Does the situation which the Oil Drum people have described mean that Ghawar's production rate is about to decline? Possibly, but not necessarily. It depends on the amount of additional investment that would be required to address the problem and whether the cost of this work is economically justifiable. The answer to that depends a lot on the oil price scenario which the company has adopted.

This brings about another possibility; a step function in water cut and total fluid production.

Let us suppose North Ain Dar "waters out" over the space of, say, 6 months. Water cut climbs (made up #s for example) from 33% to 92% ! This rapid climb is only possible because of the superb quality of the reservior.

Total fluid production before was 1.5 million b/day = 1 million b/day of the good stuff (more likely #s for North & South Ain Dar combined).

One can note the large volume of yellow mixed oil & water underneath the rapidly shrinking dry oil at the crest.

Could North Ain Dar be redeveloped to produce, say, 10 million barrels/day total fluids (it is good rock), 92% water cut with oil production of 800,000 b/day (still down 20%) ? Or something comparable.

GIGANTIC GOSPs would be required ! Is there any indictation of such on order (I know some are on order).

I think this is what he is saying.

If I interpret his point correctly, then I can also discount it (with very low confidence). Possible, yes, but is it likely ?

North Ain Dar will NOT be plugged and abandoned in my lifetime (should I live another 50 years). It will be redeveloped. However, any redevelopment scheme for a watered out reservior is unlikely to maintain current oil production rates, or even close IMVHO. Aramco is NOT a share holder company that operates entirely on Net Present Value.

The answer to that depends a lot on the oil price scenario which the company has adopted

Saudi Aramco has more pricing power than any other oil company (or nation) in the world.

Best Hopes for Rational Planning,

Alan

Stuart,

Thank you for getting Mr. Gilberts remarks on TOD. He is a man with impressive credentials, and a seemingly well balanced view of things, not "cornucopian" nor "run for the hills!"

The central point of his remarks seemed to me to be: It's a tough complicated business, and it's in the Aramco specialists hands now.

One cannot help but notice that he seems to have a fair amount of faith in their abilities, and does not show any indication of thinking that they are telling outright untruth, at least not knowingly.

I said in a post the other day that I hate to bet against the Saudi's money. We can watch where they are spending it, on the assumption that they don't want to willingly just throw it away, and "follow the money" to borrow an old phrase. This brings to point Alan's remarks about the giant gas oil seperation units. Are they spending that kind of money? Also Khurais and the empty quarter, how much are they spending? Would they spend it on fields that couldn't deliver payback? That seems unlikely.

But, there is always the risk that they simply are at the limits of their own knowledge. That the world is now so relient on such a small area of the globe for it's energy and economic, perhaps even cultural survival, should not give us great comfort. We are hanging now by a thin thread, and that thread is in the Saudi desert.

We should be prepared for anything.
(edited for correction, and in consideration of Alanfrombigeasy's remarks)

Roger Conner Jr.
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom

Sorry, but in my opinion it's just not possible for the authors to produce results which are as definitive and reliable as those produced by Saudi Aramco's professionals

Taken out of context, Jeremy Gilbert's comment would appear to dampen Stuart's analysis. But consider these points:

1. Brent Crude futures prices remain quite high
2. KSA production has dropped
3. Stuart developed an explanation consistent with the public evidence for the drop, which was a high-level depletion analysis involving the timing of KSA mega-projects
4. Prompted by Fractional_Flow, Stuart performed an in-depth resevoir analysis providing support for the depletion assumptions in his first argument

Others here have argued that the presumably well informed Saudi Aramco professional management have biased their public pronouncements for political reasons. So it is all well and good as Jeremy Gilbert says for these professionals to manage their resources wisely and with the best information, but how does that help us know more about the unfolding crisis?

I am the merest of lay readers.

But here's what it's like:

A magnifying glass held over a stunned insect.

"Expert" One: IT'S DEAD!

"Expert" Two: NO! ITS ANTENNA TWITCHED!

"So it goes."

Does the situation which the Oil Drum people have described mean that Ghawar's production rate is about to decline? Possibly, but not necessarily. It depends on the amount of additional investment that would be required to address the problem and whether the cost of this work is economically justifiable. The answer to that depends a lot on the oil price scenario which the company has adopted.

The point I made earlier was that not only were there no signs of the contract from SA necessary to bring such a thing about, when you look to their in-house technical journal they are not talking about "how to extract even more from mature reservoirs", they are talking about gas and refining.

