Monday, June 6, 2005
Abqaiq oilfield running out of oil?
This image is a vertical cross section of the Abqaiq oilfield (one of the world's major oilfields) in Saudi Arabia. Blue is water, green is oil, and red is gas.
Over time the field has been injected with water (the blue zone) and this has pushed up the oil (the green zone) into the wells. The red is the overlying gas cap. When the reservoir was untapped it was likely all red and green. Ater all these years of pumping you can see how little of the green - the oil - remains. The field is about 800 ft thick from top to bottom and about 1.5 miles below the surface. If there is a picture that speaks to depletion this to me, is it.
Link (via Treehugger)
posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:52:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments
