|
30 June, 2008
Sadad al-Husseini and Nansen Saleri climbed positions in Saudi Aramco, the most powerful oil company in the world, collaborating during years to extract more crude from the immense locations of Saudia Arabia. Today, however, they are in opposite sides of a momentous debate for the oil industry.  Husseini, lieutenant of Aramco up to 2004, says that the world faces a difficult reality of diminishing resources and petroleum prices in perennial rise. Saleri, until recently manager of crude reservations of Aramco, insists that with enough devise and investment abundant quantities of petroleum can be found. The debate is far enough from being academic. The prices of the crude have been duplicated in the last 12 months and political leaders, airlines, automotives and investors try to sight toward where the prices head. The difference of opinions between two of the best men informed of the industry leaves to the nude the lack of clarity around a basic query, if petroleum can be extracted quicker than it is today. For the time being, the pessimistic vision of Husseini is in vogue. Even before the escalade of the petroleum price, there existed somber predictions that the global crude production would soon arrive to its end. The price of the crude beat a new mark on Friday when closing at US $140,21 the barrel in New York, triplicating its level of 2004. Saleri, in any event, is not the only one that believes that there is no reason for the pessimism. The optimists, that include both the North American State Department and ExxonMobil Corp., argue that the market forces will force the companies to invest and to innovate. As the supply recovers, the prices will fall. The own Saudia Arabia, producer of 12% of the world crude, has hesitated during years on if it should extract quicker petroleum. Recently, at instances of the King Abdullah, seemed to agree with Saleri. The Kingdom is willing to invest dozens of thousands of millions of dollars to increase its production at levels without precedents, 15 million daily barrels compared with the current 11 millions. From friends to rivals The opinions in the Persian Gulf about the health of the oil wealth of the region vary a lot. Husseini and Saleri differ on if the new saudi production goal is desirable or even feasible. The fact that both have worked elbow to elbow in the company that controls a fourth part of the proven petroleum reservations of the world makes their divergences even more attractive. Husseini, that now exercises as independent consultant, has traveled around the world spreading their points of view. Recently he had dinner with George Soros and a group of important investors. Saleri has given conferences, written editorials and has met with the main authorities from Latin America to Kuwait. Husseini, 61 years old, lives in the house in front of the powerful hydrocarbons saudi minister Alà Naimi, in the tree-lined neighborhood of Dharan, the city where the Saudi Aramco officials live, in the east coast of Saudia Arabia. The geologist assures that the big deposits of petroleum have already been identified and that the technological advances won’t be able to give youth again to the locations from Indonesia to the Gulf of Mexico. “The reality is that we have to make more and more effort to obtain the crude that we need”, he says. Those that assure to have some “magic potion….that doesn’t exist”, he asserts. Saleri, a year smaller, believes that his former boss’s pessimism is exaggerated.¼br /> From the consultant that he founded last year in Houston after resigning his position in Aramco, he has become an energetic opponent of the opinion that assures that the crude prices will continue ascending at the same time of a descent in the production. “We have hardly consumed a trillion (million of millions) of the 14 or 15 trillions of crude that exist”, Saleri says, mentioning at personal estimates that include many classes of crude and that they exceed amply those of most. “I don’t notice any problem for the next 40, 50 or 60 years.” After completing his studies in the University of Brown, in United States, Husseini began to work in Aramco, when the company was in American hands. In 1980, when Saudia Arabia assumed the control, the geologist was climbing positions in the company. “Sadad is one of the best engineers in the world with those that I have worked”, says Edward Price, president of Aramco in that time. Saleri studied in USA and united Standard Oil of California, the Chevron Corp. predecessor, in 1974. In 1978 his company sent him to Aramco as consultant, where he spent seven years and met Husseini. The world was prepared to suffer the rise in the petroleum prices that began with the Iranian revolution. For three years, starting from 1979, Aramco increased its production to almost 10 million daily barrels, breaking a record that continues effective today. The result of that effort is fundamental to understand the pessimism of Husseini. The effort to extract so much petroleum almost paralyzed the best saudi locations. The pressure in many of them collapsed and the water began to filter in the petroleum areas. “They threw the house through the window to satisfy the world demand”, he points out. “And we had to spend the following seven or eight years fixing the disaster.” After Aramco began to reduce the production in 1981, Husseini took charge of repairing the gigantic deposits. In 1992 persuaded Saleri to integrated Aramco with the mission of creating simulation models for the locations of the oil company. Both worked hand by hand in some of the most ambitious projects in Aramco, among them the exploitation of a big location called Shaybah. It was in Shaybah, in fact, that Saleri became a great optimist. Saleri found a way to substantially increase the production of the field digging much deeper wells than the common. “It was a great engineering innovation”, Rick Chimblo said, the main geophysical then in Aramco. “Shaybah made me famous”, Saleri says. “And made me realize that the old rules no longer work.” Husseini applauded its partner’s achievement, but soon both began to differ on key projections. Around 2001, the rise in the oil demand renewed an internal debate in Aramco on how to increase the production above the 10 million daily barrels. Husseini, remembering the risk of collapse of the locations in the 70´s, proposed “a gradual and realist approach”. Saleri, remembering the experience of Shaybah said that the Kingdom could sustainably produce 15 million daily barrels. “My opinion is that a location is exploded during the longest period at the smallest capital cost”, Husseini says. “Nansen comes from the international companies school, that is in favor of obtaining the maximum quantity of petroleum in the smallest time possible.” By Neil King Jr. Source: The Wall Street Journal/La Nación Deje un comentario |
Last articles
|
