Haradh forms the southernmost part of the super giant Ghawar oil field located about 80 km (50 miles) onshore from the Arabian Gulf, in the Eastern Province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Fig. 1). A major feature of the Ghawar field is its tilted Original Oil Water Contact (OOWC), getting shallower from North to South Ghawar at an average gradient of 0.36 m (1.2 ft) per km. In Haradh, the OOWC displays also a large but localized west-to-east component. Understanding the OOWC tilt mechanisms is vital since it will improve the effectiveness of the on-going Oil-Water Contact (OWC) delineation program. This will result in better placement of future producers and injectors, which in turn will reduce the cost of future developments. Statement of Theories and Definitions To date, two major concepts have been proposed to explain the tilted OOWC in Ghawar and more particularly in Haradh:One is that the OOWC tilt is caused by regional changes in reservoir fluid densities1.Another hypothesis is a dynamic flowing aquifer hitting the Ghawar field on Haradh west flank and pushing the OOWC to a shallower level along its south to north journey2. In summary, a static concept of the equilibrium is confronted to a dynamic one. The existence of pre-production pressure gradient in the field has to be verified to support a dynamic cause of the OOWC tilt. Integrating field temperature, salinity and pressure data as arguments, these hypotheses are critically discussed. During this process, a causal link to a major tectonic accident is proposed. Introduction Berg completed the surface mapping of the Haradh structure in 19403. Wildcat HRDH-1 struck oil in the Arab-D reservoir (Jurassic) in 1949. The first OOWC delineation wells were drilled during the seventies. Although 'Ain Dar and Shedgum (North Ghawar) areas are on stream since 1951, very limited production occurred in Haradh until 1996 when Haradh Increment-I (North Haradh) was put on stream to reach the required production plateau (Fig.2). Prior to that date, the OOWC was roughly defined by several delineation wells with a spacing of 16 miles. A fresh look at existing field data, recent advances in regional tectonics and simulation results all support a static origin of the OOWC tilt and confirm the conclusions of a previous work1. Description of the Haradh OOWC Haradh delineation wells showed that:The OOWC gets shallower from north to south to reach -6,420 ft at the Haradh tip;The west flank OOWC gets locally 800 ft shallower than that in the east (Fig. 3). Note that western and eastern aquifer legs are separated by almost 15 miles of a large anticline structure with a maximum 3°-dip angle. Drill Stem Test (DST) samples of Well-A (Well location on Fig.2) showed that the formation did not contain recoverable oil to the top, which established the Highest Known Water (HKW) at -5,863 ft in the west and confirmed the Formation Analysis Log (FAL) (Fig.3). FAL of Well-B (Well location on Fig.2) showed that the formation contained high oil saturation throughout the good quality zones, which established the Lowest Known Oil (LKO) at -6,625 ft in the east (Fig.3). Aquifer water on the Haradh west flank is anomalously fresh (30,000 ppm TDS at Well-A) and recent (6,000 to 20,000 year-old), compared to the more saline water sampled on the east flank (120,000 to 150,000 ppm TDS). Recent isotopic analysis in the Dhahran Research and Development Labs4 showed the meteoric origin of the aquifer water sampled on Haradh west flank. Note: The Jurassic Arab-D reservoir was deposited some 150 million years ago.

In this paper, the turbulence boundary layer, velocity and skin friction coefficient characteristics of grooved surfaces are studied. Flow over surfaces with transverse square, triangular and semicircular grooves are numerically modeled via the finite volume method. Comparisons are made on the basis of the grooved surfaces' skinfriction coefficient, normalized by that of a smooth surface, with Reynolds number in the vicinity of 2 × 10 6 . Results show that square grooves are superior to the two other groove geometries in reducing the drag. Viscous damping in all grooves keeps skin friction inside them well below the surface above. However, the interior geometry of square grooves allows them to balance the net inward momentum due to the sudden absence of the wall in a way that minimizes disturbance of the main flow while taking advantage of the restart of the boundary layer. As a consequence to the separation of the boundary layer, an inevitable stagnation point within the groove must exist. Square grooves had the highest such stagnation point along the backward-facing side of the groove. The shortness of the resulting upward boundary layer from the stagnation point to the corner produces smaller near-wall secondary flow motion and more relaxed merger with the main flow. All this contributes to enhanced drag reduction for the described groove structure.

The Peer Review (PR) concept is a widely practiced process used in various organizations all around the world, and though it is not new, it is very necessary. The Saudi Aramco - Southern Area Producing Engineering Department has taken the initiative to adopt and apply this unique concept to its organizations for more than a year. The PR process has demonstrated to improve production and cost savings/avoidance, to ensure safety issues being in compliance and most importantly, to share with and pass on knowledge among the technical workforce. The intent of this paper is to share our experience with respect to the PR process within the Production Engineering organization. This paper presents the PR processes, including its history, rationale, definition, purpose, scope, benefits, guidelines (including member's qualifications and how the PR session is conducted), flow process, structure, PR qualities and characteristics, tracking system, selection of PR projects and a number of actual case examples accomplished by the PR groups. Introduction The first question one should ask when the subject of PR comes up: What is Peer Review? Before answering that question from a professional perspective, let's view the following cartoons as shown in Figures 1, 2 and 3, in which they implicate in three separate situations and then ask ourselves a question: could these possibly represent the PR practice? The 1st picture1, shown in Figure 1, portrays a situation where the work of a scientist (person on the left) is being critically examined by his peer (person on the right). His work was found to be full of errors, unacceptable and was told to go back and re-do it. The 2nd picture1, shown in Figure 2, depicts a situation where engineer works on a project without consulting with others prior to submitting it to his supervisor for approval. The 3rd picture1, shown in Figure 3, illustrates the level of importance the peer review group (PRG) given. These situations could occur in any actual work environment, and our recommendation is to avoid all of these situations because they do NOT represent the true meaning of the PR Process. In this paper, we describe a PR process that has proven to add value, enhance operations, build collaborative teamwork spirit and has been routinely practiced in Production Engineering (PE). History and Present Day As many of us know, the PR Concept is not a new concept and, historically, we find that it has existed long before our time. We found that the 1st document of the PR process is actually dated back to the year 854–931 European Calendar in a book called Ethics of the Physician by Ishap bin Ali Al Rahwi of Al Raha, Syria about the role of the physicians. In short, the council members (or peer reviewers) had to review all of the physician's notes about his patient's visits to arbitrate whether or not he had duly performed according to the medical standards the cure or death of a patient. Legal malpractice lawsuits could be filed against him if the council members found he did not follow the standard medical practices. Today, the PR processes are being widely practiced in various institutions across the globe on issues dealing with policies and standards. Such places are in academia, business organizations, the government, and, last but not least, the Professional Engineers' Societies (for instance, in our SPE society)