Smurf said:
Yeah. From your link:
Wasn't TSM's argument that they didn't clean it first, thus reducing it's value? (see post above for disclaimer)
P.S. Wiki is your friend.
The problem is in the silt from the water.
In normal extraction using water ... well we all know that oil and water don't mix so the oil floats off and extraction is simplified.
When the silts are not removed, they contaminate the crude that eventually clog the refineries by simply caking the inner mechanisms with clay.
Since 'refining' is a distillation process the concentration of silts and in this case, they were clay which is notoriously sticky, they will actually shut down a refinery.
In Northern Canada, in the Athabasca oil sands, they had to develop a technology to remove the oil from the sand. This is fairly simple since the adherant qualities of sand differ vastly from the properties of clay.
No doubt is was a person with as much knowledge of the process as Townsend who made the decision to pump unfiltered water into the wells.
Then there is the problem of 'watering out'. You can only pump so much water into the wells before they become unusable.
10th of March 2000 http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/oip/s-2000-208.htm:
Production
25. In order to maximize revenue, and in expectation of the arrival of spare parts and equipment in 1998 and thereafter, the production of crude oil was incrementally increased by the Government of Iraq to a level of 3 million barrels per day by November 1999, without the technical resources to apply "good oilfield practice". This was achieved by implementing poorly controlled water-injection programmes in the north and south, bringing on-stream some of the pre?1991 stock of pre?drilled wells and initiating production from fields such as Saddam and West Qurna.
26. The Iraqi oil industry is unable to sustain production at these levels because of its inability to replace the lost capacity of depleted strata and "watered-out" wells. The suspension of drilling, well work-over and completion activities and delays in the commissioning of wet-crude treatment plants result directly from a lack of spare parts and equipment.
27. Without prompt action, a continued decline in production is strongly indicated. The Iraqi oil industry continues to adopt high-risk solutions in order to balance the production quantity/oil price equation against the necessity to export crude oil, to produce gas for domestic use and to refine products for transportation and power generation.
It was not known at this time that unfiltered water was being used.
http://www.expressindia.com/fe/daily/19990712/fec12006.html
Monday, July 12, 1999
Iraq needs to import more oil industry gear
REUTERS
United Nations: In an effort to squeeze more oil from its wells, Iraq is using techniques that could damage pipeline systems and eventually reduce production unless it can import far more oil industry equipment, according to a new UN report.
A ``water injection'' programme, which was assisted by treatment chemicals, increased production in Iraq's southern oil fields by 160,0000 barrels per day between August 1998 and May 1999, the Dutch Saybolt firm, which monitors Iraqi oil flows for the United Nations, said in a report on Thursday.This technique ``produces a short-term jump in the rate of production of oil but a long-term deterioration in the total volume recovered,'' the report said.
A total of 54 wells have ``watered-out'' in the south since mid-1998 and were unlikely to be revived, it added.
So in one year, Saddam made 54 wells completely unusable by this method.
When the US entered and looked at the quality of the crude from the remaining wells, it was found to be so contaminated with clays and silt as to reduce the value of the product to 20% since the additional effort to purify it and refine the product results in greater expenditures AND the level of contaminants being so great as to result in less 'oil product' per barrel as opposed to 'impurities' per barrel.
Do you get it yet Townsend?
If you fill a barrel 1/3 full of clay, do you think you get the same money for it if you fill it with only oil?
Now add to the fact that the oil and clay have the same SG and are mixed and you simply don't pour off what floats on top, you have to physically separate the two. Do you think that this is done with standard equipment?
Now that I have held your hand through this process, have you figured it out yet?
The cost of refining the crude from the wells that are still functional are enormous due to the contamination reducing its value to 20% of a normal barrel.
sorry about that