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The Burgan field is an oil field situated in the desert of southeastern
Kuwait Kuwait (; ar, الكويت ', or ), officially the State of Kuwait ( ar, دولة الكويت '), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated in the northern edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, bordering Iraq to the nort ...
. Burgan field can also refer to the Greater Burgan—a group of three closely spaced fields, which includes Burgan field itself as well as the much smaller Magwa and Ahmadi fields. Greater Burgan is the world's largest
sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...
oil field, and the second-largest overall, after
Ghawar Ghawar (Arabic: الغوار) is an oil field located in Al-Ahsa Governorate, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia. Measuring (some ), it is by far the largest conventional oil field in the world, and accounts for roughly a third of the cumulative ...
. The Burgan Field is located on the coast of the
Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bod ...
which played a huge part in the creation of this prominent reservoir formation many million years ago.


Discovery and geology

A natural surface oil seep above the Burgan field was known to humankind since neolithic time, bituminous material from a reed boat discovered in As-Sabiyah/North Kuwait and dated 5000 BC have been traced back to this seep. The subsurface reservoirs of the Burgan oil field were discovered in February, 1938. The US and UK-owned Kuwait Oil Company began commercial oil production at Burgan in 1946. The Greater Burgan, a wider area around Burgan, is the world largest
sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...
( clastic) oil field with the total surface area of about 1000 km2. It includes three producing subfields: Burgan itself (500 km2), Magwa (180 km2) and Ahmadi (140 km2). The Burgan field's structure is an anticlinal dome having an elliptical shape and transected by numerous radial faults. Both Magwa and Ahmadi are located on smaller, subsidiary domes north of Burgan.The Great Burgan Field, Kuwait
by Rasoul Sorkhabi, GeoExpro Volume 9, Issue 1, 2012
The oil is contained in the four main horizons of
Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...
age: Wara (sandstone), Mauddud (limestone), Burgan Third Sand (3S) and Burgan Fourth Sand (4S). Burgan Third Sand is in turn subdivided into Third Sand Upper (3SU), Third Sand Middle (3SM) and Third Sand Lower (3SL). Historically the production has come mainly from the 3SM unit. By 1992 the second and third sand units had been swept by water.


Stratigraphy

The Burgan Oil Field is made up of three main subsurface structures known as the Magwa, Ahmadi, And Burgan formation. The deeper reservoirs, namely the Lower Cretaceous Ratawi and Minagish limestones and the Jurassic Marrat Formation also contain significant oil reserves but are less substantial. The Magwa and Ahmadi formation are separated from the Burgan formation by a normal fault cutting horizontally down through the whole structure. This is known as the Burgan Graben. The role of tectonic stresses that have affected this region in Mesozoic and Cenozoic times also play a part in much of the faultings seen in the formation. Looking closer at the Burgan field the formation is made up of several radial faults that help trap the petroleum content in the formation. These faults and the Burgan graben are what cause the compartmentalization of the reservoir. This compartmentalization makes for great petroleum play and holds it in place well over a long period of time. The
source rock In petroleum geology, source rock is rock which has generated hydrocarbons or which could generate hydrocarbons. Source rocks are one of the necessary elements of a working petroleum system. They are organic-rich sediments that may have been depo ...
that caps this formation is known as the Mauddad Limestone.( the above diagrams help give you a better visual on the formation as a whole) The Paleo environment of the Greater Burgan Field suggest the field began constructing in the lower and upper Burgan sand based on a fluvial system accommodated by transgressive coastline movements over time. Following the Burgan Formation, the Mauddud Limestone Formation (source Rock) began forming. The Mauddud formation is made up of shallow marine, bioclast
wackestone Under the Dunham classification (Dunham, 1962Dunham, R.J., 1962. Classification of carbonate rocks according to depositional texture. In: W.E. Ham (Ed.), Classification of Carbonate Rocks. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Memoir. Amer ...
,
grainstone Under the Dunham classification (Dunham, 1962) system of limestones, a grainstone is defined as a grain-supported carbonate rock that contains less than 1% mud-grade material. This definition has recently been clarified as ''a carbonate-dominated ...
, and shoal surrounded by lagoonal dolomite. Lastly, the Wara formation is created by a fluvial system exposed to bio clastic dolomite known as the wara shales. These shales were formed during the falling RSL. Finishing the Wara formation the fluvial valleys are filled with tidal estuaries caused by transgressive and RSL high stand. The formation is capped off by the Ahmadi Cap rock. Attempts to find deeper oil plays have been made. In 1951 discovery of the Berriasian-age Minagish Oolite Limestone in Burgan was made along with the Jurassic carbonate at Magwa and both proved to be holding oil. However, production did not make way from these subsurface discoveries.


