New technology to tap into porous rock formations in the Ghawar oilfield in Saudi Arabia could expand production at the giant field, Saudi Aramco said on Tuesday. “Since its discovery during 1940s, enormous Ghawar has kept oil experts on their toes. In mid-2007, the Ghawar Integrated Assessment and New Technology (GIANT) team, an interdepartmental group working on a long-term, visionary endeavor to better understand and characterize the oil field, came across an interesting finding while looking at ways to maximize the reservoir's oil recovery percentage,” Saudi Aramco said. “The researchers found an extensive micro-pore system of hidden passages in carbonate rock, where a significant percentage of unrecovered oil resides. Today, the GIANT team is analyzing this newfound potential and finding ways to tap into the as-yet untapped world below.” The Ghawar field, believed to be the largest oil field in the world, pumps around 6 percent of the world's crude oil output. The field now pumps more than 60 percent of Saudi Arabia's crude production and over 15 percent of OPEC's output. The field is producing around 5 million barrels of light crude oil nearly 60 years after it began spewing oil and roughly 2.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. Saudi Aramco said it was analyzing a new formation in the field to exploit previously untapped resources. “The researchers found an extensive micro-pore system of hidden passages in carbonate rock, where a significant percentage of unrecovered oil resides,” the company said. Researchers didn't reveal the resource potential of the latest find, however. Saudi Aramco believes there are more than 71 billion barrels of proven oil reserves remaining in the field. In a study published in its quarterly bulletin Dimensions, Saudi Aramco said Ghawar is divided into five areas, discovered individually: ‘Ain Dar (1948), Haradh (1949 - located in the southernmost part of the field), ‘Uthmaniyah (1951), Shedgum (1952) and Hawiyah (1953). The giant reservoir is around 280 kilometers long and 40 kilometers wide, encompassing nearly 11,200 square kilometers. “Saudi Aramco continues to pump about five million barrels of Arabian Light crude oil from Ghawar reservoirs every day….it also pumps 2.5 billion cubic feet per day (cfd) of natural gas from the field in association with the production of oil, and another four billion cfd of non-associated gas, produced from independent gas reservoirs beneath but not part of Ghawar's oil-bearing formations….so, by all measures, Ghawar - the ‘crown jewel' for Saudi Aramco and the Kingdom - is an awesome asset and is still the world's largest oilfield,” it said. “Ghawar has all the stuff to be a super producer: high porosity of its reservoir rock, which means there is an abundance of rock pores, or spaces, for holding oil; high permeability, meaning many natural channels allowing oil to flow through the rock; valuable light rather than heavy oil; and high recovery potential.”
