Misplaced Pages

#777222

29-537: Haradh is Habitat Sandy-gravel desert Naturally low vegetation covers the site's compact gravel, sand, and clay soils, creating a habitat for larks and wheatears, and reptiles, including the dhub. The initial discovery of the southern part of the Ghawar field was in 1949 at the Haradh field, where American geologist Ernie Berg mapped the surface of the Haradh anticline using the ordinary, tried-and-true plane table method. Haradh

58-654: A few percent of evaporite minerals, the remainder being composed of the more typical detrital clastic rocks and carbonates . Examples of evaporite formations include occurrences of evaporite sulfur in Eastern Europe and West Asia. For a formation to be recognised as evaporitic it may simply require recognition of halite pseudomorphs , sequences composed of some proportion of evaporite minerals, and recognition of mud crack textures or other textures . Evaporites are important economically because of their mineralogy, their physical properties in-situ, and their behaviour within

87-437: A picture into past Earth climates. Some particular deposits even show important tectonic and climatic changes. These deposits also may contain important minerals that help in today's economy. Thick non-marine deposits that accumulate tend to form where evaporation rates will exceed the inflow rate, and where there is sufficient soluble supplies. The inflow also has to occur in a closed basin, or one with restricted outflow, so that

116-527: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Ghawar Field Ghawar ( Arabic : الغوار) is an oil field located in Al-Ahsa Governorate , Eastern Province , Saudi Arabia . Measuring 280 by 30 km (170 by 19 mi) (some 8,400 square kilometres (3,200 sq mi)), it is by far the largest conventional oil field in the world, and accounts for roughly a third of the cumulative oil production of Saudi Arabia as of 2018. Ghawar

145-491: Is a chart that shows minerals that form the marine evaporite rocks. They are usually the most common minerals that appear in this kind of deposit. Evaporite minerals start to precipitate when their concentration in water reaches such a level that they can no longer exist as solutes . The minerals precipitate out of solution in the reverse order of their solubilities, such that the order of precipitation from sea water is: The abundance of rocks formed by seawater precipitation

174-483: Is capable of delivering 1.5 billion cubic feet a day of sales gas to Saudi Arabia's Master Gas System and a gas oil separation plant (GOSP) capable of stabilising 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Arabian Light crude oil. About 87 wells feed the Haradh plant. The wells are connected to the plant via manifolds at Haradh, Wagr and Tinat. Sweet and sour gas from the wells is transported through the Haradh manifold, located 12km from plant. The integrated farm owned and operated by

203-473: Is entirely owned and operated by Saudi Aramco , the state-run Saudi oil company. In April 2019, the company first published its profit figures since its nationalization nearly 40 years ago in the context of issuing a bond to international markets. The bond prospectus revealed that Ghawar is able to pump a maximum of 3.8 million barrels (600,000 m ) per day—well below the more than 5 million barrels (790,000 m ) per day that had become conventional wisdom in

232-466: Is in the same order as the precipitation given above. Thus, limestone (dolomite are more common than gypsum , which is more common than halite, which is more common than potassium and magnesium salts. Evaporites can also be easily recrystallized in laboratories in order to investigate the conditions and characteristics of their formation. Recent evidence from satellite observations and laboratory experiments suggest evaporites are likely present on

261-475: Is located above the massive Ghawar Field . Saudi Aramco owns and operates all oil infrastructure in the area, which produces approximately 1,000,000 barrels (159 million liters) of petroleum a day. Saudi Aramco also operates the Haradh Gas Plant Department which covers area of 8.3 km. Saudi Aramco is planning to install gas compression facilities at Haradh Saudi Arabia .Haradh Gas Plant

290-536: Is thus the largest single supplier of primary energy on Earth. In April 2010, Saad al-Tureiki, Vice-President for Operations at Aramco, stated, in a news conference reported in Saudi media, that over 65 billion barrels (10.3 km ) have been produced from the field since 1951. Tureiki further stated that the total reserves of the field had originally exceeded 100 billion barrels (16 km ). The International Energy Agency in its 2008 World Energy Outlook stated that

