By: GZ on Lunedì 22 Agosto 2005 00:42
E tanto per cambiare argomento dopo che il libro di Simmons ha raggiunto le 44 mila copie (che per un libro tecnico sui problemi dell'estrazione di petrolio è un record assoluto) ora lo ritrovi dappertutto, ^il New York Times mensile##http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/magazine^ vi dedica tutto il pezzo di agosto con un articolo affascinante.
Ad esempio i Sauditi dicono che la tesi del "peak oil" è falsa, che possono salire dai 10 di oggi a 15 milioni di barili di produzione al giorno e anche oltre per altri 30 anni, che Simmons non capisce i papers tecnici che ha trovato, ma rifiutano una certificazione internazionale delle loro riserve, dicono di fidarsi che possono produrre ancora
In pratica oggi siamo a 84 milioni di barili al giorno nel mondo di produzuione, ogni anno circa 2 milioni vengono meno nel mondo per esaurimento di pozzi vecchi e altri 2 milioni vengono domandati in più ogni anno dalla Cina ed Asia. Per cui come minimo occorre trovare 4 milioni in più di barili ogni anno
Ieri ^il New York Times va a intervistare#http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/magazine/21OIL.html?pagewanted=all&oref=login^ l'ex capo dell'Aramco exploration and production, Sadad al-Husseini, in pratica l'uomo che ne sa di più al mondo essendo stato al vertice dell'esplorazione in Arabia ed essendo stato ora sostituito è più libero di parlare di altri.
Questo al-Husseini ha una posizione intermedia: dice che anche se i sauditi possono arrivare a 15 milioni al giorno ci sono dei rischi se lo fai in fretta ed occorrono investimenti enormi, specialmente nelle infrastrutture di trivellazione e oleodotti (Tenaris !)...
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''You could go to 15, but that's when the questions of depletion rate, reservoir management and damaging the fields come into play,'' says Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi oil and security analyst who is regarded as being exceptionally well connected to key Saudi leaders. ''There is an understanding across the board within the kingdom, in the highest spheres, that if you're going to 15, you'll hit 15, but there will be considerable risks . . . of a steep decline curve that Aramco will not be able to do anything about.''
Even if the Saudis are willing to risk damaging their fields, or even if the risk is overstated, Husseini points out a practical problem. To produce and sustain 15 million barrels a day, Saudi Arabia will have to drill a lot more wells and build a lot more pipelines and processing facilities. Currently, the global oil industry suffers a deficit of qualified engineers to oversee such projects and the equipment and the raw materials -- for example, rigs and steel -- to build them. These things cannot be wished from thin air or developed quickly enough to meet the demand.
''If we had two dozen Texas A&M's producing a thousand new engineers a year and the industrial infrastructure in the kingdom, with the drilling rigs and power plants, we would have a better chance, but you cannot put that into place overnight,'' Husseini said. ''Capacity is not just a function of reserves. It is a function of reserves plus know-how plus a commercial economic system that is designed to increase the resource exploitation. For example, in the U.S. you have infrastructure -- there must be tens of thousands of miles of pipelines. If we, in Saudi Arabia, evolve to that level of commercial maturity, we could probably produce a heck of a lot more oil. But to get there is a very tedious, slow process.''
He worries that the rising global demand for oil will lead to the petroleum equivalent of running an engine at ever-increasing speeds without stopping to cool it down or change the oil. Husseini does not want to see the fragile and irreplaceable reservoirs of the Middle East become damaged through wanton overproduction.
''If you are ramping up production so fast and jump from high to higher to highest, and you're not having enough time to do what needs to be done, to understand what needs to be done, then you can damage reservoirs,'' he said. ''Systematic development is not just a matter of money. It's a matter of reservoir dynamics, understanding what's there, analyzing and understanding information. That's where people come in, experience comes in. These are not universally available resources.''
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