Ghawar Oilfield
Location: Saudi Arabia
Capacity: 5.8 million bbl/d of Arab Light crude
Began Production: 1948
Reserves: 75 billion barrels, 5 more than all but seven other countries.
The Ghawar Oilfield is the world’s largest conventional oilfield.
Photo Source: Bryan Tumlinson
Location: South Texas
Capacity: 1.2mmbpd
Began Production: 2008
Reserves: 3.4 billion barrels
According to the Texas Railroad Commission, the first Eagle Ford well was drilled by Petrohawk and “trends across Texas from the Mexican border up into East Texas, roughly 50 miles wide and 400 miles long with an average thickness of 250 feet.”
Forties Field
Location: The North Sea
Capacity: 41,000 bbl/d in 2013
Began Production: 1975
The Forties Field holds the title of the oldest oil field in the UK North Sea, according to offshore-technology.com. On November 3, 1975 in Aberdeen, Scotland, Queen Elizabeth II pushed a gold-plated button and so formerly commenced Forties Field production. Forty years later, Queen Elizabeth still reigns as Britain’s longest-serving monarch and Forties Field production pushes on solidifying it as the UK North Seas’s longest-producing field.
The Permian Basin
Location: West Texas
Capacity: 2mmbpd
Began Production: 1920s
Reserves: 29 billion barrels
The Permian Basin spans 250 miles wide and 300 miles long, in what used to be the Permian Sea about 250-300 million years ago. It spans multiple formations, including the Delaware which has captured the attention of multiple Independents in recent years.
Buzzard
Location: The North Sea
Capacity: 179,000 bbl/d in 2013
Began Production: 2007
It may not be the longest-producing, but according to eia.gov, Buzzard oilfield is the UK’s largest producing oilfield as of 2013. Standing about 100m deep in the North Sea, the Buzzard field first produced 85,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day in the first quarter of 2007 and the start of its production.
Rumaila Oilfield
Location: Iraq
Capacity: 1.4 million bbl/d
Began Production: 1953
Reserves: Estimated at 17 billion barrels
The Rumaila Oilfield is the largest in Iraq.
Burgan Oilfield
Location: Kuwait
Capacity: 1.7 million bbl/d
Began Production: Discovered in 1938, production started a year later in 1948
Reserves: Estimated at 66 and 75 billion barrels
Kuwait is home to the world’s second largest oilfield. The Burgan oilfield saw devastation in 1991 when Iraqi soldiers set the field ablaze while retreating during the Iraq war. According to Petrowiki.org, “Smoke plumes from the Greater Burgan oil field extended 50 kilometers in width on any given day, and 2.5 km thick. A total of 297 well fires were extinguished.”
Today, a man-made oasis and war memorial can be found in the heart of the Burgan oilfield. According toIragenergy.org, this memorial is “a symbol of hope for the people still mopping up the world’s worst oil spill.”
Deepwater Gulf Of Mexico
Location: Gulf Of Mexico
Capacity: 1.6 million bbl/d
Began Production: 1938
Deepwater Gulf Of Mexico as we know it today, got its start back in 1938 when Pure Oil and Superior Oil Company hired Brown & Root to build a drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. According to aoghs.org, the platform had a 320-foot by 180-foot wooden deck standing in about 14-feet of water. The drilling site was about a mile offshore near Creole, Louisiana.
Despite early hardships and uncertainties as to how economically feasible the play would be, today the Deepwater Gulf Of Mexico contains multiple prospering fields.
West Qurna-2
Location: Iraq
Capacity: 220,000 bbl/d
Began Production: 1973
Reserves: Estimated at 43 billion barrels
Like the Rumaila Oilfield, the West Qurna-2 Oilfield is also located in southern Iraq and is the country’s second largest oilfield.
Cantarell
Location: Campeche, Mexico
Capacity: 206,000 bbl/d in 2015
Began Production: 1981
Despite being one of the largest oilfield discoveries ever, the Cantarell field just can’t. According toshanghaidaily.com, the aging supergiant saw a 30 year low in production as of October 2015 producing just 206,000 bbl/d compared to the height of its production in 2003 at 2.2 million bbl/d.
Niobrara
Location: Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska
Capacity: 404,000 bbl/d
Began Production: 1919
According to aoghs.org, despite oil being the objective as natural gas pipeline infrastructure was non-existent at the time, Midfields Oil’s second drilling attempt resulted in “the discovery well for the Beecher Island natural gas field in the Niobrara shale formation, which remains active today.”
Haynesville Shale
Location: East Texas, Northwest Louisiana
Capacity: 50,000 bbl/d
Began Production: 1921
According to ogj.com, “The Haynesville shale play covers 9,000 sq miles across East Texas and Northwest Louisiana…Wells targeting the Haynesville shale are typically drilled to vertical depths of 11,000-12,500 ft and have horizontal laterals of 4,000-5,500 ft. The Haynesville is unique because of its abnormally high pressures of 0.72-0.90 psi/ft and temperatures greater than 300° F.”
Vaca Muerta Shale
Location: Argentina
Began Production: 2011
Reserves: 16-22 billion barrels of oil
According to ypf.com, “Vaca Muerta is the main shale formation in Argentina…The Vaca Muerta formation is in the Neuquén Basin, southwest of the country, and covers an area of 30,000 km2 (11583.065 mi2).”
The Marcellus Shale
Location: Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, West Virginia
Capacity: 16bcfpd
The Bakken Shale
Location: North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan
Capacity: 1.1mmbpd
Began Production: 1951
Reserves: 3.6 billion barrels
According to aoghs.org, “On June 17, 2014, North Dakota oil production surpassed one million barrels per day thanks to development of the Bakken shale formation in the western part of the state.”