319-412: Is well connected by road from Riyadh (290 km approximately) which may take 3 hours 16 min to reach Via Route 10 and from Al Hasa it is 174 (Km Approximately) and shall take 1 hour 50 mins to reach via route 75. This article related to natural gas, petroleum or the petroleum industry is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about the geography of Saudi Arabia

SECTION 10

#1732848986778

348-694: The Great Salt Lake in Utah and the Dead Sea , which lies between Jordan and Israel. Evaporite depositional environments that meet the above conditions include: The most significant known evaporite depositions happened during the Messinian salinity crisis in the basin of the Mediterranean . Evaporite formations need not be composed entirely of halite salt. In fact, most evaporite formations do not contain more than

377-496: The 'Uthmaniyah production area. Ghawar was discovered in 1948 and put on stream in 1951. Some sources claim that Ghawar peaked in 2005, though this is denied by the field operators. Saudi Aramco reported in mid-2008 that Ghawar had produced 48% of its proven reserves. Approximately 60–65% of all Saudi oil produced between 1948 and 2000, came from Ghawar. Cumulative extraction of petroleum through early 2010, has exceeded 65 billion barrels (1.03 × 10  m ). In 2009, it

406-519: The National Agricultural Development Company (NADEC) in the Haradh area is one of the largest integrated dairy farms in the world. There is a small airport in Haradh for the exclusive use of Saudi Aramco offering flights for its employees to Al-Hasa and Dammam . The airport occupies an area of 1.1 km next to a residential camp and is approximately 6 km away, northeast of existing Haradh Gas Plant (HGP) facilities. Haradh

435-494: The area had undergone geologic uplift , an indication that an oil reservoir may be trapped underneath. Oil was indeed found, in what turned out to be the southern reaches of Ghawar. Historically, Ghawar has been subdivided into five production areas, from north to south: ' Ain Dar and Shedgum , ' Uthmaniyah , Hawiyah and Haradh . The major oasis of Al-Ahsa and the city of Al-Hofuf are located on Ghawar's east flank, corresponding to

464-461: The marine environments. Common minerals that are found in these deposits include blödite , borax , epsomite , gaylussite , glauberite , mirabilite , thenardite and trona . Non-marine deposits may also contain halite, gypsum, and anhydrite, and may in some cases even be dominated by these minerals, although they did not come from ocean deposits. This, however, does not make non-marine deposits any less important; these deposits often help to paint

493-495: The market. Ghawar occupies an anticline above a basement fault block dating to Carboniferous time, about 320   million years ago; Cretaceous tectonic activity, as the northeast margin of Africa began to impinge on southwest Asia, enhanced the structure. Reservoir rocks are Jurassic Arab-D limestones with exceptional porosity (as much as 35 % of the rock in places), which is about 280 feet (85 m) thick and occurs 6,000 to 7,000 feet (1,800 to 2,100 m) beneath

522-561: The oil production from Ghawar reached 66 Bbo in 2007, and that the remaining reserves are 74 Bbo. Matthew Simmons , in his 2005 book Twilight in the Desert , suggested that production from the Ghawar field and Saudi Arabia may soon peak . When appraised in the 1970s, the field was assessed to have 170 billion barrels (27 km ) of original oil in place (OOIP), with about 60 billion barrels (9.5 km ) recoverable (1975 Aramco estimate quoted by Matt Simmons). The second figure, at least,

551-591: The original water depth remains. At this point, minor carbonates begin to form. The next phase in the sequence comes when the experiment is left with about 20% of its original level. At this point, the mineral gypsum begins to form, which is then followed by halite at 10%, excluding carbonate minerals that tend not to be evaporites. The most common marine evaporites are calcite , gypsum and anhydrite , halite, sylvite , carnallite , langbeinite , polyhalite , and kainite . Kieserite (MgSO 4 ) may also be included, which often will make up less than four percent of