Now maybe, once they have their new megaprojects onstream they are planning to go back and attempt to force a little more from North Ghawar. But that will be at a much reduced rate, and won't last that long in anycase.

...any reservoir engineering analysis there are almost always more unknowns than equations. As a result, one is generally faced with having to make estimates for part of the solution and then be concerned about the uniqueness of the solution derived.

Which brings us round to the key question. If there were an attempt to force longer, high flow rate from North Ghawar, where is the practical sign of it, given the demonstrated situation of those reservoirs? Without those signs, surely the unique solution is that further effort does not form part of their short to medium term planning cycle?

I think the problem with what the authors are doing is that they have got to the limit of what can be achieved by well-meaning amateurs who have limited access to geological and reservoir data. Any more detailed analysis requires reservoir engineering expertise and better data. Sorry, but in my opinion it's just not possible for the authors to produce results which are as definitive and reliable as those produced by Saudi Aramco's professionals; they are the people who will decide Ghawar's future.

I think this is a relatively prudent way of presenting an arrogant "amateurs-can’t-do-any really-useful-job-on-our-very-difficult-field-of-knowledge" kind of statement.

However, this is totally wrong.
Obviously (as Stuart himself has proved on his set of articles on the Saudi production), educated “amateurs” with a good scientific background and with the will to spend some effective studying effort CAN understand, discuss and produce relevant work on oil field production (and on almost other field of knowledge I can think of).

Moreover, Simmons’ “Twilight” and Stuart’s recent articles on TOD are, beyond doubt, the best (early, well researched, well documented) alerts ever produced over the future of Saudi oil production: a key point on any PO analysis.

It is true that the available data is very limited.
It is also true that a good professional working with no time constrains (and free to develop politically or economically unconstrained conclusions) could probably produce an even more precise analysis.

But the fact is that up until now nothing better has been done!

And I would bet that Simmons’ “Twilight” and, more recently, Stuart’s analysis presented here in TOD had a more profound impact on the community of the oil production analysts than any of the SPE papers ever written…

In fact I even think that the extremely important “Water in the Gas Tank” (by the way, it is not listed in the list of TOD articles SS presents above?!) was one of the main reasons behind the subsequent rise in oil prices (especially for medium and long time frame futures).
I, myself an investor in crude oil futures, was not fully convinced by Stuart’s first post on the subject, and had the same doubts Euan presented in his first response.
But the “Water in the Gas Tank” (introducing the analysis of the time evolution of water saturation of North Ghawar) dissipated most of those doubts.

The following day I reinforced my long positions on long-term oil futures, and so I followed closely the subsequent evolution of the oil futures prices:
My feeling has been that the subsequent price evolution (an oscillating but significant rise) is much more due to the increased confirmation of a near term PO following Stuart’s post here in TOD than to effects of the British sailors episode or to the confirmation (by the IEA and EIA numbers) of the present “strange” second quarter insufficient world production (this last could be explained away by the OPEC quotas, and would not have a significant impact on medium term oil prices if it was felt as a transient voluntary effect easily corrected by a future lifting of artificial restraining quotas…).

If I read his post correctly he "broadly agrees" with the estimations done here. I would interject this is what I wanted - a broadly correct answer. I don't need April 13,2007 is national PO day.
Broadly is close enough for me.
HL is close enough for me as well.

It has been a gut wrenching 1+ years reading posts here. I think it is time for me to get "extra" busy.

Great posting here btw (sans freddy & hothgor).

Best D

'I think the problem with what the authors are doing is that they have got to the limit of what can be achieved by well-meaning amateurs who have limited access to geological and reservoir data.'

Interestingly, though you can never be sure who is a dog on the Internet, several of the commenters do not seem to be amateurs. And as for that limited access to data, that pretty much describes everyone outside of Aramco.

Which leads naturally to -
'...it's just not possible for the authors to produce results which are as definitive and reliable as those produced by Saudi Aramco's professionals; they are the people who will decide Ghawar's future.' He is right about the people running the fields determining what happens to the fields - the rest seems amazingly confident - after writing this in the preceding paragraph - '...but I have to emphasise that in any reservoir engineering analysis there are almost always more unknowns than equations.'

So trust the professionals, who almost always deal with more unknowns than equations, because the professional handle the unknown better than amateurs?

Tell me again - was it BP that believes maintenance is an unnecessary cost when running a pipeline or refinery? Somehow, the results of running your operation into the ground in the pursuit of short term profit is an easily understood equation, with little in the way of unknowns.

