“Halliburton was awarded a five year integrated turnkey contract for Ghawar field. Work will be performed in Uthmaniyah, Haradh, Hawiyah and Shedgum. The announcement makes no mention of Ain Dar, the most mature part of Ghawar in the extreme northwestern region of the field. Ain Dar has been under pressure maintenance by peripheral water injection for over 40 years. Ain Dar (and other parts of the field) began producing salt water in the late 1970s and by 2005, the cut was 42%. All of Ain Dar was wet since 1984. Once water became a major problem, many existing vertical wells were converted to short lateral horizontals running along the top 10 feet of the Arab D zone, the main pay. New wells were drilled horizontally to the same layer. Today, the redevelopment process has gone on so long that future oil production from Ain Dar is speculative.Today, the entire field still contains a great deal of crude oil but it is much harder to get and the production rates continue to fall off. Halliburton’s mandate will be to deal with higher and higher water cuts, utilize all known new technology to hold rates as high as possible and stimulate wells as required. The total number of wells drilled in Ghawar exceeds one thousand including hundreds of vertical wells that have either been abandoned or converted to horizontals.”

Now if we have got severe problems at the world’s largest oil field, which produces 5-5.5 million barrels a day or 7% of world oil, then why is it not being reflected in any of the publications? The oil data being over estimated, is like blindfolding the world, leading to irresponsible behavior of its citizens. Its time for a reality check, Mat Simmons has being asking for higher data transparency in world oil figures ever since he became suspicious about the amount of oil left for production.