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Ghawar (
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
: الغوار) is an
oil field A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presen ...
located in
Al-Ahsa Governorate , image_skyline = , image_map = Alahsa map me.png , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Saudi Arabia , pushpin_label_position = , pushpin_map_alt = , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , subdivis ...
, Eastern Province,
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Ara ...
. Measuring (some ), it is by far the largest conventional oil field in the world, and accounts for roughly a third of the cumulative oil production of Saudi Arabia as of 2018. Ghawar is entirely owned and operated by
Saudi Aramco Saudi Aramco ( ar, أرامكو السعودية '), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company) or simply Aramco, is a Saudi Arabian public petroleum and natural gas company based in Dhahran. , it is one of ...
, the state-run Saudi oil company. In April 2019, the company first published its profit figures since its nationalization nearly 40 years ago in the context of issuing a bond to international markets. The bond prospectus revealed that Ghawar is able to pump a maximum of per day—well below the more than per day that had become conventional wisdom in the market.


Geology

Ghawar occupies an
anticline In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is t ...
above a basement fault block dating to
Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carboniferou ...
time, about 320million years ago;
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 ...
tectonic activity, as the northeast margin of Africa began to impinge on southwest Asia, enhanced the structure. Reservoir rocks are
Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...
Arab-D limestones with exceptional porosity (as much as 35% of the rock in places), which is about thick and occurs beneath the surface.
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 ...
is the Jurassic Hanifa formation, a marine shelf deposit of mud and lime with as much as 5% organic material, it is estimated that 1% to 7% is considered good oil source rock. The
seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to imp ...
is an evaporitic package of rocks including impermeable
anhydrite Anhydrite, or anhydrous calcium sulfate, is a mineral with the chemical formula CaSO4. It is in the orthorhombic crystal system, with three directions of perfect cleavage parallel to the three planes of symmetry. It is not isomorphous with the ...
.


History

In the early 1940s, Max Steineke, Thomas Barger and Ernie Berg noted a bend in the Wadi Al-Sahbah dry riverbed. Measurements confirmed that the area had undergone
geologic uplift Orogeny is a mountain building process. An orogeny is an event that takes place at a convergent plate margin when plate motion compresses the margin. An ''orogenic belt'' or ''orogen'' develops as the compressed plate crumples and is uplifted ...
, an indication that an oil reservoir may be trapped underneath. Oil was indeed found, in what turned out to be the southern reaches of Ghawar. Historically, Ghawar has been subdivided into five production areas, from north to south: '
Ain Dar Ain (, ; frp, En) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in Eastern France. Named after the Ain river, it is bordered by the Saône and Rhône rivers. Ain is located on the country's eastern edge, on the Swiss border, where it ...
and Shedgum, ' Uthmaniyah, Hawiyah and Haradh. The major oasis of Al-Ahsa and the city of
Al-Hofuf Al-Hofuf ( ar, ٱلْهُفُوف ', also spelled Hofuf or Hufuf, also known as "Al-Hasa", "Al-Ahsa" or "Al-Hassa") is the major urban city in the Al-Ahsa Oasis in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, with a population of 858,395 (as of 202 ...
are located on Ghawar's east flank, corresponding to the 'Uthmaniyah production area. Ghawar was discovered in 1948 and put on stream in 1951. Some sources claim that Ghawar peaked in 2005, though this is denied by the field operators. Saudi Aramco reported in mid-2008 that Ghawar had produced 48% of its proven reserves.


Extraction of crude oil

Approximately 60–65% of all Saudi
oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
produced between 1948 and 2000, came from Ghawar. Cumulative
extraction of petroleum Petroleum is a fossil fuel that can be drawn from beneath the earth's surface. Reservoirs of petroleum was formed through the mixture of plants, algae, and sediments in shallow seas under high pressure. Petroleum is mostly recovered from oil dri ...
through early 2010, has exceeded . In 2009, it was estimated that Ghawar produced about of oil a day (6.25% of global production), a figure which was later shown to be substantially overestimated. As of 31 December 2018, total reserves of of oil equivalent including barrels of liquid reserves have been confirmed by
Saudi Aramco Saudi Aramco ( ar, أرامكو السعودية '), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company) or simply Aramco, is a Saudi Arabian public petroleum and natural gas company based in Dhahran. , it is one of ...
. Average daily extraction was per day. Ghawar also produces approximately of
natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon d ...
per day. The operators stimulate production by waterflooding, using seawater at a rate said to be around per day. Water flooding is said to have begun in 1965. The
water cut A water cut meter measures the water content (cut) of crude oil and hydrocarbons as they flow through a pipeline. While the title "Water cut" has been traditionally used, the current API naming is OWD or On-Line Water Determination. The API and I ...
was about 32% in 2003, and ranged from about 27% to 38% from 1993 to 2003. By 2006, North Uthmaniyah's water cut was about 46%.