I trust BP deeply, since after all, they are Beyond Petroleum. Maybe there is a connection between those maintenance costs and the marketing slogan, after all.

As for that Prudhoe decline rate - guess the geologists didn't have anything to do with the depletion rate of the pipeline walls - and yet, the oil delivered is what matters, not the oil in the ground. A point he seems to have glided right over in terms of what is still recoverable after the flood in the desert, so to speak.

Jeremy Gilbert.

As you would seem to read the Oil Drum on occasions, in view of your comments on the Saudi and Ghawar production issues I wonder if you would mind answering three questions when time permits.

1. As a former BP Chief Petroleum geologist would you agree or disagree with the on going BP yearly statistics of greatly increased reserves from 1988 onwards and the lack of reduction of these reserves due to production depletion and any significant major discoveries?

2. In view of the stated figures of M.K.Horn and Associates in their report of the World's Giant oil fields in 2004, using the previous data from Halbouty, Carmel, St.John, Beydoun, Nehring and other highly qualified geologists, why would you suppose that Ghawar and other Saudi fields might not be in serious decline? In 2004 their report shows Ghawar as 79322 BBOE depleted with 17766 BBOE to go from a URR of 97 BBOE. With production since then this now puts that field at around 86% depleted. In your professional opinion, do you know of any giant field anywhere in the world that would not be depleting after this level of production over fifty years?

3. As the major oil companies, including BP have been in the middle east for nearly 100 years, don't you think that they have pretty well explored and understood the geology and reserves of the whole Arabian Plate and were in a position up until the 1980's of knowing this information and since then still being informed from service companies doing business there? The size and reserves of the major fields in the Middle East have been known for a long time and the URR of 900 BBOE ( including gas) for the whole area has not been challenged to my knowledge. There seems to be a contradiction here in what you are saying.

Wow, this is an important piece. It may be my lack of language skills but here is a text which seems as supportive or more than the GAO report. It is very far from what I initially expected.

First of all, the text remains very ambiguous with that kind of twisted logic and syntax you can expect from such an important person. Of course he has to do that for a number of reasons: he doesn’t want to wake up in the morning with flat tires, he must always be able to say “but no, I didn’t say this but the opposite” because he knows that no one really knows the future, a fact he has painfully learned in his lifetime.

But this ambiguity on the surface doesn’t prevent a certain lifting of the veil on his personal opinions. For instance see the following:

The conclusions reported seem to me to be credible

which seems to imply that as a person he can believe what is written by Stuart. What he uses to weigh against this is mere uncertainty! Yes, I believe I read correctly that he says that the conclusions (ie ghawar is watering out) are credible to the extent of what we know. To the contrary, if the conclusions are found to be false it must be because of what we don’t know yet (he says that there are often more unknowns than equations). Given the fact that the best engineers of the world are working on these uncertainties, it does probably reduce the importance of the “unknown” facts. So the word “almost” he uses in his phrase has a higher logical value than a first order reading would evoke.

I also very much liked the next paragraph. First of all he repeats:

It seems likely to me that the conclusions the authors have reached about Ghawar's current status are broadly correct.

May I also repeat: i.e. Ghawar is beginning its decline.

The next sentence is the core of stereotyped doubt casting while acknowledging the underlying truth :

However, it's a big step to take from concluding Ghawar is currently at or close to maximum achievable production rate to saying that that rate cannot be maintained, or even increased,

This sentence seem to be a critique of a logical implication : ghawar is at a maximum achievable production rate => the rate cannot be maintained or increased. The funny thing is that by doing so he seems to decrease the importance of the conclusion, not the first statement. So logically speaking he fully agrees with the fact : ghawar is at a maximum achievable production rate. Now then, how can he disagree or nuance the conclusion ? Indeed, a maximum is a maximum, by definition you cannot go over it, or it wouldn’t be a maximum. Well in fact he said, “at or close to” which leaves a little wiggle room. The rest of the sentence and the next paragraph are about the general solutions of how to increase production rate and are far too general to weigh on the debate which is precisely the object of TOD. So it would always be possible to infer that he didn’t mean to support the hypothesis “Ghawar is currently at or close to maximum achievable production rate” but in fact “Ghawar is currently at or close to maximum achievable production rate with current technology”.

