Saudi Oil Reserve Estimates Challenged

WorldTrade Executives Dr. Kent Moors is challenging Saudi oil reserve estimates.

(PRWEB) August 3, 2005 -- In the current edition of WorldTrades Middle East Business Strategies, Moors writes that Aramco, the Saudi national oil company, must allow independent third party auditing of Saudi fields. Such auditing has not taken place since 1979.

Saudi reserves are the basis for global oil market stability," Moors states. The fear will grow that Saudi production concentrated in a few aging fields combined with the dismal results in the attempt to find new ones, may not result in a gradual decline in extraction but an abrupt one. The only way to do dispel it, and settle down the markets, is to provide the hard data."

Moors, an internationally-recognized expert in post-Soviet/ Persian Gulf oil and a contributing editor at WorldTrade Executive, adds that sources at Aramco confide the officially-announced ability of its fields to sustain increased production to 12.5 million barrels a day, thereby meeting rising world demand, may not be sustainable.

In response to Saudi Oil Ministry claims that a higher level of 15 million barrels a day could be maintained for 70-80 years, Moors states that such high levels of production from so few fields would permanently damage the deposits. Even then, Aramco officials are privately saying such levels could be maintained for only a decade at best," Moors adds.

The skeptics include Sadad al-Husseini, who until March 2004 was the president of Aramco. In response to a specific question on the sustainability of the 15 million bpd production level, al-Husseini told Middle East Business Strategies that the level would be difficult to
achieve without signification dislocation of the reservoirs and could not be maintained long term.

Middle East Business Strategies is published by WorldTrade Executive, Inc. in association with Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

In addition to Middle East Business Strategies, other energy periodicals produced by WorldTrade Executive, Inc. include Russian Petroleum Investor, Caspian Investor and Latin American Energy Report.

To interview Dr. Moors, contact Jay Stanley at WorldTrade Executive, Inc. at 978-287-0301.03 or at 2250 Main St., Concord, MA 01742 USA.

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