580-458: The overall content. However, there are approximately 80 different minerals that have been reported found in evaporite deposits, though only about a dozen are common enough to be considered important rock formers. Non-marine evaporites are usually composed of minerals that are not common in marine environments because in general the water from which non-marine evaporite precipitates has proportions of chemical elements different from those found in

609-414: The remaining water is enriched in salts, and they precipitate when the water becomes supersaturated. Marine evaporites tend to have thicker deposits and are usually the focus of more extensive research. When scientists evaporate ocean water in a laboratory, the minerals are deposited in a defined order that was first demonstrated by Usiglio in 1884. The first phase of precipitation begins when about 50% of

SECTION 20

#1732848986778

638-489: The sediment has time to pool and form in a lake or other standing body of water. Primary examples of this are called "saline lake deposits". Saline lakes includes things such as perennial lakes, which are lakes that are there year-round, playa lakes, which are lakes that appear only during certain seasons, or any other terms that are used to define places that hold standing bodies of water intermittently or year-round. Examples of modern non-marine depositional environments include

667-670: The subsurface. Evaporite minerals, especially nitrate minerals, are economically important in Peru and Chile. Nitrate minerals are often mined for use in the production on fertilizer and explosives . Thick halite deposits are expected to become an important location for the disposal of nuclear waste because of their geologic stability, predictable engineering and physical behaviour, and imperviousness to groundwater. Halite formations are famous for their ability to form diapirs , which produce ideal locations for trapping petroleum deposits. Halite deposits are often mined for use as salt . This

696-399: The surface and in aquifers contain dissolved salts, the water must evaporate into the atmosphere for the minerals to precipitate. For this to happen, the water body must enter a restricted environment where water input into this environment remains below the net rate of evaporation. This is usually an arid environment with a small basin fed by a limited input of water. When evaporation occurs,

725-564: The surface. Source rock is the Jurassic Hanifa formation, a marine shelf deposit of mud and lime with as much as 5 % organic material, it is estimated that 1 % to 7 % is considered good oil source rock. The seal is an evaporitic package of rocks including impermeable anhydrite . In the early 1940s, Max Steineke , Thomas Barger and Ernie Berg noted a bend in the Wadi Al-Sahbah dry riverbed. Measurements confirmed that

754-489: Was 3.8 million barrels (600,000 m ) per day. Ghawar also produces approximately 2 billion cubic feet (57,000,000 m ) of natural gas per day. The operators stimulate production by waterflooding , using seawater at a rate said to be around 7 million barrels (1,100,000 m ) per day . Water flooding is said to have begun in 1965. The water cut was about 32% in 2003, and ranged from about 27% to 38% from 1993 to 2003. By 2006, North Uthmaniyah's water cut

783-444: Was about 46%. Taking the 1.9 × 10 tonnes (1.9 × 10 long tons; 2.1 × 10 short tons) production figure per year and the conventional energy density of crude oil (per the definition of the ton of oil equivalent ) of 41.868 MJ/kg (5275.3 Wh/lb)) the total thermal energy equivalent produced yearly by the oil field is roughly 7.955 EJ or 2.21 PWh of thermal energy equivalent. For comparison, The Ghawar oil field

812-438: Was estimated that Ghawar produced about 5 million barrels (790,000 m ) of oil a day (6.25% of global production), a figure which was later shown to be substantially overestimated. As of 31 December 2018, total reserves of 58.32 billion barrels (9.272 × 10  m ) of oil equivalent including 48.25 billion barrels (7.671 × 10  m ) barrels of liquid reserves have been confirmed by Saudi Aramco . Average daily extraction

841-595: Was understated since that production figure has already been exceeded. Evaporite An evaporite ( / ɪ ˈ v æ p ə ˌ r aɪ t / ) is a water- soluble sedimentary mineral deposit that results from concentration and crystallization by evaporation from an aqueous solution . There are two types of evaporite deposits: marine, which can also be described as ocean deposits, and non-marine, which are found in standing bodies of water such as lakes. Evaporites are considered sedimentary rocks and are formed by chemical sediments . Although all water bodies on

#777222