A little remark about how he goes on to try to balance stuarts study he goes on with general solutions :

1 -through the addition of additional production wells,
2 -through increased or more efficient water injection schemes
3 -through surface facility modifications

When I discuss with a hospital director I know precisely when to inflect a too optimistic discourse or the use of rhetoric anxiolysis (which is called wise managing). In my opinion, the use of such pleonasms as “addition of additional wells” is a sign of a struggle between the left and the right brain. It is the sign of someone who knows he has to look optimistic or confident about something which in fact worries him as much as the rest of his audience. So when I discuss with the initial director and he tells me : “I will add some additional nurses in the emergency room” I will immediately ask him “but do we have the money to pay them”. If he had said “ we will increase the ER staff” he would have answered my question with “the ministry has given us a brand new budget”. But having begun with his pleonasm his answer will be “We will have to look at some cuts in our general expenses” which everyone knows will never occur especially with the sad look on his face at my answer.

My comment to number 2 is that a lot of people have already commented on the fact that water injection schemes are already the best in the world, and how the heck would you want to increase it at what risk ?

My comment to number 3 is that this is precisely what is discussed by everybody on TOD. Of course Mr Gilbert knows all this and this is why he goes on and touches on the core of the problem : how much money can SA throw at this, and how can all this make an economic sense ?

So now, what did I learn from M Gilbert ? We are at the point where :

- either SA will invest a lot to maintain production, which will induce quite an inflationary pressure
- either they won’t which will mean decline of production i.e. recession

If this isn’t a supportive view of PO, I don’t know what would do it.

Jeroen KOK

As this is an exceptional case, I will break my personal TOD commenting rule, which is strict abstinence since I mentioned — anonymously, unfortunately — Gilbert's view of SPE #93439.

I am glad to see Gilbert's remarks published. I certainly took a lot of heat for paraphrasing his views. In fact, I was insulted & assaulted for adding nothing of value to the discussion, for using an anonymous authority to cast aspersions on the prevailing and apparently popular view that North Ghawar was crashing, and for various other crimes. I was merely waiting for everything to fall into place before publishing. As Gilbert's remarks have been re-produced here, there is no need for me to add anything further other than to say that —

1. We need to know what we don't know, a reasonable assumption that is hard to maintain in the face of emotionally-based certainty.

2. The need for data transparency in the oil & gas industry is just as great now as it has ever been.

And that's all I have to say.

If he doesn't like the peak is happening now concept, a different date would be nice, rather than just more "Trust in Aramco."

I am amazed at the energy and diligence which the authors exhibit in carrying out their analyses. It is, of course, almost tragic that the Saudis won't release more detailed performance data - and their own analyses - which would show the situation clearly and avoid the need for the painstaking work reported in Oil Drum.

Translation: The work of the TOD authors has been truly remarkable and it could be verified if only the Saudis (Aramco)were more transparent.

The conclusions reported seem to me to be credible but I have to emphasise that in any reservoir engineering analysis there are almost always more unknowns than equations. As a result, one is generally faced with having to make estimates for part of the solution and then be concerned about the uniqueness of the solution derived. This is a situation which users of complex reservoir simulators are continually faced with.

Translation: The work of the TOD authors has been truly remarkable and it could be verified if only the Saudis (Aramco)were more transparent.

It seems likely to me that the conclusions the authors have reached about Ghawar's current status are broadly correct. However, it's a big step to take from concluding Ghawar is currently at or close to maximum achievable production rate to saying that that rate cannot be maintained, or even increased, through the addition of additional production wells, through increased or more efficient water injection schemes or through surface facility modifications.

Translation: The work of the TOD authors has been truly remarkable and it could be verified if only the Saudis (Aramco)were more transparent. The TOD authors certainly have the balls to conclude that Ghawar is peaking when technology and higher prices will save us.

Does the situation which the Oil Drum people have described mean that Ghawar's production rate is about to decline? Possibly, but not necessarily. It depends on the amount of additional investment that would be required to address the problem and whether the cost of this work is economically justifiable. The answer to that depends a lot on the oil price scenario which the company has adopted.

Translation: The work of the TOD authors has been truly remarkable and it could be verified if only the Saudis (Aramco)were more transparent. Technology and higher prices will save us.

I think the problem with what the authors are doing is that they have got to the limit of what can be achieved by well-meaning amateurs who have limited access to geological and reservoir data. Any more detailed analysis requires reservoir engineering expertise and better data. Sorry, but in my opinion it's just not possible for the authors to produce results which are as definitive and reliable as those produced by Saudi Aramco's professionals; they are the people who will decide Ghawar's future.

