for those who deny peak oil...

a very good posting at Econbrowser:

"Northern Ghawar is in decline

If you end up being surprised by the big story of the next decade, you can't say, "nobody told us." Instead you'll have to say, "we didn't listen."

Stuart Staniford (Ph.D. in physics) has been conducting a very careful and detailed investigation of all that is publicly known about Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, which is by far the world's largest and most important oil field. This field has been managed by injecting water below the oil, which causes the remaining oil to rise toward the top of the reservoir where it can be more readily pumped out. "

and

"If Stuart's analysis is correct, it seems very likely that production from the northern part of Ghawar must have already entered a period of sharp and irreversible decline, which would account for the otherwise unexplained drops in Saudi Arabian oil production over the last two years."

read more here.

its good that this is being reported, as for sure it may not get into mainstream for a bit...

cheers,