Energy Content and Comparison

Taking the production figure per year and the conventional
energy density In physics, energy density is the amount of energy stored in a given system or region of space per unit volume. It is sometimes confused with energy per unit mass which is properly called specific energy or . Often only the ''useful'' or extrac ...
of crude oil (per the definition of the ton of oil equivalent) of ) the total thermal energy equivalent produced yearly by the oil field is roughly , or 2,210,000 gigawatt-hours of thermal energy equivalent. For comparison,
North Antelope Rochelle Mine The North Antelope Rochelle Mine is the largest coal mine in the world. Located in Campbell County, Wyoming, about south of Gillette, it produced 85.3 million tons of coal in 2019. Peabody Energy opened the North Antelope Mine in the heart of Wy ...
, the largest coal mine in the world, produced of coal (down from over in 2015) at or of thermal energy equivalent. McArthur River uranium mine, the largest uranium mine in the world, produced of
yellowcake Yellowcake (also called urania) is a type of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. It is a step in the processing of uranium after it has been mined but before f ...
in fiscal 2017, equivalent to roughly of uranium metal or of thermal energy at a
burnup In nuclear power technology, burnup (also known as fuel utilization) is a measure of how much energy is extracted from a primary nuclear fuel source. It is measured as the fraction of fuel atoms that underwent fission in %FIMA (fissions per ini ...
of 200MWh/kg achievable in
CANDU The CANDU (Canada Deuterium Uranium) is a Canadian pressurized heavy-water reactor design used to generate electric power. The acronym refers to its deuterium oxide ( heavy water) moderator and its use of (originally, natural) uranium fuel. C ...
-type reactors, but much less in more widespread reactor designs. The largest solar farm in the world, Bhadla solar park in India, covering and boasting a
nameplate capacity Nameplate capacity, also known as the rated capacity, nominal capacity, installed capacity, or maximum effect, is the intended full-load sustained output of a facility such as a power station,
of 2255 MW would produce of electricity at a
capacity factor The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. The theoretical maximum energy output of a given installation is def ...
of 100% (i.e. If the sun was shining at peak intensity at all times) but given a more realistic capacity factor of 25% it would only produce of electricity per year. The largest wind farm as of 2021,
Gansu Wind Farm The Gansu Wind Farm Project or Jiuquan Wind Power Base is a group of large wind farms under construction in western Gansu province in China. The Gansu Wind Farm Project is located in desert areas near the city of Jiuquan in two localities of Guaz ...
in China has a
nameplate capacity Nameplate capacity, also known as the rated capacity, nominal capacity, installed capacity, or maximum effect, is the intended full-load sustained output of a facility such as a power station,
approaching 8 GW with plans to ramp up to 20 GW. A 20 gigawatt power plant at 100% capacity factor could deliver of electric output per year. However, once again due to the weather-dependency and
intermittency In dynamical systems, intermittency is the irregular alternation of phases of apparently periodic and chaotic dynamics ( Pomeau–Manneville dynamics), or different forms of chaotic dynamics (crisis-induced intermittency). Pomeau and Mannev ...
of wind power, capacity factors for onshore wind installations like Gansu are typically much lower, ranging at 15-35% depending on local factors. Per 250000 standard tons of coal will be replaced per year at full deployment, which is equivalent to . The Ghawar oil field is thus the largest single supplier of
primary energy Primary energy (PE) is an energy form found in nature that has not been subjected to any human engineered conversion process. It is energy contained in raw fuels, and other forms of energy, including waste, received as input to a system. Prim ...
on planet earth.


Reserves

In April 2010, Saad al-Tureiki, Vice-President for Operations at Aramco, stated, in a news conference reported in Saudi media, that over have been produced from the field since 1951. Tureiki further stated that the total reserves of the field had originally exceeded . The
International Energy Agency The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organisation, established in 1974, that provides policy recommendations, analysis and data on the entire global energy sector, with a recent focus on curbing car ...
in its 2008 World Energy Outlook stated that the oil production from Ghawar reached 66 Bbo in 2007, and that the remaining reserves are 74 Bbo. Matthew Simmons, in his 2005 book '' Twilight in the Desert'', suggested that production from the Ghawar field and Saudi Arabia may soon peak. When appraised in the 1970s, the field was assessed to have of original
oil in place Oil in place (OIP) (not to be confused with original oil-in-place (OOIP)) is a specialist term in petroleum geology that refers to the total oil content of an oil reservoir. As this quantity cannot be measured directly, it has to be estimated fr ...
(OOIP), with about recoverable (1975 Aramco estimate quoted by Matt Simmons). The second figure, at least, was understated since that production figure has already been exceeded.


See also

*
Udhailiyah Udhailiyah (Arabic: العضيلية ''ʿuḍayliyyah'') is a small oil company compound in the interior of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia located in the desert southwest of the Dhahran-Dammam-Khobar metropolitan area. Built by the nation ...
, residential compound built atop the central part of Ghawar *
Khurais oil field Khurais oil field ( ar, حقل خريص) is an oil field in Saudi Arabia that went online on June 10, 2009, adjacent to the world's largest, the Ghawar trend. The Khurais field, with an area of 2,890 km2 and 127 km long, is located abou ...
* List of oil fields *
Peak oil Peak oil is the hypothetical point in time when the maximum rate of global oil production is reached, after which it is argued that production will begin an irreversible decline. It is related to the distinct concept of oil depletion; whil ...
*
Swing producer A swing producer or swing supplier is a supplier or a close oligopolistic group of suppliers of any commodity, controlling its global deposits and possessing large spare production capacity. A swing producer is able to increase or decrease commodit ...


References


Further reading

* Still the basic public reference for Ghawar geology.


External links


Articles on Ghawar and analysis on its reserves
from
The Oil Drum ''The Oil Drum'' was a website devoted to analysis and discussion of energy and its impact on society that described itself as an "energy, peak oil & sustainability research and news site". ''The Oil Drum'' was published by the Institute for th ...

Terrorists and Ghawar
* (source of most data in this article).
World-beater Ghawar a field apart
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304231845/http://www.saudiaramco.com/content/dam/Publications/Dimensions%20international/Dimensions%20Fall%202008/GhawarFall08.pdf , date=2016-03-04 , 2008 article in Saudi Aramco ''Dimensions'' magazine
Map of oil and gas infrastructure in Saudi Arabia
Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia Oil fields of Saudi Arabia Saudi Aramco oil and gas fields Oil field disputes