as opposed to just several meters a few years ago and still costs are rising because production cannot keep up with demand.

Now consider China which has an economy growing at 10%+ per anum.

So, billions of barrels of 'heavy oil' is not a significant find.
Peak oil has passed.
Time to change our thinking.

[hculliton]

09:42 AM on 05/25/2011

100% correct!

[CCverve]

12:31 PM on 05/24/2011

What a misleading headline. Heavy or sour crude has been at the pinhead of oil field development for some years now. Light sweet crude is the primary reason the world is focused on Libya now as it is one of the last known locations for the highly saught after resource.

for heavy crude Athabasca oil sands in Canada are a fine example. Plenty of resource but the problem is the sulfur content is high,exploitation methods are primative and it is expensive to refine. We need better technology to address better ways to extract and refine the resource.

By the way China's CNOC and Saudi ARAMCO are ALREADY there. Oil is an international business.

[NickTAZ]

12:26 PM on 05/24/2011

Dear HuffPo, please stop posting links that ask for us to pay money to read the story. We all come here for free news. Frankly, it's just irritating.

[wernerholm]

01:20 AM on 05/25/2011

and we usually get what we pay for! (roflmao)

[GetAbike]

11:55 AM on 05/24/2011

Hello Editor- your "read the whole story" line ignores the fact that the the story is behind a paywall- or at least requires a subscription.
As a news aggregator, doesn't HP pay for the stories they post?

[MrBadExample]

06:15 PM on 05/24/2011

hey, GetABike:
If you google the title phrase, you'll find that several people have posted the article for free.
 
Long story short--the majors are trying to pump steam into the fields to make the heavy sour stuff flow. per usual, WSJ got big pieces of the story wrong (they say there's 3 T barrels LEFT, while most geologists say we had 3T total). But implicit in the text is the idea that the majors are saying we're sunk if this doesn't work.

[hculliton]

09:46 AM on 05/25/2011

Many OPEC states have been grossly overstating their reserves for years. If the Saudis are investing this much in heavy oil and offshore drilling, I think that tells us that we're already sunk.

[littlepuffycloud]

11:50 AM on 05/24/2011

It's all about fracking now, people... Cheseapeake Energy has been quietly doing it for years..they know it's dangerous to the earth and people, and costly to do, but cheaper than drilling for oil.

[hculliton]

10:09 AM on 05/25/2011

Note my avatar: fracking has a couple of meanings to me! Seriously, natural gas is not viable as a long term alternative to oil, reseves tend to deplete quickly. I think in the medium term the damage to the Cheseapeake region will far outweigh the energy gained from the fracked gas.

[littlepuffycloud]

10:50 AM on 05/25/2011

Chesapeake Energy is an oil/gas company headquartered in OKC. They don't care about any damage to any region anywhere in the country. Their president, Aubrey McClendon, stated his 2009 Christmas wish to be 'The coldest winter on record on the East Coast'.

[blueken]

11:01 AM on 05/24/2011

We should be saving our oil for heavy industry, pharmecuticals and lubrication. Home heating, electical generation and transportation needs to move away from fossil fuels.

[Kenz300]

10:00 AM on 05/24/2011

Those that believe PEAK OIL theory say that rising demand from China and India will soon outpace the worlds ability to supply ever increasing amounts of oil raising the price for all.

It is time to transition to safe, clean alternative energy. Wind, solar, wave energy, geothermal and second generation biofuels made from algae, cellulose and waste are the future.

We need to stop sending our money to countries that want to do us harm. Our economic security and national security will depend on our transition to alternative energy.

[BBackSoon]

10:11 AM on 05/24/2011

I could not agree more but those people that make all that money do not care about our country or for that matter any other country. They care about more money, and they have a proven business model and will milk every last penny out of it before they move to something else. They will also fight ferociously to defend that business model and do their best to slow the pace of alternative energies.

[NickTAZ]

12:30 PM on 05/24/2011

Luckily, America still leads the world in new energy R & D. Not that we couldn't do more; we certainly could. The real issue for us here in the U.S. is who will manufacture the technology we invent! Right now, it's China. U.S. taxpayers subsidize R & D just so some company can take the technology and outsource it's production. We really should give some sort of royalty rights to the American public if their money funds new energy development.

[noblechaos]

12:43 PM on 05/24/2011

The US leads energy R&D? Really, China invested $52bn in research in 2010.