Translation: The work of the TOD authors has been truly remarkable and it could be verified if only the Saudis (Aramco)were more transparent. They are well-intentioned wannabes treading on my expertise. Let's rely on Aramco's professionals and their secret data since they, not nature, will decide if Ghawar has peaked.

My take: (this is pure opinion only based on the above statement only) Gilbert is impressed, and he believes as noted by his comment that the TOD conclusions "are broadly correct." He just can't take the plunge (publicly) absent Aramco's confirmation and more transparent data. I interpret Gilbert to be saying that the technology is there to maintain and increase Ghawar production as long as the "professionals" determine that the price of oil is high enough to offset the increased costs of that production.

Given the discussion over the past several weeks re Ghawar, my hope is that the Aramco professionals truly have something up their sleeves. I certainly do agree with Gilbert, as I think most of do, on the issue of the need for Saudi transparency. Then again, Saudi production over the next 3 to 6 months may tell us more than any data that they may have to offer.

However, it's a big step to take from concluding Ghawar is currently at or close to maximum achievable production rate to saying that that rate cannot be maintained, or even increased, through the addition of additional production wells, through increased or more efficient water injection schemes or through surface facility modifications.

Guys, that's it in a nutshell. Discussion about SA's production capability is *speculation* and will remain such until that most important piece of information, reserve capacity, is demonstrably verified. Of course, one can redouble efforts to line up a few more circumstantial factors to support one's own pet speculation, but those factors, because circumstantial, will remain open to multiple interpretations and won't give the desired certainty, however clothed in urgent language.

C'mon guys....Fractional Flow just gave you the proof of the looming catastrophe on a silver platter. He might be the next deep throat. Look what he found that Mr Hussieni said:

"if cost cutting strategies and high risk production

practices are allowed to prevail, the consequences can be both

devastating and sudden. Examples of such ill considered

strategies might be an early shift to in-field water injection

patterns, a shift to dry crestal production strategies away

from wet flank areas..."

DRY CRESTAL PRODUCTION!
That's what they've been doing the past few yrs and FF's data shows that.

When this baby waters out it will be the biggest news in our lifetime, we'll remember the end of Gharwar like we remember 911.

I want to applaud Stuart for posting this commentary even though it is not 100% supportive of his analysis. I would in fact characterize the overall tone as "polite skepticism" in that it questions the fundamental conclusion, that the Saudi decline is irreversible. I also get the impression that this is just an excerpt from a larger document since it concludes by proposing to answer "questions" but only has a section 1.

Earlier I asked Stuart to put his ideas forward for review by credentialed experts. This is a good first step but I would also like to hear from someone who is not already associated with ASPO. My ideal would be a working academic geophysicist or geologist with expertise in oil field dynamics from a top university. I did a search and these are the top 10 U.S. universities in geosciences:

1. California Institute of Technology
2. Johns Hopkins University
3. Harvard University
4. University of California-Berkeley
5. Columbia University in the City of New York
6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
7. Stanford University (Geosciences)
8. Brown University
9. Stanford University (Geophysics)
10. University of California-Los Angeles

If we could find some expert geoscience researchers from these schools who could review Stuart's findings, I'm sure that would be informative and helpful.

I wonder if this might be the last time that Mr. Gilbert acquiesces to having one of his private emails published on TOD???

Hello TODers,

Thxs for everyone's input, but please remain calm and cordial. I hope everyone has been studying my recent postings showing geo-slices of non-uniform waterfront flooding due to DFNs. Also, I would encourage everyone to study the PHD thesis of:

http://pangea.stanford.edu/~jcaers/theses/thesisJoeVoelker.pdf

page 54 of the PDF shows the multi-thousands of wells throughout Ghawar. It would be helpful if we could find out the descriptive legend one encounters upon zooming in with the magnifying tool. If possible, it might show:

1. % of wells converted from producers to injectors.

2. % of vertical wells converted to horizontals and/or MRCs.

3. Stratigraphic OWC at various depths in producers.

4. Produced C+C per well.

5. I suspect the red pixelation at the very top of North and South 'Ain Dar is gas reinjection for pressure maintenance to help forestall premature waterflood encroachment.