Oil reserves, production capacity and estimated lifetime

"The reserves and production data for Burgan are shrouded in a cloud of secrecy, uncertainty, and controversy." Burgan's total potential production of recoverable oil has been estimated as between 66 and 75 billion barrels, plus perhaps 70 trillion cubic ft. of natural gas.
Bloomberg Bloomberg may refer to: People * Daniel J. Bloomberg (1905–1984), audio engineer * Georgina Bloomberg (born 1983), professional equestrian * Michael Bloomberg (born 1942), American businessman and founder of Bloomberg L.P.; politician and m ...
estimated remaining reserves of 55 billion barrels as of 2005. Cumulative production through 1996 was estimated by a consulting firm at around 28 billion barrels of oil. Burgan's production capacity stood at in 2005. It was the fourth most productive oilfield worldwide in 2013, per Oil Patch Asia. This was lower than it had been in the past—it reached as high as in 1972. The actual oil production from the field in 2005 was between 1,300,000 and 1,700,000 barrels per day. The International Energy Agency then predicted an output of in 2020 and in 2030. In 2005, the Kuwait Oil Co. estimated a remaining life of 30 to 40 years for Burgan, at a production rate of about 1.7 million barrels a day. In 2010 the Chief Executive of the Kuwait Oil Company said that Burgan produced half of Kuwait’s oil. The possibilities of deeper plays below the known Burgan oil & gas resource appear to be under-explored.


1st Gulf War

In 1991, retreating Iraqi soldiers set Burgan Field on fire during the
1st Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
in a scorched earth tactic. Smoke plumes from the Greater Burgan oil field extended 50 kilometers in width on any given day, and 2.5 km thick. From satellite observations the plume appeared like a black snake in the desert that extended parallel to the Persian Gulf. The Red Adair Service and Marine Company extinguished 117 of the burning well fires, while the Canadian company Safety Boss set the pace with 180 wells extinguished. Declassified 1991 CIA documents claimed that despite the destruction there was no significant depletion of the oil reserves and drop in production capacity at Burgan field. Three gathering stations were, however, too badly damaged to repair. The 1st Marine Division destroyed 60 Iraqi tanks in a battle that took place near the Burgan oil field.Blitzkrieg in the Gulf: Armor of the 100 Hour war by Yves Debay


See also

*
Hubbert Peak Theory The Hubbert peak theory says that for any given geographical area, from an individual oil-producing region to the planet as a whole, the rate of petroleum production tends to follow a bell-shaped curve. It is one of the primary theories on peak ...
*
List of oil fields This list of oil fields includes some major oil fields of the past and present. The list is incomplete; there are more than 25,000 oil and gas fields of all sizes in the world. However, 94% of known oil is concentrated in fewer than 1500 gian ...


References


External links

*
The World's Giant Oil Fields
' by
Matthew Simmons Matthew Roy Simmons (April 7, 1943 – August 8, 2010) was founder and chairman emeritus of Simmons & Company International, and was a prominent figure in the field of peak oil. Simmons was motivated by the 1973 energy crisis to create an invest ...
Research Report of Simmons & Co. International {{DEFAULTSORT:Burgan Field Geography of Kuwait Oil fields of Kuwait Archaeological sites in Kuwait