in-place. Estimates of the Earth's total endowment of conventional oil resources vary between six and eight trillion barrels, though historically the industry has been fairly conservative in estimating both this total endowment and ultimate proven reserves. For example, global remaining proven reserves in 1960 were estimated at roughly 670 billion barrels. Today, even after nearly a half-century of steadily increasing production, those total proven reserves have almost doubled to roughly 1.3 trillion barrels. The reserve revisions in most fields have also been upwards—and often significantly so—since they were first discovered. Technology has played a critical role in this trend, and a wide range of advances in seismic technology have dramatically improved the success rate in exploratory drilling and allowed us to more effectively develop and drain oil fields. Other enhanced exploration techniques and technologies have also played a role in putting the industry ahead of the curve in the crucial search for new oil and gas reserves. In light of this historical trend, and the promise of new technological developments both incremental and revolutionary in nature, at last summer's OPEC Seminar I challenged explorationists around the world to find no less than eight trillion barrels of oil-in-place—the higher end of the current range of estimates. That should allow us to add roughly a trillion barrels of total proven oil reserves in the form of new discoveries: a massive target to which technological enhancements could be applied in order to achieve even higher recoveries. I would like to renew that challenge tonight through the SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers), and to urge exploration specialists and technology developers to draw upon their skills, knowledge and experience to meet that challenge. The second technology target brings our petroleum engineering specialists into the picture, together with their geologist and geophysicist colleagues, in order to enhance oil recovery through advances in drilling, completion, production, reservoir engineering, numerical simulation, better and more highly integrated reservoir description, and enhanced oil recovery techniques. Different fields present widely varying development, production and recovery challenges, of course, but through the application of new technologies and better reservoir management techniques, recovery rates in general have been rising steadily, going from a global average of just over 20 percent in 1980 to about 35 percent now. I see no reason why we can't increase the global average recovery rate to 50 percent in the next several decades and this will allow allow the oil industry to add another trillion barrels to the world's reserves base. I must add however that as Saudi Aramco, our target for recovery will be aimed at much higher recovery rates, in the range of 70 percent, and that is the grand challenge you will be engaged in for decades to come. There is no more efficient way to grow future reserves than to go after the resources we already know exist, and by identifying, developing and implementing technologies which will minimize the amount of these already discovered resources left behind. Our third technology target comprises hard to explore areas, the reduction of exploration and production costs, and making previously uneconomic petroleum prospects economically feasible. Today, the industry's search for new reserves is shifting to much more challenging oil provinces, and in particular, to deep sea areas, Arctic regions, heavy oil, and difficult-to-produce reservoirs." --MORE