6. Maybe other crucial details that I have overlooked as an admitted truly amateur reservoir engineer.

But please consider the effect of thousands of wells in Ghawar since production began so long ago. What we really need is more updated info, or better yet: KSA extending an invitation to the TopTODers for an extensive Ghawar computational 3D fly-thru of the various subfields of this giant oilfield.

SS, F_F, and others would then know much more about the Shedgum leak area, gascap formations, Uthmaniyah waterflood overreach [page 106 of PDF], Harad production problems from DFNs, and other mature reservoir production problems such as unforeseen injector fracturing and chemical diagenesis to carbonate structures from crude saturation to saltwater saturation at very high pressures.

I am not a computer guru so I don't know how difficult it would be to accomplish this: could Jeremy Gilbert, GaryP, SS, and others use Photoshop or some other software to create their own version of what they would expect a 2007 Ghawar oil saturation graphic to look like? Dual views by using the Laherrere SW-->NE graphic plus the view posted uptop? This could be very useful for future discussion.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Hello TODers,

If one goes to this PDF link, page 20:

http://www.austingeo.com/recon%20publications/white%20papers/ReconInnova...

One can see a decidedly different and more pessimistic Ghawar oil saturation graph circa 2004. By using the PDF magnifying glass zoom-tool to investigate the well logs: it shows a lot of water breakthrough and isolated oildry pockets. Check it out please, then tell me if I am analyzing this properly.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Note that Jeremy Gilbert wrote:

Does the situation which the Oil Drum people have described mean that Ghawar's production rate is about to decline? Possibly, but not necessarily. It depends on the amount of additional investment that would be required to address the problem and whether the cost of this work is economically justifiable. The answer to that depends a lot on the oil price scenario which the company has adopted.

Price.

Yes, folks, there it is on the supply side. Truth is it has to be mentioned in all discussion of future supply and demand. It can't be avoided.

There is a tendency among peak oilers to grab demand projections from official sources (without reference to the price expectations they are based on) and then juxtapose those with supply scenarios derived by Hubbertians with no reference to price at all.

Confusion compounded.

A few comments of my own in reaction to Jeremy's observations:

• I'm grateful to him for taking the time to read what is a lot of material now, and give us his thoughts.
• Overall, I'm encouraged by the tone of the comments that this is a worthwhile exercise.
• I'm a little sorry that he kept his comments at the 50,000' level. It would have been nice to have more detailed thoughts on the various technical controversies that we have debated back and forth.
• It gave me some tentative insight into why the world's petroleum engineers (with a couple of honorable exceptions) have not waded into this issue before now. That ball has mainly been carried in the past by geologists (and an investment banker!). It may well be that PE's are used to working on fields where they have a lot of data that allows them to do sophisticated analyses. They are also used to seeing Saudi Aramco's engineers as talented and high-status members of the profession. Thus, trying to make inferences from left-over scraps of data with the possibility left open that Saudi Aramco might be being deceptive about a couple of important matters is simply very intellectually alien to the culture of that discipline.
• I don't agree that we "have reached the limit" of what can be done here. I still have a bunch of ideas for how to do more. And FF does more by the day.
• Finally, it's worth stressing that while it's certainly fair to describe me as an amateur, this is not true at all of FF.

Just a couple of observations from years in top management.
1)Mr. Gilbert, while highly qualified, has not done detailed analyses for at least a couple of decades. He has had excellent subordinates to do that and has lived on concise and incisive summaries. His 50,00' response is the best he could give without putting in a lot of hours reviewing the source materials for the SS, FF et al analyses, and he is no longer accustomed to doing that, and probably lacks the inclination. Also he will not go to far out on a limb and risk tarnishing a sterling and hard earned reputation, even if he is 80% in agreement and sees the risk as fairly low.
2)Even (or especially??) experts in a field are limited by their very expertise. There is a major tendency to see only their part of the elephant. It is rare for even a group of experts to put all the pieces together and take a holistic view, undistorted by their special interests/knowhow, which is at least part of the explanation of the failures of the experts mentioned above. With all of the digging up of sources (often obscure), and the exchange of ideas and analyses done by SS and his fellow TODers, this may be the first holistic view anyone has developed of Ghawar, including all of the Aramco experts. People who are capable of combining the pieces of the puzzle and assembling the full holistic view of the elephant, unaffected by their personal bias or expertise are very rare. SS is clearly good at synthesis, capable of objective critical thinking, and advantaged by being an amateur uninfluenced by what he "knows".
I am inclined to take this analysis very seriously. It may be better than anything done before, including by Aramco.
Murray